Books like 'Gulag: A History'
Readers who enjoyed Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century psychological military, war & conflict action / adventure politics war communism cold-war ww2
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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... -
![Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, Edwin O. Reischauer]()
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, Edwin O. Reischauer
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsThe classic samurai novel about the real exploits of the most famous swordsman. Musashi is a novel in the best tradition of Japanese story telling. It is a living story, subtle and imaginative, teeming with memorable characters, many of them historical... -
![The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura]()
The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA gripping novel about the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940In The Man Who Loved Dogs, Leonardo Padura brings a noir sensibility to one of the most fascinating and complex political narratives of the past hundred years: the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramón Mercader...Categorized as:
cold-war communism crime historical-fiction politics 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
![The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult]()
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome stories live forever . . .Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction survival war ww2 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
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![The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, Фредерик Форсайт]()
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, Фредерик Форсайт
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsLibrarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.The Jackal. A tall, blond Englishman with opaque, gray eyes. A killer at the top of his profession. A man unknown to any secret service in the world. An assassin with a contract to kill the world's most heavily guarded man.One man with a rifle who can change the course of history... -
![Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah]()
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsCan a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother? From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be...Categorized as:
historical-fiction survival war ww2 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook -
![Death Is My Trade by Robert Merle]()
Death Is My Trade by Robert Merle
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe story begins in 1913, when Rudolf Lang is 13 years old. His parents give him a harsh catholic education, which is very badly accepted by Rudolf. His unstable father, with whom the young Lang has an awkward relationship, wants Rudolf to become priest. At the age of fifteen, Lang starts his military career which eventually leads him to the post of commandant of Auschwitz in 1943... -
![Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov]()
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsFoundation and Empire tells the incredible story of a new breed of man who create a new force for galactic government. Thus, the Foundation hurtles into conflict with the decadent, decrepit First Empire. In this struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars, man stands at the threshold of a new, enlightened life which could easily be put aside for the old forces of barbarism... -
![Chess Story by Stefan Zweig]()
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsChess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological... -
![The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear]()
The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs Europe buckles under Nazi occupation, Maisie Dobbs investigates a possible murder that threatens devastating repercussions for Britain's war efforts in this latest installment in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.September 1941. While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder... -
![Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes]()
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA big, powerful saga of men in combat, written over the course of thirty-five years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones's The Thin Red Line... -
![Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett]()
Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsOne enemy spy knows the secret to the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin -- code name: "The Needle" -- who holds the key to ultimate Nazi victory. Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is beginning to love the killer who has mysteriously entered her life... -
![Foundation by Isaac Asimov]()
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsFor twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years... -
![The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear]()
The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe story opens in August 1914 in the Santa Ynez Valley in California. Michael Clifton—youngest son of an Englishman who had emigrated to America when he was in his late teens, in search of his fortune—has just purchased a tract of land he believes is rich with oil. Fate steps in when Michael learns Britain is going to war in Europe...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction military war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult -
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![The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk]()
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsUpon its original publication in 1951, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was immediately embraced as one of the first serious works of fiction to help readers grapple with the human consequences of World War II... -
![Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Geoff Wilkes]()
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Geoff Wilkes
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsInspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword by Geoff Wilkes, as well as facsimiles of the original Gestapo file which inspired the novel. Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear... -
![Sophie's Choice by William Styron]()
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. There, he meets Nathan, a fiery Jewish intellectual; and Sophie, a beautiful and fragile Polish Catholic. Stingo is drawn into the heart of their passionate and destructive relationship as witness, confidant and supplicant...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction survival war ww2 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
![Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan]()
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAn immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is a searing portrayal of war that has stunned and galvanized generations of readers...Categorized as:
classics dystopia historical-fiction military politics social-commentary survival war -
![The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro]()
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world postwar England...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction politics social-commentary war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]()
The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNotice: "In the First Circle" and "The First Circle": "In The First Circle" is 200pp longer; "The first circle" is a censored and abridged version.Set in Moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, 'The First Circle' is the story of the prisoner Gleb Nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician...Categorized as:
classics communism historical-fiction politics prison war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Company by Robert Littell]()
The Company by Robert Littell
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Barnes & Noble ReviewSince the publication of his 1973 debut thriller, The Defection of A. J. Lewinter, Robert Littell has evolved into one of the most credible, consistently interesting espionage novelists of the modern era... -
![Where the Heart Is by Annie Groves]()
Where the Heart Is by Annie Groves
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA fabulous drama of the Campion family, struggling to stay together as World War Two rages over Liverpool Lou Campion has joined the WAAFs, against the wishes of her parents and twin sister Sasha. Lou's always been a rebel, but now finds that if she wants to succeed she'll have to follow extremely strict rules... -
![Ellie Pride by Annie Groves]()
Ellie Pride by Annie Groves
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA stunning saga debut from an author destined to be a star of the genre -- ELLIE PRIDE is an engrossing, heartrending story of love, passion, duty and family, set in the North-east in the early part of the twentieth century. A stirring tale charting the life of Ellie Pride, a beautiful Preston girl who, when her mother dies, must forge her own way in the world... -
