Books like 'Forrest Gump'
Readers who enjoyed Forrest Gump by Winston Groom also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure comedy 20th century psychological violent-conflict humor historical-fiction classics drama
-
The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsOstap Bender is an unemployed con artist living by his wits in postrevolutionary Soviet Russia. He joins forces with Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, a former nobleman who has returned to his hometown to find a cache of missing jewels which were hidden in some chairs that have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 98 ratingsWhat happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams?As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure -
Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsWhen We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six complete the four-volume set of deluxe editions of the Milne and Shepard classic works. Like their companions, the Winnie-the-Pooh 80th Anniversary Edition and The House At Pooh Corner, these beautiful books feature full-color artwork on cream-colored stock...Categorized as:
classics friendship humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure animals anthologies -
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsAn alternate cover edition of this ISBN can be found here.Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington, a most endearing bear from Darkest Peru on a railway platform in London. A sign hanging around his neck said, "Please look after this bear. Thank you" So that is just what they did...Categorized as:
classics family friendship historical-fiction humor 20th-century action-adventure animals -
-
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 satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
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
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 family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic -
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... -
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe last work of fiction by one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Extinction is widely considered Thomas Bernhard’s magnum opus. Franz-Josef Murau—the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family—lives in Rome in self-imposed exile, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction psychological 20th-century -
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...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor violent-conflict war 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
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:
family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
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 satire violent-conflict war 20th-century action-adventure -
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 satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFor deft plotting, riotous inventiveness, unforgettable characters, and language that brilliantly captures the lively rhythms of American speech, no American writer comes close to Mark Twain. This sparkling anthology covers the entire span of Twain’s inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years...Categorized as:
classics friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure -
-
Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"Selected Stories of O. Henry," by O. Henry, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure anthologies -
The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald, Mercer Mayer
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe best con man in the Midwest is only ten years old. Tom, a.k.a., the Great Brain, is a silver-tongued genius with a knack for turning a profit. When the Jenkins boys get lost in Skeleton Cave, the Great Brain saves the day...Categorized as:
classics family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
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...Categorized as:
bildungsroman classics coming-of-age drama family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction -
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWhen the redoubtable Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is ordered to South America on business, he leaves his only daughter Sophia with his sister, Elizabeth Rivenhall, in Berkeley Square. Newly arrived from her tour of the Continent, Sophy invites herself into the circle of her relatives...Categorized as:
classics drama family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure -
Manalive by G.K. Chesterton
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPerhaps the most light-hearted of all Chesterton's "serious" works, Manalive pits a group of disillusioned young people against Mr. Innocent Smith, a bubbly, high-spirited gentleman who literally falls into their midst. Later accused of murder and denounced for philandering everywhere he goes, Smith prompts his newfound acquaintances to recognize an important idea in most unexpected ways...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult -
My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad, Azar Nafisi
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA teenage boy makes the mistake of falling in love with the much-protected daughter of his uncle, mischievously nicknamed after his hero Napoleon Bonaparte, the curmudgeonly self-appointed patriarch of a large and extended Iranian family in 1940s Tehran...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century -
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:
classics historical-fiction humor realistic satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
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 satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
Fish Preferred by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHugh Carmody loved Millicent, Lord Emsworth niece, but he was very good friends with Sue Brown - an attachment which Millicent, perhaps, could hardly be expected to enthuse over. Ronnie Fish loved Sue, and entertained feelings o unrestrained ferocity towards Pilbeam, a blister of the first water, who was pestering her with flowers...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsAlong with Wit, Charm, Health, and Courage, Princess Amy of Phantasmorania receives a special fairy christening gift: Ordinariness. Unlike her six beautiful sisters, she has brown hair and freckles, and would rather have adventures than play the harp, embroider tapestries . . . or become a Queen...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction humor 20th-century action-adventure -
-
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Primary Phase by Douglas Adams, Simon Jones
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Special Edition of the original radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978 and recently voted the Nation's Favourite Audiobook in a Guardian poll... -
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek
