Books like

Books like Burnt Shadows

12 books with a reading profile close to Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie. Contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Of Women and Salt

by Gabriela Garcia

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Spanning from nineteenth-century Cuban cigar factories to a modern-day detention center in Texas, the narrative follows five generations of women linked by blood and migration.
2

The Lacuna

by Barbara Kingsolver

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

The novel follows the life of Harrison Shepherd, a man navigating the political upheaval of mid-twentieth-century Mexico and the United States.
3

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

by Anthony Marra

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

In a rural village in war-torn Chechnya, Akhmed rescues an eight-year-old girl named Havaa after her father is abducted by Russian soldiers.
4

The Night Watch

by Sarah Waters

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in London during and immediately after the Second World War, the narrative moves backward in time from 1947 to 1941.
5

The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Spanning seven decades in Kerala, South India, the narrative follows three generations of a family afflicted by a peculiar medical condition known as the Condition.
6

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind girl living in Paris, flees to Saint-Malo with her father to escape the Nazi occupation, carrying a precious and potentially cursed diamond from the Museum of Natural History.
7

Matrix

by Lauren Groff

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Cast out from the royal court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, seventeen-year-old Marie of France arrives at a destitute English abbey to serve as its new prioress.
8

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

by Ayana Mathis

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

In 1923, Hattie Shepherd leaves Georgia for Philadelphia as part of the Great Migration, hoping for a better life.
9

Wandering Stars

by Tommy Orange

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Wandering Stars traces a lineage of a Cheyenne family from the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the forced assimilation at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to the present day.
10

Brotherless Night

by V. V. Ganeshananthan

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in Jaffna during the onset of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the narrative follows Sashi, a young woman whose ambitions to become a doctor are redirected by the escalating ethnic conflict.
11

How Much of These Hills Is Gold

by C Pam Zhang

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set against the declining years of the American Gold Rush, the novel follows Lucy and Sam, two orphaned siblings of Chinese descent, as they carry their father’s decomposing body across a harsh western landscape.
12

There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

The narrative follows a single drop of water across centuries, linking three distinct lives shaped by the Tigris and Thames rivers.

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