![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...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction politics war 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
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![The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna]()
The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsRecommended reading as part of the Chief of Naval Operation's Professional Reading Program!This now-classic novel by Richard McKenna enjoyed great critical acclaim and commercial success when it was first published in 1962... -
![The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford]()
The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in the ghettos of wartime Warsaw, this is a sweeping, poignant and heartbreaking tale, based on the true story of one of World War II's quiet heroes - Dr Janusz Korczak.'You do not leave a sick child alone to face the dark and you do not leave a child at a time like this.'Deeply in love and about to marry, students Misha and Sophia flee a Warsaw under Nazi occupation for a chance at freedom... -
![Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler]()
Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSomething has gone wrong. A group of American bombers armed with nuclear weapons is streaking past the fail-safe point, beyond recall, and no one knows why. Their destination—Moscow.In a bomb shelter beneath the White House, the calm young president turns to his Russian translator and says, "I think we are ready to talk to Premier Kruschchev... -
![An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear]()
An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn her fifth outing, Maisie Dobbs, the extraordinary Psychologist and Investigator, delves into a strange series of crimes in a small rural community.With the country in the grip of economic malaise, and worried about her business, Maisie Dobbs is relieved to accept an apparently straightforward assignment from an old friend to investigate certain matters concerning a potential land purchase... -
![Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer]()
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph. The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war... -
![Qb VII by Leon Uris]()
Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors... -
![Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear]()
Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsIn the third novel of this bestselling series, London investigator Maisie Dobbs faces grave danger as she returns to the site of her most painful WWI memories to resolve the mystery of a pilot's death.A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator... -
![The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré]()
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction... -
![Human Acts by Han Kang, Alba Cunill Fulquet]()
Human Acts by Han Kang, Alba Cunill Fulquet
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian, a rare and astonishing (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice.In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult asia -
![The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien]()
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThis depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home... -
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![Poison at the Village Show: The start of a BRAND NEW cozy murder mystery series from Catherine Coles for 2022 by Catherine Coles]()
Poison at the Village Show: The start of a BRAND NEW cozy murder mystery series from Catherine Coles for 2022 by Catherine Coles
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWestleham Village 1947. It’s the Westleham village show and with the war finally over, everyone is looking forward to a pleasant day.But newcomer, Martha Miller doesn’t share the excitement. Because since her husband Stan left for work one day and never returned, Martha has been treated as somewhat of an outsider in Westleham. The village gossip is that Martha must be to blame…...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction military ww2 19th-century 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![One Good Deed by David Baldacci]()
One Good Deed by David Baldacci
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 28 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci returns with his next blockbuster thriller... -
![Random Harvest by James Hilton]()
Random Harvest by James Hilton
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsCharles Rainier, a prosperous Briton, loses his memory as a result of shellshock in the First World War... -
![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... -
![The Door by Magda Szabó, أسماء المطيري]()
The Door by Magda Szabó, أسماء المطيري
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA busy young writer struggling to cope with domestic chores, hires a housekeeper recommended by a friend. The housekeeper's reputation is one built on dependable efficiency, though she is something of an oddity. Stubborn, foul-mouthed and with a flagrant disregard for her employer's opinions she may even be crazy... -
![The Last Kiss by Sally Malcolm]()
The Last Kiss by Sally Malcolm
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA tender and triumphant story of forbidden love in the aftermath of warWhen Captain Ashleigh Arthur Dalton went to war in 1914, he never expected to fall in love. Yet over three long years at the front, his dashing batman, Private West, became his reason for fighting—and his reason for living.But Ash’s war ends in catastrophe... -
![Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith]()
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsA triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it... -
![The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon]()
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAs compelling and disturbing as when it was first published in the midst of the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate continues to enthrall readers with its electrifying action and shocking climax....Sgt. Raymond Shaw is a hero of the first order. He's an ex-prisoner of war who saved the life of his entire outfit, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the stepson of an influential senator.. -
![The Captain by Jan de Hartog]()
The Captain by Jan de Hartog
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe book centers around the specialized Ocean tugboat trade. In 1940 Harinxma, then a young tugboat officer, escapes to Britain. The Kwel company has managed to get away much of its fleet and personnel, one jump ahead of the advancing Germans, and sets up to continue operations from London... -
![London Belles by Annie Groves]()
London Belles by Annie Groves
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLondon Belles is a tale of four very different young women thrown together by war. Finding freedom and independence – as well as love, passion and heartbreak – for the very first time, a unique bond is formed as the hostilities take their toll on Britain. Four lives. One war that will change them all. When tragedy strikes, Olive is forced to seek lodgers... -
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![Song of the Exile by Kiana Davenport]()
Song of the Exile by Kiana Davenport
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this epic, original novel in which Hawaii's fierce, sweeping past springs to life, Kiana Davenport, author of the acclaimed Shark Dialogues, draws upon the remarkable stories of her people to create a timeless, passionate tale of love and survival, tragedy and triumph, survival and transcendence... -
![Mary Russell's War And Other Stories of Suspense by Laurie R. King]()
Mary Russell's War And Other Stories of Suspense by Laurie R. King
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLaurie R. King illuminates the hidden corners of her beloved Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series in this dynamic short story collection.In nine short stories, seven of which have never previously been available in print, and one brand-new, never-before-seen Sherlock Holmes mystery available together for the first time Laurie R...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook -
![The Charioteer by Mary Renault]()
The Charioteer by Mary Renault
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAfter enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance... -
![The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig]()
The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort... -
![Fatelessness by Imre Kertész]()
Fatelessness by Imre Kertész
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAt the age of 14 Georg Koves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn’t particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, “You are no Jew... -
![A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear]()
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn the summer of 1932, Maisie Dobbs’s career takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment directed by Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and the Secret Service. Posing as a junior lecturer, she is sent to a private college in Cambridge to monitor any activities, “not in the interests of His Majesty’s Government...
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