Books like

Books like Night

12 books with a reading profile close to Night by Elie Wiesel. Deep, inward-looking and contemplative; a moderate read.

1

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.
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

The Best We Could Do

by Thi Bui

Also inward-looking and contemplative · history, memoir

Thi Bui narrates her family’s history through a graphic memoir format, beginning with the birth of her own child in the present day.
4

War's Unwomanly Face

by Svetlana Alexievich

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of Soviet women who served in the Red Army during World War II as snipers, tank drivers, pilots, and field surgeons.
5

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.
6

Heavy

by Kiese Laymon

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, narrative

In this memoir, Kiese Laymon addresses his mother to recount a childhood in Jackson, Mississippi, shaped by academic rigor and physical discipline.
7

Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

Also deep and inward-looking · history, narrative

Set in 1580s Stratford-upon-Avon, the narrative centers on Agnes Hathaway, a woman with deep knowledge of medicinal plants and prophetic instincts.
8

Happening

by Annie Ernaux

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, narrative

In 1963, when abortion remained illegal in France, Annie Ernaux, then a university student, discovered she was pregnant.
9

A Man's Place

by Annie Ernaux

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Annie Ernaux recounts her father's life, from his childhood as a Norman farm laborer to his job in a factory and later running a café and grocery.
10

Homegoing

by Yaa Gyasi

Also deep and inward-looking · history, narrative

Beginning in eighteenth-century Ghana, the narrative follows the diverging lineages of two half-sisters, Effia and Esi.
11

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.
12

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

by Dani Shapiro

Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, narrative

In 2016, Dani Shapiro submitted a DNA kit for analysis, expecting to confirm her Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.

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