Books like The Essex Serpent
12 books with a reading profile close to The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Thought-provoking; a moderate read.
-
1
Matrix
by Lauren Groff
Also thought-provoking · history, narrative
Cast out from the royal court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, seventeen-year-old Marie of France arrives at a destitute English abbey to serve as its new prioress.
-
2
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
by C Pam Zhang
Also thought-provoking · history, narrative
Set against the declining years of the American Gold Rush, the novel follows Lucy and Sam, two orphaned siblings of Chinese descent, as they carry their father’s decomposing body across a harsh western landscape.
-
3
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
Also thought-provoking · history, narrative
Set in the early 1970s New York rock scene, this oral history follows the rise and fracturing of an unlikely musical duo.
-
4
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.
-
5
Wandering Stars
by Tommy Orange
Also thought-provoking · history, narrative
Wandering Stars traces a lineage of a Cheyenne family from the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the forced assimilation at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to the present day.
-
6
The Bastard of Istanbul
by Elif Shafak
Also thought-provoking · history, narrative
Asya Kazancı is a nineteen-year-old Turkish girl in Istanbul, raised in a household of women, with no knowledge of who her father is.
-
7
Of Women and Salt
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.
-
8
Memphis
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…
-
9
In the Time of the Butterflies
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.
-
10
The Lacuna
Also thought-provoking · history, narrative
The novel follows the life of Harrison Shepherd, a man navigating the political upheaval of mid-twentieth-century Mexico and the United States.
-
11
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.
-
12
American Wife
Also 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.
Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.
Get papr
