Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Secret History
The best books like The Secret History are Homage to Catalonia, The Trial, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The Secret History by Donna Tartt is about beauty and violence, elite education and class, guilt 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 Trial
02
Franz Kafka · Literary fiction
On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
03
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 → - Educated: A Memoir
04
Tara Westover · Memoir
Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Poisonwood Bible
05
Barbara Kingsolver · Literary fiction
In 1959, Baptist missionary Nathan Price moves his wife and four daughters from Georgia to a remote village in the Belgian Congo.
Both dig into guilt and complicity.
Read the summary → - Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
06
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Christopher R. Browning · History
Ordinary Men is Christopher Browning's study of Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of middle-aged German men — not hardened SS officers but Hamburg policemen with civilian lives and families — who between 1942 and 1943 shot approximately 38,000 Jewish men, women, and children in occupied Poland and deported another 45,000 to the Treblinka death camp.
Both dig into group psychology.
Read the summary → - The Bat
07
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.
Read the summary → - The Dry
08
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.
Read the summary → - The Long Call
09
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.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
10
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
11
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
12
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 →
Books like The Secret History: quick answers
What are the best books like The Secret History?
The best books like The Secret History by Donna Tartt are Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Trial by Franz Kafka, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Secret History, such as beauty and violence, elite education and class, guilt and complicity.
What should I read after The Secret History?
A natural next read after The Secret History is Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Trial by Franz Kafka, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover.
What books are similar to The Secret History by Donna Tartt?
The Secret History centers on beauty and violence, elite education and class, guilt and complicity. Books with a similar feel include Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, The Trial by Franz Kafka, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
