Books like The Poisonwood Bible

01

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.

02

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · History

Sapiens traces the full arc of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa roughly 70,000 years ago to the present.

A kindred literary fiction read.

03

The Warmth of Other Suns

Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir

Isabel Wilkerson's account of the Great Migration — the movement of six million Black Americans from the South to the North and West between 1915 and 1970 — is one of the most important works of narrative nonfiction published in the twenty-first century.

A kindred literary fiction read.

04

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

Azar Nafisi · Memoir

Azar Nafisi spent years teaching literature at universities in Tehran before the restrictions on what she could teach — and who she could teach — became intolerable.

A kindred literary fiction read.

05

The Secret History

Donna Tartt · Literary fiction

The Secret History opens with its ending: the narrator, Richard Papen, tells us on the first page that his friend Bunny is dead, and that he and four other students killed him.

Both dig into guilt and complicity.

06

The Bat

Jo Nesbø · Thriller

The Bat is the first Harry Hole novel, published in Norwegian in 1997 and set almost entirely in Sydney, Australia.

Both dig into guilt and complicity.

07

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown · Thriller

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is called to the Louvre in the middle of the night after a curator is found dead, his body arranged in a cryptic pose beside a trail of symbols.

Both dig into religion and power.

08

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon · History

Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is one of the monuments of historical writing in English.

Both dig into religion and power.

09

The Dry

Jane Harper · Mystery

Federal agent Aaron Falk returns to the drought-ravaged farming town of Kiewarra, Victoria, for the first time in twenty years, drawn back by the apparent murder-suicide of his childhood friend Luke Hadler.

Both dig into guilt and complicity.

10

The Long Call

Ann Cleeves · Mystery

The Long Call opens a new series from Ann Cleeves, best known for the Vera and Shetland books, set on the remote north Devon coast.

Both dig into guilt and complicity.

11

The Priory of the Orange Tree

Samantha Shannon · Fantasy

The Priory of the Orange Tree is an epic standalone fantasy novel set across multiple continents with distinct cultures, political systems, and relationships to dragons.

Both dig into religion and power.

12

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.