Literary fiction · Similar reads

Books like The Covenant of Water

The best books like The Covenant of Water are Educated: A Memoir, Beloved, and Normal People. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is about family and generations, medicine and healing, india and colonial legacy. 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.

  1. Educated: A Memoir
    Educated: A Memoir

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    Educated: A Memoir

    Tara Westover · Memoir

    Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  2. Beloved
    Beloved

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    Beloved

    Toni Morrison · Literary fiction

    Beloved is set in post-Civil War Ohio, where Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, lives with her daughter Denver in a house shadowed by the ghost of a baby she killed rather than let be taken back into slavery.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  3. Normal People
    Normal People

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    Normal People

    Sally Rooney · Literary fiction

    Normal People follows Connell and Marianne from their small-town Irish secondary school through their years at Trinity College Dublin.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

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    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

    Dave Eggers · Memoir

    Dave Eggers's debut memoir about losing both parents to cancer within five weeks and raising his younger brother Toph while trying to start a literary magazine in San Francisco in the mid-1990s arrived in 2000 with unusual self-consciousness about its own nature.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  5. Cutting for Stone
    Cutting for Stone

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    Cutting for Stone

    Abraham Verghese · Literary fiction

    Cutting for Stone is Abraham Verghese's debut novel, a multigenerational saga set largely in Addis Ababa from the 1950s through the 1990s.

    Both dig into medicine and healing.

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  6. A Farewell to Arms
    A Farewell to Arms

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    A Farewell to Arms

    Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction

    A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  7. A Fine Balance
    A Fine Balance

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    A Fine Balance

    Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction

    A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  8. A Little Life
    A Little Life

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    A Little Life

    Hanya Yanagihara · Literary fiction

    A Little Life follows four men from college into middle age and beyond — Willem, an actor; JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, a lawyer with a past that is revealed in increasingly devastating detail as the novel progresses.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  9. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    James Joyce · Literary fiction

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces the intellectual and spiritual development of Stephen Dedalus from early childhood to the edge of adulthood, when he leaves Ireland to pursue life as an artist.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  10. A Thousand Acres
    A Thousand Acres

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    A Thousand Acres

    Jane Smiley · Literary fiction

    A Thousand Acres retells King Lear on a thousand-acre Iowa farm in the 1970s.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  11. A Visit from the Goon Squad
    A Visit from the Goon Squad

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    A Visit from the Goon Squad

    Jennifer Egan · Literary fiction

    A Visit from the Goon Squad is a novel told in thirteen chapters, each from a different point of view and sometimes in a radically different form — including one chapter composed entirely as a PowerPoint presentation.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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  12. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

    Mark Twain · Literary fiction

    Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins where Tom Sawyer left off — Huck Finn, the outcast son of the town drunk, has been taken in and given a respectable life he doesn't want.

    A kindred literary fiction read.

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Books like The Covenant of Water: quick answers

What are the best books like The Covenant of Water?

The best books like The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese are Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Normal People by Sally Rooney, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Covenant of Water, such as family and generations, medicine and healing, india and colonial legacy.

What should I read after The Covenant of Water?

A natural next read after The Covenant of Water is Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are Beloved by Toni Morrison, Normal People by Sally Rooney, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

What books are similar to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese?

The Covenant of Water centers on family and generations, medicine and healing, india and colonial legacy. Books with a similar feel include Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Normal People by Sally Rooney, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.

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