Books like “Shantaram”

What to read after “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts: 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 Sea-Wolf
Jack London · 1904
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
A literary critic survives a ferry collision in San Francisco Bay and is picked up by a sealing schooner commanded by Wolf Larsen, a brutal and brilliant captain. Thrown into the crew's rough life, the soft scholar must find his footing under a man who answers to no law but his own.
2
Life of Pi
Yann Martel · 2001
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- Survival
After a shipwreck, a teenage boy shares a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. For months he struggles to survive at sea while holding on to his beliefs and his story. A fable about faith, storytelling and the versions of events we choose to believe.
3
Schindler's Ark
Thomas Keneally · 1982
Similar plot moves: “Redemption Arc” and “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.
4
Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card · 1986
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
Years after the war against the Formics, Andrew Wiggin travels as a Speaker for the Dead, revealing the truth of the departed. On the colony world Lusitania he is drawn into the fate of a human family and the alien Pequeninos, whose customs hide a terrible secret.
5
The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho · 1988
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd, dreams of treasure buried near the Egyptian pyramids and sets out across the desert to find it. Along the way strangers, omens and hardship teach him to read the world and to trust his own heart.
6
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway · 1952
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- Survival
An aging Cuban fisherman, Santiago, has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. When a huge marlin finally takes his line far out to sea, he must hold on through a long, painful contest of endurance and will.
7
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad · 1899
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- Morally Grey Character
A sailor tells of his journey up an African river to reach a mysterious ivory trader who has become a god to the locals. The deeper he goes, the more he sees of greed and cruelty, and of what people become when no one restrains them. A short, unsettling classic.
8
Lord of the Flies
William Golding · 1954
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
A group of schoolboys survives a plane crash on a deserted island and tries to govern themselves. Order slips first into fear and then into savagery as the boys turn on one another. An allegory about civilisation, violence and what people become without rules.
9
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville · 1851
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
A wandering sailor joins the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain is obsessed with hunting the white whale that took his leg. As the voyage stretches across the oceans, the crew is dragged toward a reckoning. A vast, digressive novel of obsession, the sea and human nature.
10
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
A poor student in St Petersburg, convinced that great men stand above the law, murders a pawnbroker and her sister. What follows is less a chase than a slow unravelling, as guilt, a detective's needling and a young woman's faith close in on him.
11
Anthem
Ayn Rand · 1938
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
- Outcast Hero
In a future run by the collective, the word I has no meaning and all work is done for the good of all. Equality 7-2521 breaks the rules by doing forbidden research and falling in love, then flees a society that cannot allow an individual to exist.
12
The Daughter of Time
Josephine Tey · 1951
Similar atmosphere: “Philosophical”
- Philosophical
Laid up in hospital with a broken leg, Inspector Alan Grant is bored until he is given a portrait of Richard III. Wondering whether the king really murdered the princes in the Tower, he reopens a five-hundred-year-old case from his bed, working only from books.