100 books like Life After Life

By Kate Atkinson,

Here are 100 books that Life After Life fans have personally recommended if you like Life After Life. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind

Irene Wittig Author Of All That Lingers

From my list on hard times and resilience in the World War II era.

Why am I passionate about this?

World War II has been the background of my life. My Viennese family fled the Nazi regime. My childhood was peopled with Holocaust survivors and other people displaced by war. My uncle was a refugee and was trained as a Ritchie Boy and sent to war. I have been inspired by how people can survive traumatic times and come out stronger and kinder.

Irene's book list on hard times and resilience in the World War II era

Irene Wittig Why did Irene love this book?

A poignant, well-written and deeply researched non-fiction story of the author’s search for the girlfriend her grandfather had left behind in Vienna. As my family left Vienna because of the Nazi regime, and my own novel takes place in Vienna, I found Ms. Wildman’s book especially meaningful, raising the question not only of what had happened to the woman but also of how much guilt and responsibility the grandfather carried?

By Sarah Wildman,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Paper Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One woman’s journey to find the lost love her grandfather left behind when he fled pre-World War II Europe, and an exploration into family identity, myth, and memory.

Years after her grandfather’s death, journalist Sarah Wildman stumbled upon a cache of his letters in a file labeled “Correspondence: Patients A–G.” What she found inside weren’t dry medical histories; instead what was written opened a path into the destroyed world that was her family’s prewar Vienna. One woman’s letters stood out: those from Valy—Valerie Scheftel—her grandfather’s lover, who had remained behind when he fled Europe six months after the Nazis annexed…


Book cover of Stumbling on Happiness

Victor Haghani Author Of The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions

From my list on intelligent financial decision-making in less than 200 pages.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have over four decades of experience working and innovating in the financial markets and have been a prolific contributor to academic and practitioner finance literature. I started my career at Salomon Brothers in 1984, where I became a managing director in the bond-arbitrage group, and in 1993 I was a co-founding partner of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. I founded Elm Wealth in 2011 to help clients, including my own family, manage and preserve their wealth with a thoughtful, research-based, and cost-effective approach that covers not just investment management but also broader decisions about wealth and finances.

Victor's book list on intelligent financial decision-making in less than 200 pages

Victor Haghani Why did Victor love this book?

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert uses wit and science to reveal how we generally fail to predict what makes us happy and how we can do better.

I loved his discussions of why lottery winners aren't happier for long, how our memories create a "rosy past" illusion, and even why bad experiences can sometimes be better than good ones.

I loved the engaging stories and insightful experiments that Gilbert uses to dismantle common assumptions about happiness and offers fresh perspectives. I gained self-awareness and discovered unexpected paths to finding and savoring happiness.

Strap in for a thought-provoking journey that may just change how you view your own happiness and that of others-all with a healthy dose of humor.

By Daniel Gilbert,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Stumbling on Happiness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bringing to life scientific research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, this bestselling book reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there. 

• Why are lovers quicker to forgive their partners for infidelity than for leaving dirty dishes in the sink?

• Why will sighted people pay more to avoid going blind than blind people will pay to regain their sight?

• Why do dining companions insist on ordering different meals instead of getting what they…


Book cover of All the Light We Cannot See

Beryl P. Brown Author Of May's Boys

From my list on emotionally moving WWII family and childhood novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, my mother often shared stories of her evacuation to a small Wiltshire village during World War Two. Far from a warm welcome, the local children viewed the newcomers with suspicion, and they were made to feel unwanted. My mother did, however, form one lifelong friendship that was very important to her. Her tales inspired me to write a novel about an evacuee’s experience for my Creative Writing MA. Living in Dorset at the time, I set my story there. The research was fascinating, allowing me to weave together historical insights with my own memories and experiences of today’s rural life. 

Beryl's book list on emotionally moving WWII family and childhood novels

Beryl P. Brown Why did Beryl love this book?

The thought of walking around an occupied town in France during WWII terrifies me. The prospect of running into Nazis, looking for any excuse to arrest me, is the thing of nightmares.

But my fears shrink to nothing compared to the experience of blind sixteen-year-old Marie-Laure attempting to navigate war-torn Saint-Malo from the memory of a handmade tabletop model. The strength of courage she shows in this story has never left me.

By Anthony Doerr,

Why should I read it?

47 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…


Book cover of Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Daniel Robert McClure Author Of Winter in America: A Cultural History of Neoliberalism, from the Sixties to the Reagan Revolution

From my list on the history of information-knowledge.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Daniel Robert McClure, and I am an Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. I teach U.S., African diaspora, and world history, and I specialize in cultural and economic history. I was originally drawn to “information” and “knowledge” because they form the ties between culture and economics, and I have been teaching history through “information” for about a decade. In 2024, I was finally able to teach a graduate course, “The Origins of the Knowledge Society,” out of which came the “5 books.”

