10 books like A Man Called Ove

The Pulitzer-prize winner Olive Kitteridge is a novel told through connected stories, and the sequel is presented the same way.

She’s the character we love to hate and learn to love.

Anyone who has married the wrong man or treated a husband poorly, or attempted to control a child well into his own middle age, or finds herself confused by progress and also struggles with regret, will get Olive. Because we meet her in midlife, we evolve with her into old age, as if an interactive experience.

You'll want to age with Olive in the sequel, Olive Again. I also recommend Strout’s Lucy Barton quartet, which incorporates divorce into the aging process, but I think Olive is the more elegant and the more compelling portrait. [The HBO Olive Kitteridge series was a good translation, but better as a reading.]

Okay, so this book is predominantly about the struggles of a boy going through puberty but its depiction of the magnetic older characters of Bert and Queenie in the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home are among the funniest scenes in the book. 

Of every book I’ve ever read, it remains one of the most hilarious and if you’ve read it previously, it’s well worth another visit.

Out of all of the books I have read, I have read A Christmas Carol more times than any other. An instant phenomenon when it was first published in 1843, it has never been out of print. It is the embodiment of not just a Christmas ghost story, but of a story that encapsulates the very essence of the spirit of Christmas in the popular imagination in a way that no other story ever has. Although I had always loved watching the 1951 classic film Scrooge with the wonderful Alastar Sim in the title role, I didn’t read the book until I was in my teens, when I came across a lovely copy of a 1950 edition in a charity shop. Since then, I have read, and shed a tear over, A Christmas Carol every Christmas – I won't embarrass myself by revealing exactly how many times that is, but… show more.

Mannix is a retired Palliative Care Consultant, and this wonderful book takes case studies from her long career and presents them as vignettes designed to reassure a readership who may be anxious about the process of dying. She relates each story with candour and humility, acknowledging how much she has learnt from her patients and their families whilst glossing over the enormous impact that she has evidently had on their care.

This is an incredibly useful book for those working with people at the end of life, but it is also a really lovely read for anyone fearful of death, anyone who has felt the impact of a family bereavement, and anyone who will one day face death themselves, i.e., every single one of us. 

While your daughter is hospitalized, on the brink of death, your husband dies suddenly. How do you make sense of it all?

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion iteratively revisits the events that occurred over the few days before and after her husband (the writer John Dunne) suffers a cardiac arrest as she explores the notion of illness, grief, and our medical system.

This book taught me about how my own patients and their families navigate death, and prepared me for when my own father died.

Hobb had me rooting for “the Bastard” from the first chapter. With everything against him, Fitz grew up with palace intrigue, was taught by the master assassin, and learned the art of “skilling – despite the efforts of a “legitimate” prince and his followers to prevent it. However, loyalty, determination, and persistence flowed throughout the book. I had trouble putting the book down.

Unlike most police procedurals, where the action starts with a crime, Missing, Presumed’s first chapter gives us a glimpse of the main character, detective sergeant Manon Bradshaw, on a disastrous blind date. You know from the get-go you are in the hands of a talented writer who will introduce you to complex, flawed, but relatable characters, not just a plot of twists and turns. This novel is the first in a standalone series featuring DS Manon Bradshaw, and all three novels are equally compelling in both the crimes that need solving and the way in which Manon and her team must overcome their personal flaws and missteps to crack the case. Manon is a curmudgeonly train wreck, but she possesses a big heart, making her an endearing and enduring character. Sadly, Susie Steiner passed away this year after a battle with brain cancer.   

As an erstwhile comedy writer, I had to include one comic novel, and this is the best of all time.

If you don’t think Mrs. Bennett is a truly horrifying, you’ve never been embarrassed by your mother! This book is perfectly put together, the plot is a structure masterclass and Mrs. Bennett: hysterical, gossipy, nosy, and a massive hypochondriac is one of the funniest characters ever put to paper.

On the page, it’s even better than Colin Firth in a wet shirt.

Okay. Fine. Maybe I only think this book is about loss because I know that, in later books, the same Glass family suffers losses and this sets the stage. But this is a story about a promise that is never realized and a relationship that is becoming progressively distant—and, in it, there is a sense of being lost if not having experienced a loss, specifically. In it, Buddy Glass takes Army leave to attend his brother’s wedding, but his brother never shows up. Somehow, Buddy winds up stuck in a limo with a group of disgruntled guests from whom he tries to hide his identity. In his sense of isolation, but also his awareness of the situation’s absurdity, we find humor and also sadness.

Eleanor Oliphant is a socially awkward, spiky misfit, an interesting mixture of naïve and worldly wise. She tells us of her comforting but rather odd routines. We see how alcohol is her only friend. He numbs her pain and enables her to function at work.

When we meet Eleanor, she's infatuated with a singer she's never met. As the plot deepens, we come to understand Eleanor Oliphant is not completely fine.

There are some emotionally heavy themes but the author manages to keep the narrative light and witty. Eleanor is a rich and complex character positioned perfectly to tell her story. The book is uplifting and inspiring with an ending that was not unexpected but sufficiently powerful to shock. 

The Joy is in the depth of character. It’s a story of love and friendship against the odds.