Books like The Luminaries

01

The Castle

Franz Kafka · Literary fiction

K.

A kindred literary fiction read.

02

War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy · Literary fiction

War and Peace follows five aristocratic Russian families across fifteen years of Napoleonic war and peace, from the drawing rooms of St.

A kindred literary fiction read.

03

In Cold Blood

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.

04

Homage to Catalonia

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.

05

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque · History

All Quiet on the Western Front follows Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier who enlists with his classmates during the First World War after being swept up in patriotic speeches.

A kindred literary fiction read.

06

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood · Historical fiction

Alias Grace is based on the historical case of Grace Marks, a young Irish immigrant servant who was convicted in 1843, along with stable hand James McDermott, of the murders of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper Canada.

Both dig into gender and power.

07

The Alienist

Caleb Carr · Historical fiction

The Alienist is set in 1896 New York City, where Dr.

Both dig into gender and power.

08

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.

09

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.

10

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.

11

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.

12

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.