Books like

Books like The Good People

12 books with a reading profile close to The Good People by Hannah Kent. Contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Also contemplative and 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.
2

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.
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

Pachinko

by Min Jin Lee

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Sunja, the daughter of a crippled fisherman in colonial Korea, becomes pregnant by a married yakuza member.
5

Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Ifemelu and Obinze are young lovers in military-ruled Nigeria who depart the country for different hemispheres.
6

The Nickel Boys

by Colson Whitehead

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in Jim Crow Florida, the story follows Elwood Curtis, a studious teenager who adheres to Dr.
7

The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Spanning seven decades in Kerala, South India, the narrative follows three generations of a family afflicted by a peculiar medical condition known as the Condition.
8

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Also contemplative and 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.
9

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.
10

The Buddha in the Attic

by Julie Otsuka

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Julie Otsuka tells the collective history of "picture brides" who traveled from Japan to San Francisco in the early 1900s.
11

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.
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.

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