18 books like The Grapes of Wrath

What to read after The Grapes of Wrath — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell · 1949 · ★ 4.2 · 244p · ≈ 8h · Challenging Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often referred to as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by the English novelist George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair). It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and… Shares: Community pick

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1920 · ★ 3.9 · 431p · ≈ 14h · Challenging Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate – a marvelous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period – which reveals a hero like no other – one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to… Shares: Community pick

The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas · 1964 · ★ 4.5 · 242p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Shares: Community pick

Fallen angels Patricia Hickman · 2003 · 442p · ≈ 14h · Moderate Jeb Nubey hides a secret about his past that has left him alienated from his family and hiding from the law. Shares: Depressions, Historical Fiction

A Pillar of Iron Taylor Caldwell · 1965 · ★ 4.5 · 511p · ≈ 17h · Moderate “The sweep and splendor of the Roman past blazes anew in this mighty story of Cicero and the Republic he fought to save.” “Unfolded here in rich detail are the private dramas behind the great Roman hero's triumphs and defeats—and the intimate, deeply moving story of his desperate love affair with the beautiful Livia.” Shares: In literature, Historical Fiction

Alcestis Euripides · 1818 · ★ 3.8 · 83p · ≈ 2h · Challenging "Euripides' Alcestic - perhaps the most anthologized Attic drama - is an ideal test for students reading their first play in the original Greek. Literary commentaries and language aids in most editions are too advanced or too elementary for intermediate students of the language, but in this new student edition, C. A. E. Luschnig and H. M. Roisman remedy such deficiencies." "The introductory… Shares: In literature, Open_syllabus_project

Cry, The Beloved Country Alan Paton · 1940 · ★ 3.9 · 258p · ≈ 8h · Challenging This book is the most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, and an immediate worldwide bestseller when it was published in 1948. Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, " We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from… Shares: In literature, Open_syllabus_project

In memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson · 1850 · 252p · ≈ 8h · Challenging craftsmanship of tennyson in In Memorium Shares: In literature, Open_syllabus_project

Helen of Troy Andrew Lang · 1882 · 108p · ≈ 3h · Challenging Helen (; ), commonly known as Helen of Troy and sometimes as Helen of Sparta, is a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus by Leda or Nemesis, and the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor, Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was first married to King Menelaus of Sparta "who became by her the father of… Shares: In literature, Historical Fiction

Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (Oidípous Týrannos) Sophocles · 1715 · ★ 3.5 · 84p · ≈ 2h · Demanding Oedipus Rex chronicles the story of Oedipus, a man that becomes the king of Thebes and was always destined from birth to murder his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. The play is an example of a classic tragedy, noticeably containing an emphasis on how Oedipus's own faults contribute to the tragic hero's downfall, as opposed to having fate be the sole cause. Over the centuries, Oedipus… Shares: In literature, Open_syllabus_project

Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand · 1936 · ★ 3.7 · 1182p · ≈ 39h · Challenging The year 2005 marks Ayn Rand's Centennial Year.The astounding story of a man that said that he would stop the motor of the world-and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is unlike any other book you have ever read.“A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly.”-The New York Times Shares: Open_syllabus_project, Classic Literature

Richard III William Shakespeare · 1597 · ★ 3.9 · 65p · ≈ 2h · Demanding "containing his treacherous plots against his brother Clarence, the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes, his tyrannicall usurpation, with the whole course of his detested life and most deserved death" (Subtitle of the 1597 edition.) Shares: In literature, Open_syllabus_project, Classic Literature

Home as found James Fenimore Cooper · 1800 · ★ 5.0 · 432p · ≈ 14h · Challenging "No society, dear!--Why you were at the Henderson's, and the Morgan's, and the Drewett's; three of the greatest _réunions_ that we have had in two winters!"' "I did not know that you meant those unpleasant crowds, by society". "Unpleasant crowds! Why, child, that is society, is it not?' "Not what I have been taught to consider such; I rather think it would be better to call it company". "And is… Shares: Historical Fiction

The Border Empire Ralph Compton · 1997 · ★ 4.0 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Wes Stone was a lawman—until the Sandlin gang gunned down his legendary father. Now, he's giving up his badge for vengeance... Shares: Historical Fiction

Let The Circle be Unbroken Mildred D. Taylor · 1981 · ★ 4.5 · 394p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Let the Circle Be Unbroken is a story of a small Mississippi town in the 1930s, and the troubles that plague its black community. Picking up where its precursor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, leaves off, Mildred Taylor recounts the trials of this small community through the characters of the Logan family. More specifically, it focuses on the children of the family; Stacey, Cassie, Little Man and… Shares: Depressions, Historical Fiction

The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon · 1965 · ★ 3.8 · 187p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Oedipa Maas, executor of the will of Pierce Inverarity, journeys through a bizarre underground of secret societies, jazz clubs, beatniks, and her own psyche. Readers accustomed to postmodern literature will revel in Pynchon's second novel. Shares: California, Open_syllabus_project

Satanstoe ; or, The littlepage manuscripts, a tale of the colony James Fenimore Cooper · 1845 · 382p · ≈ 12h · Challenging Every chronicle of manners has a certain value. When customs are connected with principles, in their origin, development, or end, such records have a double importance; and it is because we think we see such a connection between the facts and incidents of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain important theories of our own time, that we give the former to the world. Shares: Historical Fiction, Classic Literature

The Wept of Wish-ton-wish: A Tale James Fenimore Cooper · 1829 · ★ 3.9 · 432p · ≈ 14h · Challenging The incidents of this tale must be sought in a remote period of the annals of America. A colony of self-devoted and pious refugees from religious persecution had landed on the rock of Plymouth, less than half a century before the time at which the narrative commences; and they, and their descendants, had already transformed many a broad waste of wilderness into smiling fields and cheerful… Shares: Historical Fiction, Classic Literature

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