Books like The Best We Could Do
12 books with a reading profile close to The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. Inward-looking and contemplative; a moderate read.
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1
War's Unwomanly Face
Also inward-looking and contemplative · 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.
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2
Survival in Auschwitz
by Primo Levi
Also inward-looking and contemplative · history, memoir
Primo Levi, an Italian Jewish chemist, details his eleven months of imprisonment in the Monowitz-Buna concentration camp.
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3
The Complete Maus
Also inward-looking · history, memoir
Art Spiegelman uses the graphic novel format to document his father Vladek’s survival during the Holocaust.
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4
Night
by Elie Wiesel
Also inward-looking and contemplative · 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.
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5
Paula
Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, narrative
Isabel Allende began writing this chronicle in 1991 while sitting bedside in a Spanish hospital where her daughter, Paula, lay in a porphyria-induced coma.
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6
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, narrative
Jeanette Winterson’s memoir returns to her upbringing in a strict Pentecostal household in Northern England, expanding on the lived reality behind her debut novel.
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7
The End of Eddy
Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, narrative
Eddy Bellegueule grows up in a poor village in northern France, in a family where men are expected to be tough and unemployment and alcohol are common.
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8
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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9
Duizend schitterende zonnen
Also inward-looking and contemplative · history, narrative
Set against the backdrop of three decades of Afghan history, the narrative follows Mariam and Laila, two women from different generations and social backgrounds whose lives intersect through a forced marriage to the sam…
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10
Bin Muhteşem Güneş
Also inward-looking and contemplative · history, narrative
Mariam and Laila are two women from different generations and social backgrounds whose lives collide in Kabul during decades of political upheaval.
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11
Hamnet
Also inward-looking and contemplative · 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.
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12
M Train
by Patti Smith
Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, narrative
In this memoir, Patti Smith tracks her daily routines, centered on her singular habit of visiting the same Greenwich Village café to drink black coffee and write.
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