Books like

Books like The Passion of Artemisia

12 books with a reading profile close to The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. Clear-cut; a moderate read.

  1. 1 Take My Hand

    Take My Hand

    by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    narrative, literary

    In 1973 Montgomery, Alabama, Civil Rights era nurse Civil Townsend begins working at a federally funded family planning clinic.

  2. 2 Violeta

    Violeta

    by Isabel Allende

    Also clear-cut · narrative, literary

    Violeta del Valle begins her life during the 1920 influenza pandemic and concludes it amidst the global outbreak of 2020.

  3. 3 Cold Sassy Tree

    Cold Sassy Tree

    by Olive Ann Burns

    Also clear-cut · narrative, literary

    Fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy lives in Cold Sassy, Georgia, in 1906, when his grandfather Rucker Blakeslee, a store owner, scandalizes the town.

  4. 4 A Long Petal of the Sea

    A Long Petal of the Sea

    by Isabel Allende

    narrative, literary

    In the late 1930s, during the final days of the Spanish Civil War, Victor Dalmau, a young army doctor, and Roser Bruguera, a pregnant pianist, flee the advancing fascist forces.

  5. 5 Go as a River

    Go as a River

    by Shelley Read

    narrative, literary

    Victoria Nash is a seventeen-year-old girl managing her family’s peach orchard in Iola, Colorado, during the 1940s.

  6. 6 Run

    Run

    by Ann Patchett

    narrative, literary

    Bernard Doyle, a former Boston mayor, has raised his sons Tip and Teddy, who are Black and were adopted, along with his biological son Doyle.

  7. 7 Delta of Venus

    Delta of Venus

    by Anaïs Nin

    narrative, literary

    Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus is a groundbreaking collection of erotic short stories, commissioned in the 1940s by a private collector.

  8. 8 The Only Woman in the Room

    The Only Woman in the Room

    by Marie Benedict

    Also clear-cut · narrative, literary

    Hedy Kiesler, a Jewish actress in 1930s Vienna, escapes an abusive marriage to an Austrian arms dealer with close ties to the Nazi regime.

  9. 9 The Leavers

    The Leavers

    by Lisa Ko

    narrative, literary

    One morning in the Bronx, eleven-year-old Deming Guo’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Fuzhounese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon and never returns home.

  10. 10 News of the World

    News of the World

    by Paulette Jiles

    narrative, literary

    In 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels across North Texas, reading international newspapers to paying audiences in small towns.

  11. 11 The Female Persuasion

    The Female Persuasion

    by Meg Wolitzer

    narrative, literary

    The narrative tracks Greer Kadetsky, a college student whose life shifts after she meets Faith Frank, a central figure in the second-wave feminist movement.

  12. 12 The Space Between Us

    The Space Between Us

    by Thrity Umrigar

    narrative, literary

    Sera Dubash is a Parsi woman in Mumbai who has employed Bhima as a maid for over twenty years.

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