Books like

Books like Post Office

12 books with a reading profile close to Post Office by Charles Bukowski. Balanced in tone; an easy read.

  1. 1 By Any Other Name

    By Any Other Name

    by Jodi Picoult

    narrative, classic literature

    This novel follows two women separated by centuries who both navigate the constraints placed on female authorship.

  2. 2 The Palace of Illusions

    The Palace of Illusions

    by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

    narrative, classic literature

    This retelling of the Mahabharata is narrated by Panchaali, also called Draupadi, who emerges from a sacrificial fire to marry the five Pandava brothers.

  3. 3 Ham on Rye

    Ham on Rye

    by Charles Bukowski

    narrative, classic literature

    Henry Chinaski grows up in Los Angeles in the 1930s with a father who beats him and a mother who looks away.

  4. 4 Empire Falls

    Empire Falls

    by Richard Russo

    narrative, classic literature

    Miles Roby manages the Empire Grill, a greasy spoon in a decaying Maine logging town owned by the wealthy Whiting family.

  5. 5 The Accidental Tourist

    The Accidental Tourist

    by Anne Tyler

    narrative, classic literature

    Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates traveling.

  6. 6 The Book of Longings

    The Book of Longings

    by Sue Monk Kidd

    narrative, classic literature

    Ana is the daughter of a wealthy advisor to Herod Antipas, living in a patriarchal society that forbids women from reading and writing.

  7. 7 Peace Like a River

    Peace Like a River

    by Leif Enger

    narrative, classic literature

    Set in 1962 Minnesota, the story follows eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy who believes his father, Jeremiah, performs literal miracles.

  8. 8 The Birth of Venus

    The Birth of Venus

    by Sarah Dunant

    narrative, classic literature

    Alessandra Cecchi is the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant in fifteenth-century Florence, a city transitioning from the height of humanist art to the religious fervor of the monk Savonarola.

  9. 9 O Pioneers!

    O Pioneers!

    by Willa Cather

    narrative, classic literature

    Alexandra Bergson, a Swedish-American immigrant in late nineteenth-century Nebraska, inherits her father’s struggling farm amid a harsh prairie landscape.

  10. 10 Silver Sparrow

    Silver Sparrow

    by Tayari Jones

    narrative, classic literature

    Dana Yarboro knows her father, James Witherspoon, has another family.

  11. 11 The Queen's Gambit

    The Queen's Gambit

    by Walter Tevis

    narrative, classic literature

    Eight-year-old Beth Harmon enters a Kentucky orphanage following her mother’s death, where she discovers a twin fixation on state-administered sedatives and the game of chess.

  12. 12 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

    The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

    by David Wroblewski

    narrative, classic literature

    Edgar Sawtelle is born mute in rural Wisconsin, into a family that breeds a special line of dogs, the Sawtelle dogs, chosen for their intelligence and character.

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