Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The House of the Seven Gables
The best books like The House of the Seven Gables are The Scarlet Letter, The Bell Jar, and Steppenwolf. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about generational guilt, inherited sin, decline and renewal. 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 Scarlet Letter
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Nathaniel Hawthorne · Literary fiction
The Scarlet Letter is set in Puritan Boston in the 1640s and opens with Hester Prynne, a young woman who has given birth to a child while her husband is absent, being released from prison into the public square.
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 → - Steppenwolf
03
Hermann Hesse · Philosophy
Steppenwolf is Hermann Hesse's most psychologically intense and formally inventive novel, published in 1927 at a time of personal crisis.
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 → - A Farewell to Arms
05
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
06
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
07
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
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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
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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 → - American Pastoral
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Philip Roth · Literary fiction
American Pastoral opens with a narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, learning at a high school reunion about the life and death of Seymour "the Swede" Levov — a man who embodied postwar American success so completely he seemed almost allegorical.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary →
Books like The House of the Seven Gables: quick answers
What are the best books like The House of the Seven Gables?
The best books like The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne are The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The House of the Seven Gables, such as generational guilt, inherited sin, decline and renewal.
What should I read after The House of the Seven Gables?
A natural next read after The House of the Seven Gables is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.
What books are similar to The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
The House of the Seven Gables centers on generational guilt, inherited sin, decline and renewal. Books with a similar feel include The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
