Books like

Books like The Underground Railroad

12 books with a reading profile close to The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Deep, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

The Poisonwood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

Nathan Price, a rigid evangelical Baptist, moves his wife Orleanna and their four daughters from Georgia to the Belgian Congo in 1959.
2

The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at a jewel-bearing plant in rural North Dakota in 1953, and also a Chippewa council member.
3

The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Groff

Also deep and thought-provoking · history, narrative

In the early seventeenth century, a young servant girl escapes a starving, disease-ridden colonial settlement in North America, fleeing alone into the winter wilderness.
4

The Known World

by Edward P. Jones

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

Set in antebellum Virginia, the narrative centers on Henry Townsend, a black man who, having purchased his own freedom, becomes a master himself and owns thirty-three slaves.
5

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

by Richard Flanagan

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

The story centers on Dorrigo Evans, an Australian surgeon and officer held in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the construction of the Burma Death Railway in 1943.
6

Brotherless Night

by V. V. Ganeshananthan

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

Set in Jaffna during the onset of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the narrative follows Sashi, a young woman whose ambitions to become a doctor are redirected by the escalating ethnic conflict.
7

How Much of These Hills Is Gold

by C Pam Zhang

Also deep and 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.
8

Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, Purple Hibiscus

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

This three-volume collection tracks the socio-political evolution of Nigeria through specific family lineages and individual migrations.
9

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.
10

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

by Anthony Marra

Also contemplative and thought-provoking · history, narrative

In a rural village in war-torn Chechnya, Akhmed rescues an eight-year-old girl named Havaa after her father is abducted by Russian soldiers.
11

Human Acts

by Han Kang

Also deep and contemplative · history, narrative

Han Kang’s novel reconstructs the 1980 Gwangju Uprising and its aftermath through seven interconnected perspectives.
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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