Daniel's book list on the history of information-knowledge

Daniel Robert McClure Why did Daniel love this book?

This book also operates as both a primary source as well as a scholarly work, essentially updating Boorstin. Postman’s classic book wrestles with the paradox presented by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley: Huxley, rather than Orwell, anticipated the future, as one does not need to outlaw certain books if one does not care to read—as one revels in the pleasures of “pseudo-events.”

Read in light—or glare—of the more recent smartphone revolution, Postman’s book becomes even more relevant to contemporary discussions about information, knowledge, and overload.

By Neil Postman,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Amusing Ourselves to Death as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever.

"It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN

Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell…


Book cover of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a private practice therapist who has treated adolescents for over 15 years. Since 2016, I’ve helped teens and young adults struggling with gender identity. I discovered, through working with hundreds of families and dozens of adolescents, that many teens develop gender dysphoria only after intellectually questioning their “gender identity.” I found this fascinating and have spent the last 10 years trying to understand this phenomenon. Through my work with parents and adolescents and as a podcast co-host on Gender: A Wider Lens, I’m exploring the following questions: How do individuals make meaning of their distress? What happens when we turn to culturally salient narratives about illness, diagnoses, and treatment pathways? 

Sasha's book list on exploring the fascinating relationship between culture, the individual, and psychological diagnoses

Sasha Ayad Why did Sasha love this book?

It’s hard for me to overstate the importance this book played in my understanding of college-aged American adolescents. I loved the clarity, organization, and simplicity of the writing here. Bringing in time-tested wisdom from philosophers, ancient faith systems, and cross-cultural perspectives gave me the sense that I was reading about principles and values that will endure far beyond our fleeting cultural moments.

I loved the contrast of wise maxims against trendy and misleading slogans that create a more brittle and distressed generation of young adults. I loved the mix of psychological research, historical anecdotes, and individual college students’ stories, all profiled seamlessly in the book. The sections that look back at historical forces that led to the helicopter and then bulldozer parenting were particularly fascinating.

I love that this book takes a compassionate look at the difficulty of Gen Z without being too harsh or alienating the young adults who…

By Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Coddling of the American Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times Bestseller * Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction * A New York Times Notable Book * Bloomberg Best Book of 2018

"Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities." -Jonathan Marks, Commentary

"The remedies the book outlines should be considered on college campuses, among parents of current and future students, and by anyone longing for a more sane society." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Something…


Book cover of A Very Long Engagement

Martha Conway Author Of The Physician's Daughter

From my list on historical kick-ass female leads.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was raised in a family of seven girls—no boys—with a tough but loving mother. I’ve been around strong women all my life. As a teenager I got tired of reading about smart, capable heroines who, by the end of the story, are oppressed and defeated. I get it: women have been stomped on. And I appreciate authors in past centuries who acknowledge that fact. But now I want to see women win; it’s as simple as that. This is what I like to read about and what I like to write about. The battles are never easy, but hey, that’s half the fun.

Martha's book list on historical kick-ass female leads

Martha Conway Why did Martha love this book?

Unable to walk since childhood, Mathilde Donnay never lets her limitations get in her way. She is on the search for her fiancé who was reported killed in the Great War, but whom she believes might still be alive. Mathilde is feisty, caring, strategic, and driven—all things I’d like to be.

By Sebastien Japrisot,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Very Long Engagement as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1919, Mathilde Donnay, a young wheelchair-bound woman in France, begins a quest to find out if her fianc , supposedly killed in the line of duty two years earlier, might still be alive. Reprint. 50,000 first printing. (A Warner Bros. Independent Pictures film, releasing Fall 2004, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, starring Audrey Tautou & Jodie Fo


Book cover of Life and Fate

Paul Clark Author Of The Price of Dreams

From my list on life in the Soviet Union.

Why am I passionate about this?

At the age of 16, I briefly joined the International Socialists, a small British Trotskyist party. Though I soon became disillusioned, it was a formative experience that left me with a lifelong fascination with communism and the Soviet Union. Over the following decades, I read everything I could about the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. In the years after the fall of communism, the ideas that eventually culminated in the writing of this book began to form in my head.

Paul's book list on life in the Soviet Union

Paul Clark Why did Paul love this book?

Grossman consciously attempted to write the War and Peace of the Second World War, and in this panoramic masterpiece, he pulled it off. Like War and Peace, the book focuses both on the travails of a single family and the broader sweep of history, as we witness events from the perspective of persecuted Jewish scientists, soldiers (both Soviet and German), partisans, peasants, and generals.

This is an intensely personal work – Grossman covered the battle of Stalingrad for the Soviet press and knew his subject matter firsthand. Writing it was also an extremely courageous act. The KGB confiscated the manuscript and Grossman never lived to see the book published.

