Books like 'The Dark Road'
Readers who enjoyed The Dark Road by Ma Jian also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary action / adventure historical-fiction politics magical-realism drama family literary-fiction journey
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So Long, Chester Wheeler by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsUnlikely road trip companions form an unexpected bond in an uplifting novel about the past—lost and found—by the New York Times and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author.Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he’s roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn’t need the aggravation, just the money... -
Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsLiving by their wits in the steamy slums of Bahia, a gang of orphans and runaways, led by fifteen-year-old "Bullet," spend their time stealing from Brazil's rich and privileged until public outcry demands their capture...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRecalling the brutal landscape of The Road and the wartime storytelling of A Farewell to Arms, The Orphanage is a searing novel that excavates the human collateral damage wrought by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction journey fiction war contemporary audiobook 21st-century -
Fresh Water for Flowers: A Novel by Valérie Perrin
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsViolette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues—gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest—visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences... -
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The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi, سعود السنعوسي
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsDaring and bold, The Bamboo Stalk takes an unflinching look at the universal struggles of identity, race, and class as they intersect between two disparate societies: Kuwait and the Philippines. Josephine comes to Kuwait from the Philippines to work as a maid, where she meets Rashid, a spoiled but kind-hearted only son...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsPublished in Indonesia in 2005, "The Rainbow Troops," Andrea Hirata's closely autobiographical debut novel, sold more than five million copies, shattering records. Now it promises to captivate audiences around the globe.Ikal is a student at the poorest village school on the Indonesian island of Belitong, where graduating from sixth grade is considered a remarkable achievement...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction action-adventure bildungsroman book -
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Adjoa Andoh
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Orange Prize-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, come twelve dazzling stories in which she turns her penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the West...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics 21st-century action-adventure -
The Coordinates of Loss by Amanda Prowse
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom bestselling author Amanda Prowse comes a tale of a blissful life, a happy marriage, a beloved son…and a tragedy that destroys it all. When Rachel Croft wakes up on her family’s boat in Bermuda, it’s to sunshine and yet another perfect day…until she goes to wake her seven-year-old son, Oscar. Because the worst thing imaginable has happened. He isn’t there... -
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany by Lori Nelson Spielman, Carlotta Brentan
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratings13 hours, 15 minutesA trio of second-born daughters set out to break the family curse that says they’ll never find love on a whirlwind journey through the lush Italian countryside by New York Times bestseller Lori Nelson Spielman, author of The Life List...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure adult -
Chasing the Stars by Virginie Grimaldi
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis journey could change everything...Maybe if she hadn't lost her job, Anna would never have dreamed of being so impulsive. Or perhaps if Chloe wasn't always having her heart broken, or if Lily was happy at school. But when Anna realises that her family is falling apart, only a grand, spontaneous gesture will do... -
The Kremlin Conspiracy by Joel C. Rosenberg
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg returns with a high-stakes political thriller set in Russia.Everything he learned to protect the president, he must use to take out theirs.With an American president distracted by growing tensions in North Korea and Iran, an ominous new threat is emerging in Moscow...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics action-adventure adult -
The Havoc of Choice by Wanjiru Koinange
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratings2007, KenyaLong held captive by her father’s shadow of corruption, Kavata has spent her life suffocated by political machinations. When her husband decides to run in the next election, these shadows threaten to consume her home. Unable to bear this darkness,Kavata plots to escape. As her family falls apart, so too does her country...Categorized as:
politics historical-fiction journey literary-fiction family fiction contemporary corruption -
Kane and Abel / The Prodigal Daughter / Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis collection of Jeffrey Archer novels includes "Kane and Abel" the sequel "The Prodigal Daughter" and the novel "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less"... -
East of the West by Miroslav Penkov
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA brilliant debut from a rising talent praised by Salman Rushdie, among others.A grandson tries to buy the corpse of Lenin on eBay for his Communist grandfather. A failed wunderkind steals a golden cross from an orthodox church. A boy meets his cousin (the love of his life) once every five years in the waters of the river that divides their village into East and West... -
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Nous rêvions juste de liberté by Henri Lœvenbruck
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratings« Nous avions à peine vingt ans et nous rêvions juste de liberté. » Ce rêve, la bande d'Hugo va l'exaucer en fuyant la petite ville de Providence pour traverser le pays à moto. Ensemble, ils vont former un clan où l'indépendance et l'amitié règnent en maîtres. Ensemble ils vont, pour le meilleur et pour le pire, découvrir que la liberté se paie cher...Categorized as:
drama journey literary-fiction fiction audiobook action-adventure male-author contemporary -
My Friends by Hisham Matar
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA young man leaves behind more than he realizes to follow his passions in this major, luminous novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return.The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics family journey africa northern-africa libya -
Jacob's Ladder: Eli by Katie Ashley
