Books like “All the Light We Cannot See”

What to read after “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah · 2015
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “War novel”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In occupied France, two sisters take very different roads through the war. One keeps her daughters safe in the countryside while sheltering fugitives; the other joins the resistance, guiding downed airmen over the Pyrenees. Their choices strain their bond and put both of them in constant danger.
2
Azincourt
Bernard Cornwell · 2008
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “War novel”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Outlawed archer Nicholas Hook joins Henry V's army as it invades France. Mired in a brutal siege and heavily outnumbered at Azincourt, he and his comrades face a battle that will decide the fate of a kingdom.
3
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini · 2007
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Mariam and Laila, born a generation apart in Afghanistan, are forced together by marriage to the same violent man. Through decades of war and loss, the two women become each other's only home and take great risks for the chance of a different life.
4
A Train in Winter
Caroline Moorehead · 2011
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Between 1941 and 1943 the German and French police arrested hundreds of women who had worked for the Resistance. Drawn from interviews and archives, this book follows 230 of them from prison in France onto the trains to Auschwitz, and the friendships that sustained them.
5
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
A young woman in colonial Korea, Sunja, leaves home for Japan with a husband she barely knows and raises a family that lives as outsiders for generations. Through war and poverty, the household holds on to its dignity and its secrets.
6
Schindler's Ark
Thomas Keneally · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In German-occupied Poland, Oskar Schindler, a Czech businessman and opportunist, employs Jewish workers in his factory. As the war turns and deportations intensify, he uses his wealth and connections to shield them, at growing personal risk.
7
Salt to the Sea
Ruta Sepetys · 2016
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Four young refugees cross a frozen East Prussia in the winter of 1945, each hiding a secret and hoping to reach a ship that will carry them west. Their paths merge among the crowds fleeing the advancing Soviet army, bound for a vessel whose fate none of them suspect.
8
The Bronze Horseman
Paullina Simons · 2000
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In Leningrad in 1941, as the German army tightens its siege, Tatiana meets Alexander, a young officer with a secret. Their love is forbidden by her family and by the war, but through hunger, loss and the frozen winter they hold on to each other and to the hope of survival.
9
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows · 2008
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
Writer Juliet Ashton begins a friendship in letters with the people of Guernsey, an island still marked by the German occupation. Through their stories of a secret reading group, she finds a community, a purpose and a reason to cross the sea herself.
10
The Sunne in Splendour
Sharon Kay Penman · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
A retelling of the life of Richard III, from his boyhood in a divided England to his brief reign. Set against the Wars of the Roses, it follows the Yorkist claim to the throne, the loyalties that bind Richard, and the rumour and betrayal that surround his name.
11
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque · 1929
Same genre: “War novel”
Paul Baumer and his classmates enlist in the German army straight from school, urged on by a patriotic teacher. Trench life strips away everything they were taught, and the friends cling to each other as the war grinds them down.
12
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak · 2005
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Coming of Age
Narrated by Death, the story follows Liesel Meminger, a girl sent to live with a foster family in Nazi Germany. She steals books, shares them with a Jewish man hiding in the basement, and grows up amid bombs, loss and small acts of kindness.