Books like 'Going Solo'
Readers who enjoyed Going Solo by Roald Dahl also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure 20th century comedy military, war & conflict africa eastern-africa palestine classics war
-
Flashman in the Great Game by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsOne of literature's most delightful rakes is back in another tale of rollicking adventure and tantalizing seduction. The plucky Flashman's latest escapades are sure to entertain devotees as well as attract new aficionados...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Grand Budapest Hotel: The Illustrated Screenplay by Wes Anderson]()
The Grand Budapest Hotel: The Illustrated Screenplay by Wes Anderson
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratings(Book). The Grand Budapest Hotel recounts the adventures of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. Acting as a kind of father figure, M... -
![The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham]()
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsLarry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century -
![Interesting Times: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett]()
Interesting Times: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA new stage adaptation of one of Pratchett's best-selling novelsThe Discworld's most inept wizard has been sent from Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to the oppressive Agatean Empire to help some well-intentioned rebels overthrow the Emperor... -
-
![Flashman & the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman & the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHarry Flashman is back in the saddle, so to speak, making history that you won't find in textbooks. Mingling among heroes in the American West, the ace of knaves flees a murder charge, travels with a mobile brothel to California's goldfields, betrays the scarlet woman who loves him and tricks the noble Indians while seducing their women... -
![Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis ninth volume of The Flashman Papers, faithfully edited and transcribed by Fraser, finds that Sir Harry Flashman is back in India, where his saga began. This time, our hero is sent by Her Majesty's Secret Service to spy on the corrupt court of Lahore, on India's Northwest Frontier. Flashy's most challenging exploit yet is as politically shrewd and thoroughly lewd as ever...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHarry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown's schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents - horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts]()
Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the unique mind of Douglas Adams, the legendary "lost" Doctor Who story has been completed at last by Gareth Roberts and narrated by Lalla Ward.The Doctor’s old friend and fellow Time Lord Professor Chronotis has retired to Cambridge University—where nobody will notice if he lives for centuries. But now he needs help from the Doctor, Romana and K-9... -
![Little Big Man by Thomas Berger]()
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"I am a white man and never forget it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten."So starts the story of Jack Crabb, the 111-year old narrator of Thomas Berger's masterpiece of American fiction. As a "human being", as the Cheyenne called their own, he won the name Little Big Man...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure -
![True Grit by Charles Portis]()
True Grit by Charles Portis
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFourteen-year-old Mattie Ross' father was shot and killed. Told through her eyes, True Grit is the story of how she and hard-drinking Marshal Rooster Cogburn set out to find and prosecute his murderer. "An epic and a legend".--Washington Post... -
![The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold]()
The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsBetween the seemingly impossible tasks of living up to his warrior-father's legend and surmounting his own physical limitations, Miles Vorkosigan faces some truly daunting challenges. Shortly after his arrival on Beta Colony, Miles unexpectedly finds himself the owner of an obsolete freighter and in more debt than he ever thought possible... -
![The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill]()
The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe pushcarts have declared war! New York City's streets are clogged with huge, rude trucks that park where they want, hold up traffic, and bulldoze into anything that is in their way, and the pushcart peddlers are determined to get rid of them. But the trucks are just as determined to get rid of the pushcarts, and chaos results in the city...Categorized as:
children classics historical-fiction humor war 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history -
![Flashman's Lady by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman's Lady by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFlashy, that lustful libertine, takes a round-the-world adventure that would shock Don Juan and make swingers of today green with envy. In an English mansion, he's not just doodling in the drawing room with a blue blood's red-hot-blooded mistress; in Africa, he's forced to serve a sultry queen who kills low-endurance lovers...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure -
![War with the Newts by Karel ÄŒapek]()
War with the Newts by Karel ÄŒapek
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsMan discovers a species of giant, intelligent newts and learns to exploit them so successfully that the newts gain skills and arms enough to challenge man's place at the top of the animal kingdom. Along the way, Karel Capek satirizes science, runaway capitalism, fascism, journalism, militarism, even Hollywood...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure -
-
![Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings]()
Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsA magnificent epic set against a history of seven thousand years of the struggles of Gods and Kings and men - of strange lands and events - of fate and a prophecy that must be fulfilled!THE BELGARIADIt had all begun with the theft of the Orb that had so long protected the West from the evil God Torak. Before that, Garion had been a simple farm boy... -
![To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis]()
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsConnie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy]()
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsThe first and most successful in the Baroness’s series of books that feature Percy Blakeney, who leads a double life as an English fop and a swashbuckling rescuer of aristocrats, The Scarlet Pimpernel was the blueprint for what became known as the masked-avenger genre... -
![Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon]()
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsCharles Mason (1728-1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779) were the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that we know today as the Mason-Dixon Line. Here is their story as re-imagined by Thomas Pynchon, featuring Native Americans and frontier folk, ripped bodices, naval warfare, conspiracies erotic and political, major caffeine abuse...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson]()
Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAs two pals wander the streets of Belfast in search of something better--a better pint, a better job, a better woman, a better now--readers are treated to their hilarious misadventures, political intrigues, and outlandish schemes...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold]()
Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn the wake of unexpected planetary peace and the disappearance of the Dendarii payroll, mercenary captain Miles Naismith attempts to discover the link between the insufferable Captain Galeni and the Komarran rebel expatriates. Reissue. AB... -
![Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 94 ratingsSelected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time, Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most... -
![Mister Roberts by Thomas Heggen]()
Mister Roberts by Thomas Heggen
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe novel, Mister Roberts, was an instant hit after being published in 1946 and was quickly adapted for the stage and screen. The title character, a Lieutenant Junior Grade naval officer, defends his crew against the petty tyranny of the ship's commanding officer during World War II... -
![The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis]()
The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis new collection of stories from the multi-award-winning author of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog contains:A Letter from the ClearysAt the RialtoDeath on the NileThe Soul Selects Her own SocietyFire WatchInside JobEven the QueenThe Winds of Marble ArchAll Seated on the GroundLast of the WinnebagosTen stories - which have all won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award or both - are...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton]()
The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEngland in the middle of World War II, a war that seems fated to go on forever, a war that has become a way of life. Heroic resistance is old hat. Everything is in short supply, and tempers are even shorter... -
-
![Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"A jolly read."-- The Wall Street Journal The tenth installment in The Flashman Papers finds Captain Harry Flashman of Her Majesty's Secret Service in the antebellum South, where the irrepressible, globe-trotting Victorian becomes the target of blackmailing beauties... -
![I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal]()
I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFirst published in 1971 in a typewritten edition, then finally printed in book form in 1989, I Served the King of England is "an extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel" (The New York Times), telling the tale of Ditie, a hugely ambitious but simple waiter in a deluxe Prague hotel in the years before World War II...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg]()
The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsPoland, 1909 Stanislaw is determined to escape the Russians and follow his brother to America, a land where anything seems possible.Wisconsin, 1941With all the men off to war, Fritzi and her sisters must learn men’s work -- from fixing flats to driving the tow truck and the All-Girl Filling Station is born... -
![Flashman and the Tiger by George MacDonald Fraser]()
Flashman and the Tiger by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor the first time in four years comes a new book in George MacDonald Fraser's long-running series chronicling the adventures of Sir Harry Paget Flashman. Eleventh in the series, Flashman and the Tiger features not one, but three stories of international intrigue that find the fictional Flashman thrown headlong into historical events around the world...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure -
![Forrest Gump by Winston Groom]()
Forrest Gump by Winston Groom
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsMeet Forrest Gump, the lovable, herculean, and surprisingly savvy hero of this remarkable comic odyssey. After accidentally becoming the star of University of Alabama's football team, Forrest goes on to become a Vietnam War hero, a world-class Ping-Pong player, a villainous wrestler, and a business tycoon -- as he wonders with childlike wisdom at the insanity all around him...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century -
![Mrs. Tim Christie by D.E. Stevenson]()
Mrs. Tim Christie by D.E. Stevenson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTenth May, 1934. At this moment I look up and see the Man Who Lives Next Door standing on his doorstep watching my antics, and disapproving (I feel sure) of my flowered silk dressing gown. Probably his own wife wears one of red flannel, and most certainly has never been seen leaning out of the window in it - The Awful Carrying On of Those Army People - he is thinking... -
![Scoundrels by Victor Cornwall, St. John Trevelyan]()
Scoundrels by Victor Cornwall, St. John Trevelyan
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSpanning much of the 20th Century and revolving around the infamous gentlemen's club of London, Scoundrels is the jaw-dropping memoirs of disreputable spies Majors Cornwall and Trevelyan.The Majors recount scandalous tales of murder on Everest, panda hunting with the last Chinese Emperor and the theft of a uniquely sordid item from the Nazi fortress Klunghammer...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor war ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult boarding-school -
![Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, Дмитрий Петров]()
Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, Дмитрий Петров
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsUnforgiving Years is a thrilling and terrifying journey into the disastrous, blazing core of the twentieth century. Victor Serge’s final work, here translated into English for the first time, is at once the most ambitious, bleakest, and most lyrical of this neglected major writer’s works.The novel is arranged into four sections, like the panels of an immense mural or the movements of a symphony... -
![Star Trek IV the Voyage Home by Vonda N. McIntyre]()
Star Trek IV the Voyage Home by Vonda N. McIntyre
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThere is a full color photo and a profile of each major actor and actress in the Star Trek IV movie... -
![Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh]()
Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFueled by idealism and eagerness to contribute to the war effort, Guy Crouchback becomes attached to a commando unit undergoing training on the Hebridean isle of Mugg, where the whisky flows freely and respect must be paid to the laird. But the comedy of Mugg is soon followed by the bitterness of Crete, where chaos reigns and a difficult evacuation must be accomplished... -
-
![Redshirts: Chapters 1-4 by John Scalzi]()
Redshirts: Chapters 1-4 by John Scalzi
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTHEY WERE EXPENDABLE . . . UNTIL THEY STARTED COMPARING NOTESA free preview of Redshirts, the astonishing new science-fiction yarn from John Scalzi."Redshirts is (a) ruin-your-underwear funny, (b) a mind-bender sure to Philip K. Dick you over, and (c) absurdly rich in ideas and feeling. John Scalzi sets his imagination to STUN and scores a direct hit. Read on and prosper... -