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOne wouldn’t expect a sexy-as-sin rocker like Eli Renard to spend time with a woman just as a friend, but that’s exactly what Emersyn Wallace is to him. Just a friend. Even though she’s matured into a beauty, Eli still doesn’t remotely see his childhood pal as a sex-object... -
Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings49-year-old safety inspector-turned-beekeeper Sergey Sergeich, wants little more than to help his bees collect their pollen in peace.But Sergey lives in Ukraine, where a lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda has been dragging on for years...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics journey europe east-europe ukraine fiction -
The Disoriented by Amin Maalouf
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAfter 25 years in exile, Adam travels from France to his homeland in the Middle East to bid farewell to his dying childhood friend.One night, a phone rings in Paris. Adam learns that Mourad, once his closest friend, is dying. He quickly throws some clothes in a suitcase and takes the first flight out, to the homeland he fled twenty-five years ago...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics action-adventure adult book -
The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe first of his family to go to college, Anil Patel, the golden son, carries the weight of tradition and his family’s expectations when he leaves his tiny Indian village to begin a medical residency in Dallas, Texas, at one of the busiest and most competitive hospitals in America...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction action-adventure adult audiobook -
Another's Child: A Gripping Novel by Einat Danon
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsImagine inheriting a child that you don’t even know! One morning, Yael and Arik Katz are startled by a surprise inheritance: Noa, the ten-year-old daughter of Canadian friends with whom they had made a long-forgotten will-exchange agreement, is delivered to their doorstep with no warning...Categorized as:
family drama literary-fiction romance contemporary fiction action-adventure female-mc -
Transparent City by Ondjaki
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and as the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato’s flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless...Categorized as:
journey literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century action-adventure adult book contemporary -
Better by Carey Heywood
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings** inspired by actual events ** Aubrey is embarking on a bucket list trip around the world, the last wish of her Aunt Ally. It was supposed to be the trip Ally would take when she got better. Now it's just a chance for Aubrey to say goodbye. Adam escapes in his solo trips overseas, working just enough to fund the next one. When the opportunity to circle the globe falls in his lap he can't refuse... -
An Amish Cradle by Beth Wiseman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTiny fingers, Tiny toes, And lives that will never be the same. Journey with four families as their lives are about to change forever. "In His Father s Arms" by Beth Wiseman Ruth Anne has been dreaming about motherhood her entire life. Now she is doubly excited that she and her best friend are due with their children the same week... -
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An Unlasting Home: A Novel by Mai Al-Nakib
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"So fresh and unsettling that it will enchant you from the first page and linger for days after reading...Its epic family saga style echoes that of Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses and The Arsonists’ City , Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies , and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family journey fiction contemporary audiobook poc-mc -
Cent millions d'années et un jour by Jean-Baptiste Andrea
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings‘On the mountain, the only monsters are the ones you take with you.’Summer 1954. Stan has been hunting for fossils since the age of six. Now, having made a career out of studying the remains of tiny lifeforms, he hears a story he cannot forget: the skeleton of a huge creature, a veritable dragon, lies deep in an Alpine glacier. And he is determined to find it...Categorized as:
historical-fiction drama literary-fiction fiction action-adventure contemporary fantasy book -
The Bone Fire by György Dragomán
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom an award-winning European writer, a Gothic page-turner with all the menace and promise of a fairy tale In the aftermath of a revolution that has plunged her country into chaos, thirteen-year-old Emma’s small corner of the world is shattered after her dissident parents' death in a car crash...Categorized as:
family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure adult book -
Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratings6 hrs. 10 min.Nigerian author Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi makes her American debut with this dazzling novel which explores her homeland's past, present, and possible future through the interconnected stories of four fearless globe-trotting women...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction family journey fiction contemporary audiobook female-author -
I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn 1913, a Russian ballet incited a riot in Paris at the new Théâtre de Champs-Elysées. “Only a Russian could do that," says Aleksandr Ivanovich. “Only a Russian could make the whole world go mad...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics journey family europe east-europe ukraine -
Taking Flight by Adrian R. Magnuson
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJeremy Walsh’s parents assume he’s been abducted by the elderly man he met on a cross-country flight, but it’s the other way around...Categorized as:
drama journey literary-fiction action-adventure book coming-of-age contemporary fiction -
The Garden of Burning Sand by Corban Addison
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsLusaka, Zambia: Zoe Fleming is a young, idealistic American lawyer working with an NGO devoted to combatting the epidemic of child sexual assault in southern Africa. Zoe’s organization is called in to help when an adolescent girl is brutally assaulted. The girl’s identity is a mystery... -
Moonlight Shadow by Banana Yoshimoto
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"Moonlight Shadow" (ムーンライト・シャドウ) is an award-winning novella by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto, partly inspired by Mike Oldfield's song with the same title. The novella is included in most editions of Yoshimoto's novel Kitchen...Categorized as:
journey literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure adult audiobook book contemporary -
Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction magical-realism politics action-adventure -
Yugoslavia, My Fatherland by Goran Vojnović
