Books like

Books like Between the World and Me

12 books with a reading profile close to Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Deep and inward-looking; a moderate read.

1

The Drowned and the Saved

by Primo Levi

Also deep and inward-looking · history, philosophy

Primo Levi uses his final work to analyze the complex social hierarchy and psychological erosion within the Nazi concentration camps.
2

The Complete Maus

by Art Spiegelman

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

Art Spiegelman uses the graphic novel format to document his father Vladek’s survival during the Holocaust.
3

Intimations

by Zadie Smith

Also deep · philosophy, memoir

Written during the early months of the 2020 pandemic, this collection consists of six essays that analyze the sudden contraction of physical space and the expansion of internal reflection.
4

Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History

by Lea Ypi

Also deep · history, memoir

Lea Ypi narrates her upbringing in Albania during the final decade of the Cold War and the subsequent transition to a market economy.
5

The crack-up, with other uncollected pieces, note-books and unpublished letters, together with letters to Fitzgerald from Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Wolfe and John Dos Passos, and essays and poems by Paul Rosenfeld [and others] Edited by Edmund Wilson

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

This collection centers on the psychological collapse of F.
6

Mortality

by Christopher Hitchens

Also deep and inward-looking · philosophy, memoir

Christopher Hitchens chronicles his final eighteen months following a stage four esophageal cancer diagnosis.
7

Men We Reaped: A Memoir

by Jesmyn Ward

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

Jesmyn Ward chronicles the lives and deaths of five young Black men from her community in DeLisle, Mississippi, including her own brother.
8

The Things They Carried

by Tim O'Brien

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

Tim O’Brien’s narrative follows the Alpha Company during the Vietnam War, beginning with a literal inventory of the equipment and personal mementos soldiers lug through the jungle.
9

Memoirs of Hadrian

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Also deep · history, philosophy

Presented as a final letter from the aged Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, the narrative reconstructs the life of a leader managing the Roman Empire at its peak.
10

Darkness at Noon

by Arthur Koestler

Also deep · history, philosophy

Set during the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, the story follows Nikolai Rubashov, an aging Bolshevik revolutionary arrested by the government he helped establish.
11

Survival in Auschwitz

by Primo Levi

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish chemist, details his eleven months of imprisonment in the Monowitz-Buna concentration camp.
12

When We Cease to Understand the World

by Benjamín Labatut

Also deep · history, philosophy

Benjamín Labatut depicts the intersections between scientific discovery and psychological collapse through the lives of Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger.

Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.

Get papr

Your library, beautifully understood.