Books like 'In the Distance'
Readers who enjoyed In the Distance by Hernan Diaz also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure psychological historical-fiction western literary-fiction outdoors latinx-mc survival coming-of-age
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Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsAvailable in English for the first time, this best-selling Turkish classic of love and alienation in a changing world captures the vibrancy of interwar Berlin. A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade and discover life in 1920s Berlin... -
![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... -
![The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante]()
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 42 ratings"Nothing quite like this has ever been published before," proclaimed The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance... -
![The Endless Forest by Sara Donati]()
The Endless Forest by Sara Donati
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsWith a master storyteller’s skill and a historian’s precision, Sara Donati has delighted readers and critics alike with her bestselling novels of the nineteenth-century New York frontier. Now she brings us The Endless Forest, set in the remote village of Paradise, where the Bonner family that readers first met in Into the Wilderness make their home...Categorized as:
family friendship historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors poc-mc western action-adventure -
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![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:
family friendship grief historical-fiction literary-fiction survival 20th-century 21st-century -
![The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See]()
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc survival 20th-century -
![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... -
![Unintended Consequences by John Ross, Timothy Mullin]()
Unintended Consequences by John Ross, Timothy Mullin
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsUnintended Consequences is a novel by John Ross, first published in 1996 by Accurate Press. The story chronicles the history of the gun culture, gun rights, and gun control in the United States from the early 1900s through the late 1990s...Categorized as:
historical-fiction survival action-adventure adult book fiction historical political-intrigue -
![Never Kiss Goodbye by Laura Haley-McNeil]()
Never Kiss Goodbye by Laura Haley-McNeil
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA cowboy haunted by his past. A woman stalked by a deadly secret.Pregnant and on the run, Lily Harkin will do anything to protect her unborn child, but no one can know her secret – a secret so horrific it could destroy her and anyone she meets.Bronc rider Josh Merrick can’t forget the mistake that cost a woman her life...Categorized as:
western literary-fiction industrial-era romance mystery fiction historical action-adventure -
![A Season for Scandal by Laura Wood]()
A Season for Scandal by Laura Wood
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAn all-female detective agency righting wrongs at the end of the nineteenth century; infiltrating a scandalous upper class world straight out of Bridgerton and using their wit and bravery to unmask a villain...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family industrial-era friendship grief romance historical mystery -
![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... -
![Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse]()
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsNarcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth hungry for knowledge and worldly experience. First published in 1930, Hesse's novel remains a moving and pointed exploration of the conflict between the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh... -
![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... -
![A History of Loneliness by John Boyne]()
A History of Loneliness by John Boyne
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPropelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full of hope and ambition. When he arrives at Clonliffe Seminary in the 1970s, it is a time in Ireland when priests are highly respected, and Odran believes that he is pledging his life to "the good."Forty years later, Odran's devotion is caught in revelations that shatter the Irish people's faith in the Catholic Church...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult -
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![The Bone Tree by Greg Iles]()
The Bone Tree by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis edition cancelled by the publisher... -
![Extinction by Thomas Bernhard]()
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... -
![Collected Stories by Carson McCullers]()
Collected Stories by Carson McCullers
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe novelist, dramatist, and poet Carson McCullers was at the peak of her powers as a writer of short fiction.In nineteen stories that explore her signature themes of wounded adolescence, loneliness in marriage, and the tragicomedy of life in the South, McCullers's novellas "The Member of the Wedding" and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" are also included...Categorized as:
historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics -
![Panther in the Sky: A Novel Based on the Life of Tecumseh by James Alexander Thom]()
Panther in the Sky: A Novel Based on the Life of Tecumseh by James Alexander Thom
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsRich, colorful and bursting with excitement, this remarkable story turns James Alexander Thom's power and passion for American history to the epic story of Tecumseh's life and give us a heart-thumping novel of one man's magnificent destiny--to unite his people in the struggle to save their land and their way of life from the relentless press of the white settlers... -
![Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz]()
Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz, Naguib Mahfouz
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSugar Street is the third and concluding volume of the celebrated Cairo Trilogy, which brings the story of Al-Sayid Ahmad and his family up to the middle of the twentieth century.Aging and ill, the family patriarch surveys the world from his housewares's latticed balcony, as his long-suffering wife once did...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult africa -
![The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak]()
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsA mesmerizing tale of love-from the author of The Bastard of Istanbul Elif Shafak, the most widely read female writer in Turkey, has earned a growing fan base all over the world with her bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul...Categorized as:
family friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 21st-century action-adventure adult -
![The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak]()
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsElla Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara...Categorized as:
family friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 21st-century action-adventure adult -
![The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi]()
The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn the spirit of Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi and Shilpi Somaya Gowda comes this powerful debut from a talented new voice—a sweeping, emotional journey of two childhood friends in Mumbai, India, whose lives converge only to change forever one fateful night...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc survival abuse -
![The Ranch by Michael Robert]()
The Ranch by Michael Robert
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn Erotic Gay Romance Josh West left the family ranch at eighteen, swearing to never return to Cody, Wyoming again. After the untimely death of his parents ten years later, he leaves the mess of his soon-to-be-ex behind in Seattle and returns to the ranch as the now fourth-generation owner to handle the sale of the land... -
![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:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
