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.
- Educated: A Memoir
01
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.
Read the summary → - Beloved
02
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.
Read the summary → - Normal People
03
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.
Read the summary → - 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.
Read the summary → - Cutting for Stone
05
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.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
06
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.
Read the summary → - A Fine Balance
07
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.
Read the summary → - A Little Life
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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.
Read the summary → - 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.
Read the summary → - A Thousand Acres
10
Jane Smiley · Literary fiction
A Thousand Acres retells King Lear on a thousand-acre Iowa farm in the 1970s.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Visit from the Goon Squad
11
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.
Read the summary → - 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.
Read the summary →
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.