Books like “Atonement”

What to read after “Atonement” by Ian McEwan: 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 Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini · 2003
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
A boy in Kabul betrays his loyal friend on the day of a kite-flying contest, and the guilt follows him into exile in America. Years later he returns to a changed Afghanistan to try to make things right. A story of friendship, cowardice and redemption.
2
The English Patient
Michael Ondaatje · 1992
Same genre: “Literary fiction” and “Historical fiction”
In a bombed Italian villa at the end of the Second World War, a nurse tends a badly burned patient who can no longer remember his name. As the others in the house circle him, fragments of his past as a desert explorer and his affair with a married woman resurface.
3
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989
Same genre: “Literary fiction” and “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Unreliable Narrator
Stevens, a butler at an English country house, sets out on a motoring trip in 1956 and looks back over decades of service. Recalling his employer's political misjudgements and his own missed chances with the housekeeper, he begins to see what a life given to duty has cost him.
4
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014
Same genre: “Literary fiction” and “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Coming of Age
During the German occupation of France, a blind girl and her father flee Paris for the walled city of Saint-Malo, carrying a valuable jewel. In Germany, an orphan with a gift for radio repairs is drawn into the war machine. Their separate paths move slowly toward the same besieged town in August 1944.
5
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy · 1891
Similar plot moves: “Star-Crossed Lovers” and “Betrayal”
Tess Durbeyfield, a poor country girl, is sent to wealthy relatives who share her family name. There she is wronged by a young man and later falls in love with Angel Clare, who knows nothing of her past. Society's judgement of her becomes the story's central cruelty.
6
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Coming of Age
Spoiled Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara sees her world torn apart by the American Civil War. Determined to rebuild her family's plantation and her fortune, she schemes and marries her way through the ruins of the Old South, chasing a man she cannot have.
7
The Forever War
Joe Haldeman · 1974
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Star-Crossed Lovers
A conscripted soldier fights an interstellar war against the Taurans, an alien enemy he barely understands. Relativity means each tour sends him centuries into the future, where the society he left behind has changed beyond recognition and the war has no clear end.
8
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.
9
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens · 1861
Similar plot moves: “Star-Crossed Lovers” and “Coming of Age”
- Star-Crossed Lovers
- Coming of Age
An orphan boy is suddenly given money by an unknown benefactor and raised into gentility. He falls for a cold, beautiful girl raised to break men's hearts, and chases a life of status he does not understand. A story about class, love and the cost of pride.
10
Life After Life
Kate Atkinson · 2013
Same genre: “Literary fiction” and “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Coming of Age
Ursula Todd is born in 1910 and dies, then is born again in the same English house. Over many lives she survives accidents, war and bad choices, and begins to sense that her repetitions might be leading somewhere.
11
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway · 1940
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Robert Jordan, an American volunteer, joins a band of Republican guerrillas in the Spanish mountains to blow up a bridge. Over a few days he falls for Maria, a young woman scarred by war, and weighs duty, love and the near certainty that the mission will cost him his life.
12
The Bronze Horseman
Paullina Simons · 2000
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Star-Crossed Lovers
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.