Books like

Books like Survival in Auschwitz

12 books with a reading profile close to Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi. Deep, inward-looking and contemplative; a moderate read.

1

Night

by Elie Wiesel

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

In this memoir, Eliezer, a Jewish teenager from Sighet, Transylvania, is deported to Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the final years of World War II.
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

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.
4

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.
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

Brotherless Night

by V. V. Ganeshananthan

Also deep and inward-looking · 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.
7

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.
8

Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, Purple Hibiscus

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Also deep and inward-looking · history, narrative

This three-volume collection tracks the socio-political evolution of Nigeria through specific family lineages and individual migrations.
9

The Known World

by Edward P. Jones

Also deep and inward-looking · history, narrative

Set in antebellum Virginia, the narrative centers on Henry Townsend, a black man who, having purchased his own freedom, becomes a master himself and owns thirty-three slaves.
10

The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45

by Władysław Szpilman

Also deep and inward-looking · history, memoir

Władysław Szpilman, a Jewish pianist for Polish Radio, provides a first-hand account of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw.
11

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.
12

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss

by Edmund de Waal

history, memoir

Edmund de Waal traces a collection of 264 netsuke—tiny Japanese ivory and wood carvings—to reconstruct his ancestors’ history.

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