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 satire violent-conflict war -
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...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction violent-conflict war 20th-century -
Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsO. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure anthologies -
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 satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
Emil's Pranks by Astrid Lindgren
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMischievous Emil tests out a pair of stilts, rides a horse, and goes on a sleigh ride, all with predictably disastrous results...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children -
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 friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction psychological violent-conflict war -
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsConsidered by critics to be Barth's most distinguished masterpiece, The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the wildly chaotic odyssey of hapless, ungainly Ebenezer Cooke, sent to the New World to look after his father's tobacco business and to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMiles from anywhere, Darracott Place is presided over by elderly Lord Darracott. Irascible Lord Darracott rules his barony with a firm hand. The tragic accident that killed his eldest son by drowning has done nothing to improve his temper. For now, he must send for the next heir apparent--the unknown offspring of the uncle whom the family is never permitted to mention... -
Sylvester by Georgette Heyer, Joan Wolf
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWhen the news went out that Sylvester Rayne, the elegant, impeccable Duke of Salford, was seeking a wife, all England was aflutter! Lord Sylvester is a polished bachelor who has stringent requirements for his future wife -- she must be well-born, intelligent, elegant and attractive. And of course she must be able to present herself well in high society...Categorized as:
classics drama family friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century -
-
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...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire violent-conflict war -
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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor violent-conflict war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Les Liaisons Dangereuses a Play by Christopher Hampton
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"Les Liaisons Dangereuses", A Play by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos. Produced on the Broadway Stage by James M. Nederlander, The Schubert Organization, Inc., Jerome Minskoff, Elizabeth I. McCann and Stephen Graham in association with Jonathan Farkas...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction humor 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
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...Categorized as:
classics friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction violent-conflict war 20th-century -
Around the World with Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis, Edward Everett Tanner III
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEncore, Encore! The brilliant sequel to the smash bestseller Auntie Mame is back and the reviews are in ..Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century -
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...Categorized as:
classics family historical-fiction humor violent-conflict war 20th-century action-adventure -
A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana—the book that inspired the equally classic Yuletide film.The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year... -
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 satire violent-conflict war 20th-century -
Just William by Richmal Crompton
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings[...]began as a wild young man in evening clothes drinking intoxicants and playing cards, he ended as a wild old man in rags still drinking intoxicants and playing cards. He had a small child with a pious and superior expression, who spent her time weeping over him and exhorting him to a better life, till, in a moment of justifiable exasperation, he threw a beer bottle at her head...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction humor 20th-century action-adventure -
An Irish Country Village by Patrick Taylor
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsPatrick Taylor first charmed readers with An Irish Country Doctor, a warm and enchanting novel in the tradition of James Herriot and Jan Karon. Now Taylor returns to the colorful Northern Ireland community of Ballybucklebo, where there's always something brewing beneath the village's deceptively sleepy surface...Categorized as:
drama family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
-
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTo Kitty Charing, the conditions of her guardian's will were intolerable. She had to marry one of his nephews before she could inherit a farthing of the old man's fortune. And the only nephew she wanted was handsome Jack Westruther. Jack, however, made it quite clear he was not ready for marriage...Categorized as:
classics drama family friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic -
Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOne thing that constantly disrupts the peace of life at Blandings is the constant incursion of impostors. Blandings has impostors like other houses have mice. Now there are two of them – both intent on a dangerous enterprise...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction satire 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsWelcome to Centerburg! Where you can win a hundred dollars by eating all the doughnuts you want; where houses are built in a day; and where a boy named Homer Price can foil four slick bandits using nothing but his wits and pet skunk...Categorized as:
classics family friendship historical-fiction humor realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
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...Categorized as:
drama family friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic violent-conflict -
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 65 ratingsBeneath the kitchen floor is the world of the Borrowers -- Pod and Homily Clock and their daughter, Arrietty. In their tiny home, matchboxes double as roomy dressers and postage stamps hang on the walls like paintings. Whatever the Clocks need they simply "borrow" from the "human beans" who live above them. It's a comfortable life, but boring if you're a kid...Categorized as:
classics family friendship historical-fiction humor literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure -
A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsJoin Joey and his sister Mary Alice as they spend nine unforgettable summers with the worst influence imaginable--their...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.