Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Handmaid's Tale
The best books like The Handmaid's Tale are Homage to Catalonia, The Bell Jar, and Between the World and Me. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is about patriarchy and control, bodily autonomy, resistance and complicity. 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.
- Homage to Catalonia
01
George Orwell · Memoir
Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's firsthand account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War, which he joined in late 1936 as a volunteer with the POUM militia — a Trotskyist revolutionary organization that was later suppressed by the Soviet-backed Stalinist wing of the Republican forces.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Bell Jar
02
Sylvia Plath · Memoir
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel, published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, one month before Plath's death.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Between the World and Me
03
Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir
Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Fire Next Time
04
James Baldwin · History
The Fire Next Time, published in 1963 at the height of the civil rights movement, contains two long essays by James Baldwin.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Plague
05
Albert Camus · Literary fiction
The town of Oran, on the Algerian coast, is sealed off after an outbreak of bubonic plague.
Both dig into resistance and complicity.
Read the summary → - 1984
06
George Orwell · Philosophy
Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's 1949 novel about a future England called Airstrip One, governed by the totalitarian Party under the figurehead Big Brother.
Both dig into language and power.
Read the summary → - Babel
07
R.F. Kuang · Historical fiction
Set in an alternate 1830s Oxford, Babel imagines a Royal Institute of Translation at the heart of the British Empire — a place where silver bars engraved with translation "match-words" generate the industrial magic that powers British supremacy.
Both dig into language and power.
Read the summary → - Iron Flame
08
Rebecca Yarros · Fantasy
Iron Flame picks up in the immediate aftermath of Fourth Wing's reveal, with Violet Sorrengail now knowing what the war is actually about and what her mother has been hiding.
Both dig into resistance and complicity.
Read the summary → - On Immunity: An Inoculation
09
Eula Biss · Science
Eula Biss wrote On Immunity: An Inoculation in 2014 as an essay collection loosely structured around her experience as a new mother confronting the vaccination question.
Both dig into bodily autonomy.
Read the summary → - The Paris Library
10
Janet Skeslien Charles · Historical fiction
The Paris Library moves between two timelines: Paris in 1939–1944, where young Odile Souchet becomes a librarian at the American Library of Paris just as war is approaching; and rural Montana in the 1980s, where a teenage girl named Lily befriends her French neighbor, the now-elderly Odile, and slowly uncovers the history Odile has never spoken about.
Both dig into resistance and complicity.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
11
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
12
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 →
Books like The Handmaid's Tale: quick answers
What are the best books like The Handmaid's Tale?
The best books like The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood are Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, The Plague by Albert Camus, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Handmaid's Tale, such as patriarchy and control, bodily autonomy, resistance and complicity.
What should I read after The Handmaid's Tale?
A natural next read after The Handmaid's Tale is Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.
What books are similar to The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood?
The Handmaid's Tale centers on patriarchy and control, bodily autonomy, resistance and complicity. Books with a similar feel include Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, The Plague by Albert Camus, 1984 by George Orwell — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