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen Vladan Borojević googles the name of his father Nedelko, a former officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army, supposedly killed in the civil war after the decay of Yugoslavia, he unexpectedly discovers a dark family secret...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction drama journey family fiction contemporary audiobook -
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A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl by Nanda Reddy
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA girl takes on a series of identities to survive, shrouding herself in layer upon layer of secrets, until one morning years later when she is forced to reckon with her past."This debut is a beautiful, if sometimes harrowing, exploration of one woman’s journey. . . to a life built by her own grit and determination." -Library Journal, Starred Review...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction journey family fiction contemporary audiobook coming-of-age -
House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThe English translation of the prize-winning international bestseller Winner of the Gunter Grass PrizeNowa Ruda is a small town in Silesia, an area that has been a part of Poland, Germany, and the former Czechoslovakia in the past. When the narrator moves into the area, she discovers everyone--and everything--has a story... -
A Heart So White by Javier Marías
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn alternate cover of this ISBN can be found here.Javier Marías's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Larger Than Life by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFrom Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Storyteller and My Sister’s Keeper, comes a gripping and beautifully written novella, now available exclusively as an eBook. Set in the wilds of Africa, Larger Than Life introduces Alice, the unforgettable character at the center of Picoult’s anticipated new novel, Leaving Time...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction action-adventure adult animals -
Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs the civil war rages in 1980s Mozambique, an old man and a young boy, refugees from the war, seek shelter in a burnt-out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem... -
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernières
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThis rambunctious first novel by the author of the bestselling Corelli's Mandolin is set in an impoverished, violent, yet ravishingly beautiful country somewhere in South America. When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny... -
In the Country by Mia Alvar
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThese nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere—and, sometimes, turning back again...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction journey literary-fiction 21st-century action-adventure adult -
The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto, David Brookshaw
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Quite unlike anything else I have read from Africa."—Doris Lessing "By meshing the richness of African beliefs . . . into the Western framework of the novel, he creates a mysterious and surreal epic."—Henning Mankell Mwanito Vitalício was eleven when he saw a woman for the first time, and the sight so surprised him he burst into tears. Mwanito's been living in a big-game park for eight years...Categorized as:
family journey literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure adult book contemporary -
Red Crosses by Sasha Filipenko
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSasha Filipenko traces the arc of Russian history from Stalin's terror to the present day, in a novel full of heart and humanity.One struggles not to forget, while the other would like nothing better. Tatiana Alexeyevna is an old woman, over ninety, rich in lived experience, and suffering from Alzheimer's. Every day, she loses a few more of her irreplaceable memories...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics literary-fiction journey family fiction contemporary audiobook -
Loving Dallas by Caisey Quinn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn the second novel in bestselling author Caisey Quinn’s Neon Dreams series, a country rock band and its members embark on the rocky road to fame and find love along the way. Dallas Lark is so close to achieving his dream of making it big in country music that he can taste it...Categorized as:
family journey literary-fiction action-adventure book contemporary female-mc fiction -
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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsRich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970's. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than just its historical implications... -
The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by José Eduardo Agualusa
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSwimming in the clear blue waters of the Rainbow Hotel, Daniel Benchimol finds a waterproof camera, belonging to Moira, a Mozambican artist, famous for a series of photos depicting her own dreams – a woman he, Daniel, dreams about repeatedly...Categorized as:
journey literary-fiction magical-realism politics action-adventure adult book contemporary -
Law and Disorder by Mike Papantonio
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the tradition of John Grisham, from radio talk show host and “America’s lawyer” Mike Papantonio, comes Law and Disorder , a highly suspenseful legal thriller in which a Florida attorney finds the system working against him... -
Leaves of the Banyan Tree by Albert Wendt
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn epic spanning three generations, Leaves of the Banyan Tree tells the story of a family and community in Western Samoa, exploring on a grand scale such universal themes as greed, corruption, colonialism, exploitation, and revenge. Winner of the 1980 New Zealand Wattie Book of the Year Award, it is considered a classic work of Pacific literature...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction journey family politics fiction 20th-century classics -
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSometimes they talk all night long. In the still darkness of their cell, Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the film he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens. Valentin believes in the just cause which makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love which makes all else endurable... -
Suddenly A Knock On The Door by Etgar Keret
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the critically acclaimed master short-story teller Etgar Keret, his long-awaited and biggest selling collection - the first in nearly ten years.Etgar Keret is an ingenious and original master of the short story. Hilarious, witty and always unusual, declared a 'genius' by the New York Times, Keret brings all of his prodigious talent to bear in this, his sixth bestselling collection...Categorized as:
journey literary-fiction magical-realism action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook comedy
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