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![Natchez Burning by Greg Iles]()
Natchez Burning by Greg Iles
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratings#1 New York Times bestselling novelist Greg Iles returns with his most eagerly anticipated book yet, and his first in five years – Natchez Burning, the first installment in an epic trilogy that weaves crimes, lies, and secret past and present into a mesmerizing thriller featuring Southern mayor and former prosecutor Penn Cage...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi]()
A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn her twelfth year, Kirabo, a young Ugandan girl, confronts a piercing question that has haunted her childhood: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small village of Nattetta—her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts, but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow... -
![The Unwilling by John Hart]()
The Unwilling by John Hart
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in the South at the height of the Vietnam War, The Unwilling combines crime, suspense and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul in New York Times bestselling author John Hart's singular style. Gibby's older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean]()
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom its first magnificent sentence, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing," to the last, "I am haunted by waters," "A River Runs Through It" is an American classic... -
![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... -
![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:
family friendship grief historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 20th-century 21st-century -
![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... -
![Wolves by W.A. Hoffman]()
Wolves by W.A. Hoffman
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWolves is a romantic gay historical novel and the fourth and final volume of the Raised By Wolves series. Raised By Wolves chronicles the relationship between buccaneers Will and his beloved matelot, Gaston, during the infamous Henry Morgan raids against the Spanish Main in the late 1660's... -
![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:
friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book classics -
![A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas, Imre Goldstein]()
A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas, Imre Goldstein
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis extraordinary magnum opus seems at first to be a confessional autobiographical novel in the grand manner, claiming and extending the legacy of Proust and Mann. But it is more: Peter Nadas has given us a superb contemporary psychological novel that comes to terms with the ghosts, corpses, and repressed nightmares of Europe's recent past...Categorized as:
historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult book classics -
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![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...Categorized as:
family friendship historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![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...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![Dina's Book by Herbjørg Wassmo]()
Dina's Book by Herbjørg Wassmo
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOn the scale of Gone with the Wind and War and Peace, this grand, sweeping epic will enthrall readers just as Dina bewitches everyone she meets.Set in Norway in the mid-nineteenth century, Dina's Book presents an extraordinary heroine. Beautiful, eccentric, and tempestuous, Dina carries a terrible burden: at the age of five she accidentally causes her mother's death...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![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 Moonspinners by Mary Stewart]()
The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsYoung, beautiful, and adventurous Nicola Ferris loves her life as a secretary at the British Embassy on the lush island of Crete. Then on her day off, she links up with two hiking companions who have inadvertently stumbledupon a scene of blood vengeance. And suddenly the life Nicola adores is in danger of coming to an abrupt, brutal, and terrifying end . -
![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... -
![Aesop's Fables by Aesop, Ann McGovern]()
Aesop's Fables by Aesop, Ann McGovern
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSixty-seven familiar and not so familiar fables from Aesop, including the tortoise and the hare, the frogs who wanted a king, the lion who fell in love, and the donkey who danced on the roof... -
![Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World by Kathleen Ragan, Jane Yolen]()
Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World by Kathleen Ragan, Jane Yolen
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsDismayed by the predominance of male protagonists in her daughters' books, Kathleen Ragan set out to collect the stories of our forgotten heroines. Gathered from around the world, from regions as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe, from North and South American Indian cultures and New World settlers, from Asia and the Middle East, these 100 folktales celebrate strong female heroines... -
![The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar]()
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsSet in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years...Categorized as:
family friendship historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc 21st-century abuse action-adventure -
![Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki]()
Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsHailed by The New Yorker as "rich in understanding and insight," Kokoro — "the heart of things" — is the work of one of Japan's most popular authors. This thought-provoking trilogy of stories explores the very essence of loneliness and stands as a stirring introduction to modern Japanese literature... -
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![The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy]()
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA poignant and suspenseful retelling of a classic fairy tale set in a war-torn world. In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel... -
![The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima]()
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting and vivid portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple... -
![None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney]()
None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsA psychological thriller about two teenagers teaming up with the FBI to track down juvenile serial killers.In 1982, two teenagers—serial killer survivor Emma Lewis and US Marshal candidate Travis Bell—are recruited by the FBI to interview convicted juvenile killers and provide insight and advice on cold cases... -
![Lilli de Jong by Janet Benton]()
Lilli de Jong by Janet Benton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA young woman finds the most powerful love of her life when she gives birth at an institution for unwed mothers in 1883 Philadelphia. She is told she must give up her daughter to avoid a life of poverty and shame. But she chooses to keep her...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction literary-fiction survival action-adventure adult audiobook book -
![A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton]()
A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the tradition of Memoirs of a Geisha and The Piano Teacher, a heart-wrenching debut novel of family, forgiveness, and the exquisite pain of love When Amaterasu Takahashi opens the door of her Philadelphia home to a badly scarred man claiming to be her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. Her grandson and her daughter, Yuko, perished nearly forty years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki...Categorized as:
family grief historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian]()
The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsIn this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction western family friendship industrial-era romance fiction
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