![Making History by Stephen Fry]()
Making History by Stephen Fry
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Making History, Fry has bitten off a rather meaty chunk by tackling an at first deceptively simple premise: What if Hitler had never been born? An unquestionable improvement, one would reason--and so an earnest history grad student and an aging German physicist idealistically undertake to bring this about by preventing Adolf's conception... -
![Catch-22 by Joseph Heller]()
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 85 ratingsWith a new preface by the authorExplosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage... -
![Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw]()
Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the 24th century, men join the Space Legion to forget. A memory-erasing machine makes sure they do just that. The machine purges the memory of all traces of guilt, but for Legion recruit Warren Pearce it has wiped out everything. He must have had a very nasty past indeed - if only he could recall it... -
![Phule's Paradise by Robert Lynn Asprin]()
Phule's Paradise by Robert Lynn Asprin
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe bestselling author of the Myth series proves once again that not just anyone can join Phule's Company. They used to be the laughingstock of the interstellar armed forces--until their last mission proved successful. Now they must guard an intergalactic casino called the Fat Chance from a criminal takeover--and the odds are against the oddballs... -
![The High Crusade by Poul Anderson]()
The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is gathering an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in northeastern Lincolnshire...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor war 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens alternate-history -
![The Magicians of Caprona by Diana Wynne Jones]()
The Magicians of Caprona by Diana Wynne Jones
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsTonino is the only person in the famous Montana household who wasn't born with an instinct for creating spells, but he has other gifts. His ability to communicate with cats just might help defend the city of Caprona against a mysterious enchanter -- but only if Tonino can learn to cooperate with a girl from the hated Petrocchi family of spell-makers...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age historical-fiction humor war 20th-century action-adventure alternate-history -
![The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison]()
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsSomeone was tampering with time, altering the past to eliminate the present, fading people out of existence into a timeless limbo. One of the victims was Angelina, the wife of James de Griz, better known as the Stainless Steel Rat. That put Slippery Jim on the trail of the villains, a trail that went back to 1984 and an ancient nation called the United States of America... -
![The First Casualty by Ben Elton]()
The First Casualty by Ben Elton
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFlanders, June 1917: a British officer and celebrated poet, is shot dead, killed not by German fire, but while recuperating from shell shock well behind the lines. A young English soldier is arrested and, although he protests his innocence, charged with his murder.Douglas Kingsley is a conscientious objector, previously a detective with the London police, now imprisoned for his beliefs...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
![A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle]()
A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
Rated: 3.85 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsBorn at the beginning of the twentieth century, Henry Smart lives through the evolution of modern Ireland, and in this extraordinary novel he brilliantly tells his story. From his own birth and childhood on the streets of Dublin to his role as soldier (and lover) in the Irish Rebellion, Henry recounts his early years of reckless heroism and adventure...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century -
-
![Last Human by Doug Naylor]()
Last Human by Doug Naylor
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLister gazed out of the porthole and catalogue the series of disasters that had led him to this point in space and time: the bad decisions, the poor career choices, the unreliable friendships that had led him here - on a prison ship bound for the most inhospitable penal colony in the outer cosmos... and all he'd ever wanted was to be a soft metal guitar icon... -
![Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett]()
Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett
Rated: 3.84 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsTwelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This has never been more true than when he finds himself in his hometown on May 21, 1941, over forty years before his birth!An accidental time traveler, Johnny knows his history. He knows England is at war, and he knows that on this day German bombs will fall on the town. It happened. It's history...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age historical-fiction humor war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton]()
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn a London of the future, the drudgery of capitalism and bureaucracy have worn the human spirit down to the point where it can barely stand. When a pint-sized clerk named Auberon Quinn is randomly selected as head of state, he decides to turn London into a medieval carnival for his own amusement...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![A Phule and His Money by Robert Lynn Asprin, Peter J. Heck]()
A Phule and His Money by Robert Lynn Asprin, Peter J. Heck
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCaptain Willard Phule has whipped his troops into shape. That's how he turned Phule's Company from the laughingstock of the Legion into... a crack team of casino security guards.Now his company is deployed to help an underdeveloped planet... -
![My French Whore by Gene Wilder]()
My French Whore by Gene Wilder
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe beloved actor and screenwriter Gene Wilder's first novel, My French Whore, set during World War I, delicately and elegantly explores a most unusual romance. It's almost the end of the war and Paul Peachy, a young railway employee and amateur actor in Milwaukee, realizes his marriage is one-sided. He enlists, and ships off to France...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction military war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
![The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum]()
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Rated: 3.77 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFew fantasy lands have captured our hearts and imaginations as has the marvelous land of Oz. For over four generations, children and adults alike have reveled in the magical adventures of its beloved folk. Now, for the first time in over seventy years, the second book about Oz is presented here in the same deluxe format as the rare first edition, complete with all 16 of the original John R...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