By Vasily Grossman,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Life and Fate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Based around the pivotal WWII battle of Stalingrad (1942-3), where the German advance into Russia was eventually halted by the Red Army, and around an extended family, the Shaposhnikovs, and their many friends and acquaintances, Life and Fate recounts the experience of characters caught up in an immense struggle between opposing armies and ideologies. Nazism and Communism are appallingly similar, 'two poles of one magnet', as a German camp commander tells a shocked old Bolshevik prisoner. At the height of the battle Russian soldiers and citizens alike are at last able to speak out as they choose, and without reprisal…


Book cover of Beloved

William Greer Author Of Walker's Way

From my list on historical fiction by African American authors.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a lifelong lover of books. As a child, one of my most prized possessions was my library card. It gave me entrance to a world of untold wonders from the past, present, and future. My love of reading sparked my imagination and led me to my own fledgling writing efforts. I come from a family of storytellers, my mother being the chief example. She delighted us with stories from her childhood and her maturation in the rural South. She was an excellent mimic, which added realism and humor to every tale. 

William's book list on historical fiction by African American authors

William Greer Why did William love this book?

This book is part odyssey, part ghost story, and part passion play. Toni Morrison is one of the patron saints of American literature whom I was fortunate to discover at an early age. This is her masterpiece, an example of what is possible when a writer’s heart, mind, and spirit are aligned.

The fact that the unfathomable sacrifice around which Beloved is imagined is based upon an actual event speaks volumes about the innate horrors of slavery. In matters of race, America’s skeletons are buried in shallow graves.

By Toni Morrison,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times

Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved

It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her…


Book cover of Regeneration

Erna Buffie Author Of Let Us Be True

From my list on grown-up time travelers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I vividly remember visiting our local museum as a little girl and being fascinated by the carefully displayed artifacts of the past, especially the ordinary things people had touched and used on a daily basis: a wooden bowl, a stone tool, an old bottle, its logo embossed on a blue glass surface. It made me want to travel through time, to touch the past, to be inside the hearts and minds of the people who came before me. I wanted to learn about their lives, their joys and suffering, and especially to learn from their mistakes. Each of the books I’ve suggested offers an opportunity to step into the shoes of another and time travel with them.

Erna's book list on grown-up time travelers

Erna Buffie Why did Erna love this book?

I’ve pressed copies of Pat Barker’s trilogy into the hands of more friends than I can count!

Set during the First World War, the books didn’t transport me to the battlefields of France as I’d expected, but onto a hospital ward for shell shock victims and into the fictionalized life of an amazing therapist who dedicated himself to their humane treatment.

I’d done a lot of research on the subject for a documentary film and knew about the extreme, sometimes horrific treatment these men received. So I was blown away to learn that there was at least one doctor who treated them compassionately, encouraging them to heal their psychic wounds by speaking about what they’d witnessed.

Everything about these novels – the crushing psychological impact of war on the minds of men and the healing power of remembering – inspired me to explore similar themes in my own fiction.

By Pat Barker,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"Calls to mind such early moderns as Hemingway and Fitzgerald...Some of the most powerful antiwar literature in modern English fiction."-The Boston Globe

The first book of the Regeneration Trilogy-a Booker Prize nominee and one of Entertainment Weekly's 100 All-Time Greatest Novels.

In 1917 Siegfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon's "sanity" and sending him back…


Book cover of A Game of Thrones

Lyndi Alexander Author Of Windmills

From my list on fantasy with female underdogs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love to cheer for underdogs, and young women who are in this category have my special devotion. As a child of the 1960s, I remember a time when women didn’t have the same rights and opportunities as men, and we still seem to be fighting it today. Coming from a trauma-based childhood myself, I find myself comparing and contrasting coping mechanisms. Luckily, I haven’t found it necessary to kill anyone with dragon stone or jacked-up hornets so far. It delights me when these girls win, whether they game the system or fight their way with guns and knives.

Lyndi's book list on fantasy with female underdogs

Lyndi Alexander Why did Lyndi love this book?

Game of Thrones, right? This author has created so many characters that fit this category, and they all handle their situations in a different manner. I love the three major ones, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen, who could not be more different from each other. Sansa and Arya have grown up in privilege, but one scheme to be a pampered lady, and the other would be happy sleeping in the kennel with her dire wolf.

Daenerys has been hidden much of her childhood to protect her, and suddenly, she is thrown into the game with her arranged marriage to a wild horse lord, where she grows up very fast in order to survive. Sadly, as women in Westeros, they do not control their own fates, and following how their lives evolve and intertwine is fascinating.

By George R. R. Martin,

Why should I read it?

24 authors picked A Game of Thrones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

HBO's hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin's internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A GAME OF THRONES is the first volume in the series.

'Completely immersive' Guardian

'When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground'

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

From the fertile south, where heat breeds conspiracy, to the vast and savage eastern lands, all the way to the frozen…


Book cover of Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind
Book cover of Stumbling on Happiness
Book cover of All the Light We Cannot See

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