Books like “Schindler's Ark”

What to read after “Schindler's Ark” by Thomas Keneally: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
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.
2
Catch-22
Joseph Heller · 1961
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
Bombardier Yossarian wants to survive the war and go home, but every attempt to be grounded runs into a rule that answers itself: to be excused he must ask, and asking proves he is sane. Around him, officers profit and comrades die.
3
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak · 2005
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
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.
4
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini · 2003
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Redemption Arc
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.
5
The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah · 2015
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- 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.
6
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
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.
7
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque · 1929
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
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.
8
Azincourt
Bernard Cornwell · 2008
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- 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.
9
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
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.
10
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
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.
11
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway · 1940
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
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
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.