Books like 'The Glass Palace'
Readers who enjoyed The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century action / adventure military, war & conflict historical-fiction literary-fiction journey war drama family
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The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAt the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste.. -
![Sea of Memories by Fiona Valpy]()
Sea of Memories by Fiona Valpy
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWhen Kendra first visits her ailing grandmother, Ella has only one request: that Kendra write her story down, before she forgets…In 1937, seventeen-year-old Ella’s life changes forever when she is sent to spend the summer on the beautiful Île de Ré and meets the charismatic, creative Christophe... -
![Sodan mainingit by Herman Wouk]()
Sodan mainingit by Herman Wouk
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThese two classic works capture the tide of world events even as they unfold the compelling tale of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom.The multimillion-copy bestsellers that capture all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of the Second World War -- and that constitute Wouk's crowning achievement -- are available for the first time in trade paperback... -
![My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel]()
My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCentered around the 1986 attempt on the life of Augusto Pinochet, an event that changed Chile forever, My Tender Matador is one of the most explosive, controversial, and popular novels to have been published in that country in decades. It is spring 1986 in the city of Santiago, and Augusto Pinochet is losing his grip on power... -
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![Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, Robert Chandler]()
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, Robert Chandler
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLife and Fate is an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs. As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies in a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war... -
![Broken Angels by Gemma Liviero]()
Broken Angels by Gemma Liviero
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA Nazi doctor. A Jewish rebel. A little girl. Each one will fight for freedom—or die trying. Imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, Elsi discovers her mother’s desperate attempt to end her pregnancy and comes face-to-face with the impossibility of their situation. Risking her own life, Elsi joins a resistance group to sabotage the regime...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Winds of War by Herman Wouk]()
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsLike no other masterpiece of historical fiction, Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II is the great novel of America's Greatest Generation.Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of global events, as well as all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of World War II, as it immerses us in the lives of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom... -
![Return to Robinswood by Jean Grainger]()
Return to Robinswood by Jean Grainger
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsOne Irish house, two very different families, and a war that changed everything. Robinswood Estate, County Waterford, Ireland. 1946.Years of neglect and abandonment have left the family seat of the Keneficks almost derelict, but the new Lord Kenefick and his charming young wife Kate, are determined to breathe life into the old house once more... -
![The Killer Angels: A Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara]()
The Killer Angels: A Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIncisive portraits of Lee, Longstreet, Meade, and other Civil War leaders are interwoven with rich historical detail to provide a fictional recreation of the bloody battle at Gettysburg, in a new thirtieth anniversary edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novel. 10,000 first printing... -
![Winter of the World by Ken Follett]()
Winter of the World by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsWinter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs... -
![Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque]()
Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt is 1939. Despite a law banning him from performing surgery, Ravic – a German doctor and refugee living in Paris – has been treating some of the city’s most elite citizens for two years on the behalf of two less-than-skillful French physicians... -
![Forest of the Gods by Balys Sruoga]()
Forest of the Gods by Balys Sruoga
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBalys Sruoga was a well-known Lithuanian poet, dramatist, and literary critic. In 1943, professor of Vilnius University, he was deported to Stutthof concentration camp (along with other professors, under the charge of campaigning students against joining the Reich troops)... -
![The Cypress Maze by Fiona Valpy]()
The Cypress Maze by Fiona Valpy
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn this haunting tale from the bestselling author of The Storyteller of Casablanca, Beatrice kept a wartime secret to protect the innocent. Now, could telling it set her free?Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered... -
![Always in my Heart by Ellie Dean]()
Always in my Heart by Ellie Dean
Rated: 4.60 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAs the Japanese begin their assault on Singapore, Sarah Fuller is forced to leave her parents and fianc�, Philip, behind. The long journey to England is fraught with danger, and Sarah and her sister Jane don't even know if their great-aunt is alive, let alone waiting for them. They arrive in Cliffehaven, on the south coast of England, and here Sarah must find work to support them both...Categorized as:
epic family historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
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![To Live by Yu Hua, 余华]()
To Live by Yu Hua, 余华
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. This searing novel, originally banned in China but later named one of that nation's most influential books, portrays one man's transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant... -
![The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa]()
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsHaunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, forty-nine-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic - and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million people... -
![The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić]()
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, The Bridge on the Drina earned Ivo Andric the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. A great stone bridge built three centuries ago in the heart of the Balkans by a Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire dominates the setting of Andric's stunning novel... -
