Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like Blood Meridian
The best books like Blood Meridian are The Things They Carried, The Executioner's Song, and In Cold Blood. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is about violence and human nature, manifest destiny, fate and free will. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The Things They Carried
01
Tim O'Brien · Memoir
Tim O'Brien served as a foot soldier in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Executioner's Song
02
Norman Mailer · Memoir
The Executioner's Song is Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer who in 1977 became the first person executed in the United States after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - In Cold Blood
03
Truman Capote · Memoir
Truman Capote's account of the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas — and of the investigation, capture, trial, and execution of the killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock — is the founding document of the true crime genre and one of the most admired works of American nonfiction of the twentieth century.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Dispatches
04
Michael Herr · Memoir
Michael Herr went to Vietnam as a correspondent for Esquire in 1967 and spent eighteen months embedded with Marine and Army units before the experience broke him psychologically.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Fathers and Sons
05
Ivan Turgenev · Literary fiction
Fathers and Sons opens with a young medical student, Bazarov, arriving at a country estate alongside his friend Arkady.
Both dig into nihilism.
Read the summary → - Kafka on the Shore
06
Haruki Murakami · Literary fiction
Kafka on the Shore runs two parallel narratives that eventually, obliquely, converge.
Both dig into fate and free will.
Read the summary → - Moby-Dick
07
Herman Melville · Literary fiction
Moby-Dick opens with one of the most famous sentences in American literature — "Call me Ishmael" — and immediately establishes a voice that is learned, digressive, sardonic, and strange.
Both dig into fate and free will.
Read the summary → - Beyond Good and Evil
08
Friedrich Nietzsche · Philosophy
Beyond Good and Evil is Nietzsche's assault on the philosophical tradition he had been trained in and had grown to distrust.
Both dig into nihilism.
Read the summary → - The Grace of Kings
09
Ken Liu · Fantasy
The Grace of Kings is the first volume of Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty, an epic fantasy set in an archipelago empire that maps broadly onto the fall of the Qin dynasty and the rise of the Han.
Both dig into fate and free will.
Read the summary → - The Night Circus
10
Erin Morgenstern · Fantasy
Le Cirque des Rêves appears overnight, with no announcement — black and white striped tents that smell of caramel and bonfire smoke, open only after dark, filled with impossible things.
Both dig into fate and free will.
Read the summary → - The Silmarillion
11
J.R.R. Tolkien · Fantasy
The Silmarillion is Tolkien's attempt to do for English literature what the Norse Eddas and Finnish Kalevala did for their cultures: create a complete mythology from scratch.
Both dig into fate and free will.
Read the summary → - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
12
Friedrich Nietzsche · Philosophy
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is Nietzsche's most ambitious and peculiar work — part philosophical treatise, part prose poem, styled deliberately after the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.
Both dig into nihilism.
Read the summary →
Books like Blood Meridian: quick answers
What are the best books like Blood Meridian?
The best books like Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy are The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Dispatches by Michael Herr, Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Blood Meridian, such as violence and human nature, manifest destiny, fate and free will.
What should I read after Blood Meridian?
A natural next read after Blood Meridian is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Dispatches by Michael Herr.
What books are similar to Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy?
Blood Meridian centers on violence and human nature, manifest destiny, fate and free will. Books with a similar feel include The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Dispatches by Michael Herr, Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
