Books like

Books like The Cellist of Sarajevo

12 books with a reading profile close to The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Five Little Indians

by Michelle Good

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Five children, Kenny, Clara, Maisie, Lucy and Howie, are taken from their families as small children and sent to a residential school in British Columbia.
2

Yellow Wife

by Sadeqa Johnson

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Born into a life of relative privilege on a Virginia plantation, Pheby Delores Brown is promised her freedom at age eighteen.
3

Duizend schitterende zonnen

by Khaled Hosseini

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · 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…
4

Ve Dağlar Yankılandı

by Khaled Hosseini

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · history, narrative

The narrative begins in 1952 Afghanistan when a father sells his young daughter, Pari, to a wealthy, childless couple in Kabul.
5

The Mad Women's Ball

by Victoria Mas

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in 1885 at the Salpêtrière asylum in Paris, the narrative follows Eugénie Cléry, a young woman committed to the institution by her father after she reveals her ability to speak with spirits.
6

The Mercies

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Also inward-looking · history, narrative

In 1617, a sudden storm kills every man in the remote Norwegian fishing village of Vardø.
7

A Northern Light

by Jennifer Donnelly

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in 1906 in the Adirondack Mountains, the story follows Mattie Gokey, a farm girl torn between a university scholarship and her obligations to her widowed father and siblings.
8

The Vanishing Half

by Brit Bennett

Also inward-looking · history, narrative

In the small town of Mallard, Louisiana, the light-skinned Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella, grow up in a community that prizes fair complexions.
9

The Storm We Made

by Vanessa Chan

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

In 1930s British Malaya, Cecily Alcantara works as a low-level clerk while feeling the sting of colonial hierarchy.
10

Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · history, narrative

The story follows twin brothers Marion and Shiva Stone, born from a clandestine union between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in an Addis Ababa mission hospital.
11

American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Alice Blackwell, a quiet, bookish girl from Wisconsin, becomes a librarian and a teacher, and later marries Charlie Blackwell, a wealthy Republican who becomes President of the United States.
12

Girl at War

by Sara Nović

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Ten-year-old Ana Jurić lives a carefree life in Zagreb until the Yugoslav Civil War erupts in 1991.

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