![Trinity by Leon Uris]()
Trinity by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLeon Uris’s beloved Irish classic, available in Avon mass market. From the acclaimed author who enthralled the world with Exodus, Battle Cry, QB VII, Topaz, and other beloved classics of twentieth-century fiction comes a sweeping and powerful epic adventure that captures the "terrible beauty" of Ireland during its long and bloody struggle for freedom... -
![Mila 18 by Leon Uris]()
Mila 18 by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt was a time of crisis, a time of tragedy and a time of transcendent courage and determination. Leon Uris's novel is set in the midst of the ghetto uprising that defied Nazi tyranny, as the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists... -
![The Girl from the Tea Garden by Janet MacLeod Trotter]()
The Girl from the Tea Garden by Janet MacLeod Trotter
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the dying days of the Raj, Anglo-Indian schoolgirl Adela Robson dreams of a glamorous career on the stage. When she sneaks away from school in the back of handsome Sam Jackman’s car, she knows a new life awaits—but it is not the one she imagined... -
![Standing at the Scratch Line: King Tremain Series, Book 1 by Guy Johnson, Dion Graham]()
Standing at the Scratch Line: King Tremain Series, Book 1 by Guy Johnson, Dion Graham
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRaised in the steamy bayous of New Orleans in the early 1900s, LeRoi "King" Tremain, caught up in his family's ongoing feud with the rival DuMont family, learns to fight. But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains' fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana... -
![The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman]()
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThere on her forearm, next to a small brown birthmark, were six tattooed numbers. 'Do you remember me now?' he asked, trembling. She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost. 'Lenka, it's me,' he said. 'Josef. Your husband.' During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, falls in love with Josef... -
![The Last Restaurant in Paris by Lily Graham]()
The Last Restaurant in Paris by Lily Graham
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsParis 1944. To save her people, she served the enemy.In enemy-occupied Paris, as the locals go to bed starving and defeated by the war, music and laughter spills through the door of a little restaurant, crowded with German soldiers. The owner Marianne moves on weary feet between its packed tables, carrying plates of steaming, wholesome food for the enemy officers...Categorized as:
historical-fiction journey literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure book -
![Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais]()
Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPerfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg... -
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![House of Glass by Pramoedya Ananta Toer]()
House of Glass by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWith House Of Glass comes the final chapter of Pramoedya's epic quartet, set in the Dutch East Indies at the turn of the century. A novel of heroism, passion, and betrayal, it provides a spectacular conclusion to a series hailed as one of the great works of modern literature... -
![Rosa's Gold - A Story of Holocaust Echoes by Ray Kingfisher]()
Rosa's Gold - A Story of Holocaust Echoes by Ray Kingfisher
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNicole Sutton is a young girl with problems. A tragic car accident has taken away her brother, and ripped her parents' marriage apart. Together with her mother she moves to a new house, a new town, and a life she never wanted. In the dusty cellar of the house she stumbles upon a well-worn notebook – the scribbled war memoirs of Mac, an old soldier...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart]()
While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA family's love is tested when heroes-turned-criminals are forced to make the hardest decisions of their lives in this unforgettably moving story of love, resistance, and the lasting consequences of the Second World War. After. Santa Cruz, California, 1953. Jean-Luc and Charlotte Beauchamps have left their war-torn memories of Paris behind to live a quiet life in America with their son, Sam...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![Small Country by Gaël Faye]()
Small Country by Gaël Faye
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratings‘A luminous and poignant novel about childhood, war, exile and identity…this is literature at its most powerful’ Le Parisien Magazine Burundi, 1992. For ten-year-old Gabriel, life in his comfortable expat neighbourhood of Bujumbura with his French father, Rwandan mother and little sister, Ana, is something close to paradise... -
![The Throwaway Children by Diney Costeloe]()
The Throwaway Children by Diney Costeloe
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsGritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War 2. Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him... -
![I Saw Her That Night by Drago Jančar]()
I Saw Her That Night by Drago Jančar
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsI Saw Her That Night, a love story in time of war, is a novel about a few years in the life and mysterious disappearance of Veronika Zarnik, a young bourgeois woman from Ljubljana, sucked into the whirlwind of a turbulent period in history... -
![If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi]()
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPrimo Levi was among the greatest witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In this gripping novel, based on a true story, he reveals the extraordinary lives of the Russian, Polish and Jewish partisans trapped behind enemy lines during the Second World War... -
![How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee]()
How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSingapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child.In a neighboring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is strapped into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery as a "comfort woman... -
![The Kites by Romain Gary]()
The Kites by Romain Gary
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn a small farm in Normandy, as Hitler rises to power in Germany, young Ludo comes of age in the care of his Uncle Ambrose, an eccentric mailman, kite-maker, and pacifist. Ludo’s quiet existence changes the day he meets Lila, a girl from the aristocratic Polish family who own the estate next door. In a single glance, Ludo instantly falls in love forever; Lila, on the other hand, remains elusive...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction journey literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen]()
We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIt is an epic drama of adventure, courage, ruthlessness and passion by one of Scandinavia’s most acclaimed storytellers.In 1848 a motley crew of Danish sailors sets sail from the small island town of Marstal to fight the Germans. Not all of them return – and those who do will never be the same... -
