Books like

Books like The Covenant of Water

12 books with a reading profile close to The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. Thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

In the Time of the Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

In 1960, three of the four Mirabal sisters were beaten to death on a road in the Dominican Republic because they had opposed the dictator Rafael Trujillo.
2

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind girl living in Paris, flees to Saint-Malo with her father to escape the Nazi occupation, carrying a precious and potentially cursed diamond from the Museum of Natural History.
3

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.
4

Memphis

by Tara M. Stringfellow

history, narrative

Spanning three generations of a Black family in Memphis, Tennessee, this novel centers on the women of one family, who must handle poverty, domestic violence and racism while keeping alive a sense of faith and creativit…
5

Noticia de un secuestro

by Gabriel García Márquez

history, narrative

Gabriel García Márquez reconstructs the 1990 abductions of ten prominent Colombian citizens by the Extraditables, a group led by Pablo Escobar to pressure the government into banning extradition to the United States.
6

Of Women and Salt

by Gabriela Garcia

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Spanning from nineteenth-century Cuban cigar factories to a modern-day detention center in Texas, the narrative follows five generations of women linked by blood and migration.
7

Manhattan Beach

by Jennifer Egan

history, narrative

Set in New York City during the Great Depression and World War II, the narrative follows Anna Kerrigan as she maneuvers through the male-dominated Brooklyn Navy Yard.
8

Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

Also 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.
9

There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

The narrative follows a single drop of water across centuries, linking three distinct lives shaped by the Tigris and Thames rivers.
10

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

history, narrative

In the mountains of southern Appalachia, a boy nicknamed Demon Copperhead is born to a teenage mother in a single-wide trailer.
11

The Glass Palace

by Amitav Ghosh

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Amitav Ghosh's novel starts with the British conquest of Mandalay in 1885, when the royal family of Burma is exiled to India.
12

The Night Watch

by Sarah Waters

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in London during and immediately after the Second World War, the narrative moves backward in time from 1947 to 1941.

Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.

Get papr

Your library, beautifully understood.