I finished the last volume on a night shift and honestly could not sleep afterwards. The scale of it rearranged how I think about deep time — I kept catching myself doing the arithmetic on light-years while brushing my teeth.

What I want next is that same feeling of a book quietly resizing you. Doesn't have to be hard SF; I care more about the ideas landing than the physics being airtight.

Anything from outside the usual Anglophone shelf would be ideal. Portuguese, Korean, Polish, anything — I read whatever gets a decent translation.

For most of my twenties I read almost nothing but procedurals and 19th-century historicals. Then a coworker left a battered copy of The Long Quiet by Ines Kaufmann on the break-room table and I read the whole thing in two sittings.

Now I want more of that — books that keep the tight plotting I already like but let the world get a little unreasonable. Not looking for anything twee or overly whimsical, just genuinely strange.

Recommendations very welcome, and bonus points if your library actually stocks it.