Historical fiction · Similar reads
Books like Wolf Hall
The best books like Wolf Hall are Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and A People's History of the United States. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is about power and ambition, loyalty and survival, class and self-making. 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.
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
01
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 historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - Guns, Germs, and Steel
02
Jared Diamond · Science
Guns, Germs, and Steel is Jared Diamond's attempt to answer a question posed to him by a Papua New Guinean politician named Yali: why did Europeans end up with so much cargo — wealth, technology, power — while other peoples had comparatively little?
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - A People's History of the United States
03
A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn · History
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, retells American history from the perspective of those who rarely appear in conventional textbooks: Native Americans, enslaved people, industrial workers, women, immigrants, and dissidents of various kinds.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary →
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X
04
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X and Alex Haley · Memoir
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was assembled from a series of conversations between Malcolm X and the journalist Alex Haley, conducted over two years before Malcolm's assassination in February 1965.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Gentleman in Moscow
05
Amor Towles · Historical fiction
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced by a Bolshevik tribunal — not to death, but to permanent house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Tale of Two Cities
06
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 → - A Thousand Splendid Suns
07
Khaled Hosseini · Historical fiction
A Thousand Splendid Suns follows two Afghan women across nearly forty years of their country's turbulence: Mariam, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy merchant who is married off at fifteen to a much older man in Kabul, and Laila, a young woman from a different generation whose family is destroyed in a rocket strike during the civil war and who is subsequently forced into the same household.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - Alias Grace
08
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.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - All the Light We Cannot See
09
Anthony Doerr · Historical fiction
All the Light We Cannot See follows two children through the Second World War on a collision course neither can see coming.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - Babel
10
R.F. Kuang · Historical fiction
Set in an alternate 1830s Oxford, Babel imagines a Royal Institute of Translation at the heart of the British Empire — a place where silver bars engraved with translation "match-words" generate the industrial magic that powers British supremacy.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - Bring Up the Bodies
11
Hilary Mantel · Historical fiction
Bring Up the Bodies is the second novel in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy, picking up where Wolf Hall ended: Anne Boleyn is Queen, Henry VIII is restless, and Thomas Cromwell is the indispensable minister who keeps the machinery of the court running.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary → - Half of a Yellow Sun
12
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · Historical fiction
Half of a Yellow Sun is set before and during the Nigeria-Biafra war of 1967 to 1970, a conflict in which more than a million people died, most of them Igbo civilians from the secessionist Republic of Biafra.
A kindred historical fiction read.
Read the summary →
Books like Wolf Hall: quick answers
What are the best books like Wolf Hall?
The best books like Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel are Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Wolf Hall, such as power and ambition, loyalty and survival, class and self-making.
What should I read after Wolf Hall?
A natural next read after Wolf Hall is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. A kindred historical fiction read. Other strong choices are Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley.
What books are similar to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel?
Wolf Hall centers on power and ambition, loyalty and survival, class and self-making. Books with a similar feel include Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
