10 books like City of Thieves

By David Benioff,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like City of Thieves. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Suite Française

By Irene Nemirovsky,

Book cover of Suite Française

I’ve chosen this book not just for the incredible picture it paints of German occupation, but for the story of its survival. Irène Némirovsky was a Ukrainian-Jewish author living in Paris with her young family until she was denied French citizenship and forced to flee to the French countryside. In July 1942 she was arrested during a period of vicious roundups by the Germans and transported to Auschwitz, where she died a month later from typhus. Irène’s two daughters were amongst the crowd that gathered daily outside the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, where returnees from concentration camps were processed after the liberation of France. Her daughter Denise kept the notebook containing Suite Française for fifty years before realising what it contained, and Irène’s masterpiece was finally published in 2004.

Suite Française

By Irene Nemirovsky,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Suite Française as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, "Suite Francaise" would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, "Suite Francaise" falls…


All the Light We Cannot See

By Anthony Doerr,

Book cover of All the Light We Cannot See

Set during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, Doerr’s stunningly lyrical novel tells the story of twelve-year-old Marie-Laure Leblanc and her father, Daniel, a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Father and daughter flee Paris for the walled coastal city of Saint Malo, where they take refuge with a relative.

Doerr weaves a gorgeous story of survival during calamitous times that is particularly poignant when it comes to Daniel’s relationship with his daughter. Having been blind since her childhood, one of the ways Daniel keeps Marie-Laure safe is by constructing model replicas of their surroundings so she can navigate her neighborhood while sightless – what a beautiful testament to the love and resourcefulness of a parent for his child.

All the Light We Cannot See

By Anthony Doerr,

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked All the Light We Cannot See as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II

Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.'

For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic…


The Glass Room

By Simon Mawer,

Book cover of The Glass Room

Set in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, this story of a newly-married couple overseeing the construction of their dream home is as clean-cut, luminous and full of hints of fragility as the building itself – a modernist cube of glass. The husband is rich, the wife excited by her new role as patron.  Their architect -  a sharply observed portrayal of a tetchy artist who will insist on sticking to his vision regardless of his clients’ doubts – wants to make them a masterpiece, and he does.  But the husband is Jewish.  We are in the 1930s.  Glass walls are not going to keep them safe. 

In lucid, elegant prose Mawer conjures up central European culture in those edgy, febrile years when artistic and intellectual energy were so vital, and politics were so deadly.

The Glass Room

By Simon Mawer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Glass Room as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE

The inspiration for the major motion picture The Affair, now available on demand.

Cool. Balanced. Modern. The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure - these are things that happen in the Glass Room.

High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes…


We Were the Lucky Ones

By Georgia Hunter,

Book cover of We Were the Lucky Ones

What I appreciate about Hunter's novel is that it takes a new approach to the subject of the Holocaust. With the outbreak of WWII, the Kurcs, a Polish-Jewish family, find themselves driven into another diaspora, with their family members cast to the four corners of the globe. Hunter touches on the plight of Poland during the early years of the war when the country was torn asunder by Germany from the west and the Soviet Union from the east. The plot follows the various family members as they struggle to survive the Holocaust in Poland, in Stalin's Gulag, and as one member tries to flee to South America. A big, sprawling, family epic filled with tragedy and humanity, brutality and heroism.

We Were the Lucky Ones

By Georgia Hunter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked We Were the Lucky Ones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times bestseller with more than 1 million copies sold worldwide

Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive-and to reunite-We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds.

"Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn't be more timely." -Glamour

It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family…


The Kite Runner

By Khaled Hosseini,

Book cover of The Kite Runner

It seems as if I’m consistently selecting novels set during war. But my former recommendation, and this one, is just too good to pass by plus it’s on the top shelf of my library, keeping other favorites company. This one is a love story between boyhood friends and I’m a hopeless romantic. Match my romantic soul with tragedy and I’m a goner. Now we’re in Afghanistan where a privileged young boy and his friend, the son of his father’s servant, live through their country’s revolution and are invaded by Russian forces that tear the country apart. The writing is so powerful and eloquent, the subject so timely (it was published in 2003), that I was spellbound by Khaled Hosseini’s literary genius.

The Kite Runner

By Khaled Hosseini,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Kite Runner as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.


Piranesi

By Susanna Clarke,

Book cover of Piranesi

This is a novel overflowing with mysterious overtones. Its tidal surge licks at the reader’s heels and lures us in. The story is told by Piranesi, who inhabits a place he calls the House. The House is composed of a series of vast rooms populated with marble statues, and, on the lower floor, an ocean is imprisoned. We are tasked with unraveling the world that guileless Piranesi inhabits. We don’t know how long he has lived there and neither does he. He has devised his own calendar system and tries to number the vast rooms of the House but we sense there is a lot he is misinterpreting. Why do I love this book? It sets out a trail of clues that eventually make sense of Piranesi’s nonsensical world. It is a puzzle to solve constructed of splendid images and doesn’t every mystery reader crave a juicy puzzle?