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![The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa]()
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe War of the End of the World is one of the great modern historical novels. Inspired by a real episode in Brazilian history, Mario Vargas Llosa tells the unforgettable story of an apocalyptic movement, led by a mysterious prophet, in which prostitutes, beggars and bandits establish Canudos, a new republic, a libertarian paradise... -
![The Narrowboat Girls: a heartwarming story of friendship, struggle and falling in love by Rosie Archer]()
The Narrowboat Girls: a heartwarming story of friendship, struggle and falling in love by Rosie Archer
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen the Second World War takes Britain's men away to fight, it is women who step up to fill the jobs left behind. From farms to factories, no job is too back-breaking, and for many women it offers their first real chance at independence.Two such women from very different backgrounds find themselves working on the narrowboats - piloting freights round southern England's network of canals... -
![Bitter Tears by Marion Kummerow]()
Bitter Tears by Marion Kummerow
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRichard Klausen is a fugitive. A Wehrmacht deserter, hiding out on a farm in Poland. He thought once the war was over, he’d be safe. Wrong. Things only get worse and staying in Poland threatens his very life. Katrina Zdanek longs for peace. But when it’s finally there, she soon finds out that loving the wrong man still is a crime. She’s Polish. He’s German. Antagonists even after the war... -
![On the Wings of Hope by Ella Zeiss, Helen MacCormac]()
On the Wings of Hope by Ella Zeiss, Helen MacCormac
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAs World War II draws to a close, can two young people find love, hope—and freedom?February 1942: Terrifying reports of the Wehrmacht’s advance across the Soviet Union spread like wildfire, striking new fear into the already oppressed German families living there.Harri Pfeiffer, now sixteen, is summoned to the forced labour camp in Chelyabinsk... -
![Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz]()
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis is a sweeping and evocative portrait of both a family and a country struggling to move toward independence in a society that has resisted change for centuries. Set against the backdrop of Britain's occupation of Egypt immediately after World War I, Palace Walk introduces us to the Al Jawad family... -
![My Mother's Secret by J.L. Witterick]()
My Mother's Secret by J.L. Witterick
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA novel based on a true story, a mother and daughter risk their lives to provide shelter to two families and a German soldier--all unbeknownst to each other--in a tiny two-room house in Sokal, Poland, during the Nazi invasion...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute]()
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsNevil Shute's most beloved novel, a tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback.Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children... -
![Pereira Declares: A Testimony by Antonio Tabucchi]()
Pereira Declares: A Testimony by Antonio Tabucchi
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsDr. Pereira is an aging, overweightjournalist who has failed to noticethe menacing cloud of fascism overSalazarist Portugal, until one day hemeets an aspiring young writer andanti-fascist. Breaking out of his apolitical torpor, Pereira reluctantly rises to heroism... -
![Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani]()
Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis collection of important stories by novelist, journalist, teacher, and Palestinian activist Ghassan Kanafani includes the stunning novella Men in the Sun (1962), the basis of the The Deceived. Also in the volume are "The Land of Sad Oranges" (1958), "'If You Were a Horse..Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics university war 20th-century -
![The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway]()
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTHE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc university war 20th-century -
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![They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy, Patrick Leigh Fermor]()
They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy, Patrick Leigh Fermor
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPainting an unrivalled portrait of the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, this story is told through the eyes of two young Transylvanian cousins, Count Balint Abady and Count Laszlo Gyeroffy...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics war 20th-century action-adventure -
![A Bitter Rain by James D. Shipman]()
A Bitter Rain by James D. Shipman
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA former professor descends into darkness in this provocative story of a Nazi soldier torn between duty and conscience. East Prussia, Nazi Germany, 1939. History professor Erik Mueller is a model citizen and a family man. He’s also a decorated sergeant in the Gestapo... -
![Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić, Joseph Hitrec]()
Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić, Joseph Hitrec
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in the town of Travnik, Bosnian Chronicle presents the struggle for supremacy in a region that stubbornly refuses to submit to any outsider. The era is Napoleanic and the novel, both in its historical scope and psychological subtley, Tolstoyan. In its portray of conflict and fierce ethnic loyalties, the story is also eerily relevant...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea by Pearl S. Buck]()
The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsThe Living Reed follows four generations of one family, the Kims, beginning with Il-han and his father, both advisors to the royal family in Korea. When Japan invades and the queen is killed, Il-han takes his family into hiding. In the ensuing years, he and his family take part in the secret war against the Japanese occupation. Pearl S... -
![The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw]()
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war... -
![The Last Checkmate by Gabriella Saab]()
The Last Checkmate by Gabriella Saab
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsReaders of Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz and watchers of The Queen’s Gambit won’t want to miss this amazing debut set during World War II. A young Polish resistance worker, imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, plays chess in exchange for her life, and in doing so fights to bring the man who destroyed her family to justice...
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