Historical fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Paris Library
The best books like The Paris Library are A Tale of Two Cities, Beloved, and American Pastoral. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles is about resistance and complicity, friendship across difference, occupation and survival. 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.
- A Tale of Two Cities
01
Charles Dickens · Historical fiction
A Tale of Two Cities is set against the French Revolution and follows three intertwined characters: Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who has renounced his title and family legacy; Lucie Manette, the daughter of a man who spent eighteen years imprisoned in the Bastille; and Sydney Carton, a dissolute English lawyer who loves Lucie without hope and knows he will never be the man Darnay already is.
A kindred historical 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 historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - American Pastoral
03
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 historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - Anna Karenina
04
Leo Tolstoy · Literary fiction
Anna Karenina opens with a famous line — all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way — and then proceeds to test that claim across two interlocking stories.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Fine Balance
05
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.
Both dig into friendship across difference.
Read the summary → - Good Omens
06
Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman · Fantasy
Good Omens is a comic fantasy novel about the impending apocalypse and the attempts of an angel and a demon — Aziraphale and Crowley, who have been stationed on Earth since the Beginning — to prevent it.
Both dig into friendship across difference.
Read the summary → - Iron Flame
07
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 → - Project Hail Mary
08
Andy Weir · Science fiction
Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spacecraft with no memory of who he is, where he is, or why he's there.
Both dig into friendship across difference.
Read the summary → - The Family Upstairs
09
Lisa Jewell · Thriller
Libby Jones turns twenty-five and inherits a large Chelsea townhouse — left to her by parents she never knew, because she was raised in the foster system after being found as a baby amid three adult corpses.
Both dig into secrets and silence.
Read the summary → - The Handmaid's Tale
10
Margaret Atwood · Literary fiction
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near-future theocratic Republic of Gilead, carved out of what was once the northeastern United States after a coup by a fundamentalist Christian movement.
Both dig into resistance and complicity.
Read the summary → - The Left Hand of Darkness
11
Ursula K. Le Guin · Science fiction
The Left Hand of Darkness follows Genly Ai, an envoy from a loose interstellar federation called the Ekumen, who has been sent alone to the planet Gethen — also called Winter — to persuade its nations to join.
Both dig into friendship across difference.
Read the summary → - The Plague
12
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 →
Books like The Paris Library: quick answers
What are the best books like The Paris Library?
The best books like The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles are A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Beloved by Toni Morrison, American Pastoral by Philip Roth, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Paris Library, such as resistance and complicity, friendship across difference, occupation and survival.
What should I read after The Paris Library?
A natural next read after The Paris Library is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. A kindred historical fiction read. Other strong choices are Beloved by Toni Morrison, American Pastoral by Philip Roth, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
What books are similar to The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles?
The Paris Library centers on resistance and complicity, friendship across difference, occupation and survival. Books with a similar feel include A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Beloved by Toni Morrison, American Pastoral by Philip Roth, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