Piranesi

By Susanna Clarke,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Piranesi as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction
A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE
__________________________________
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend,…


East of Eden

By John Steinbeck,

Book cover of East of Eden

I’m a Steinbeck fan. Why? Because he wrote about California like few other writers. His sweeping descriptions of the land leave me breathless and the characters with their fatal flaws and aching humanity burn into my soul. Over the top? You bet! Working Days, his personal journals of The Grapes of Wrath, is a treasure for writers and lovers of fiction. It’s no wonder that many of his novels were adapted for the big screen. Who can forget James Dean as Cal Trask in East of Eden?

East of Eden

By John Steinbeck,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked East of Eden as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

California's fertile Salinas Valley is home to two families whose destinies are fruitfully, and fatally, intertwined. Over the generations, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of the First World War, the Trasks and the Hamiltons will helplessly replay the fall of Adam and Eve and the murderous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

East of Eden was considered by Steinbeck to be his magnum opus, and its epic scope and memorable characters, exploring universal themes of love and identity, ensure it remains one of America's most enduring novels. This edition features a stunning new cover by renowned…


Middlesex

By Jeffrey Eugenides,

Book cover of Middlesex

I’m always intrigued by novels set in places I’ve visited. In the ’60s, I first traveled to Greece and then in 2017, my husband and I spent a month there. And if you haven’t visited The Henry Ford Museum of Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan, don’t miss it. This novel had me on two counts. It’s the startling story of a Greek American family told through the eyes of a young girl who is becoming a woman. The family lands in Detroit as it becomes the automotive capital of the world and then collapses during the ’60s race riots. The rich cultural heritage of Greece unfolds and a secret is revealed about a genetic mutation that changes the principal character from a girl into boy. Hold your hat! It won a Pulitzer, too.

Middlesex

By Jeffrey Eugenides,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Middlesex as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974.'

So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and her truly unique family secret, born on the slopes of Mount Olympus and passed on through three generations.

Growing up in 70s Michigan, Calliope's special inheritance will turn her into Cal, the narrator of this intersex, inter-generational epic of immigrant life in 20th century America.

Middlesex won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.


The Night Bell

By Inger Ash Wolfe,

Book cover of The Night Bell

Hazel Micaellef, 62, a police officer in a small town in Ontario, is divorced, overweight, has back problems, and drinks too much. I am from a small town and divorced. Liquor is not my vice. I am, however, completely at home in the fictional and slightly seedy Port Dumas where locals have long memories. When human bones are found on land that formerly housed orphans, many of the town’s ugly secrets bubble up. The plot is complex and the setting immersive. I would not necessarily want to live in a place like Port Dumas…but I have.

The Night Bell

By Inger Ash Wolfe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Night Bell as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The new novel in this acclaimed series is brilliantly paced, addictively suspenseful—the author's best yet. Hazel Micallef (played by Susan Sarandon in the recent film of the series' debut, The Calling) has become one of crime writing's most memorable detectives. The Night Bell moves between the past and the present in Port Dundas, Ontario, as two mysteries converge. A discovery of the bones of murdered children is made on land that was once a county foster home. Now it's being developed as a brand new subdivision whose first residents are already railing against broken promises and corruption. But when three…


Metropolis

By Philip Kerr,

Book cover of Metropolis

This is the last Bernie Gunther novel, in a series that is über noir, and whose protagonist is a police detective who is a member of the SS in Nazi Germany. 

In Metropolis, Gunther learns that murder has become the subject of an art movement, Lustmord, or “lust murders” which focused on the brutal, sexual-tinged serial killings of women and prostitutes in 1930s Berlin.

A scene in the book of a famous German expressionist sketching a murder victim in the morgue is all the more chilling, since I know it to be true. I’ve been fascinated with the art movements of this era, and have seen the exhibits of Lustmord paintings, which are still in museums today. 

Metropolis

By Philip Kerr,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Metropolis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"[Metropolis is] a perfect goodbye--and first hello--to its hero...Bernie Gunther has, at last, come home."--Washington Post

New York Times-bestselling author Philip Kerr treats readers to his beloved hero's origins, exploring Bernie Gunther's first weeks on Berlin's Murder Squad.

Summer, 1928. Berlin, a city where nothing is verboten.

In the night streets, political gangs wander, looking for fights. Daylight reveals a beleaguered populace barely recovering from the postwar inflation, often jobless, reeling from the reparations imposed by the victors. At central police HQ, the Murder Commission has its hands full. A killer is on the loose and though he scatters many…


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