100 books like Northwest Passage

This is a beloved book for many, but I love it so much because both of the characters are so unlikeable—yet you fall in love with them. I also love the conflict and the dueling, strong personalities of Scarlet and Rhett.

The plot is full of emotion and passion, and yet there are no sex scenes, which is another reason why I like it so much.

My introduction to Bernard Cornwell's work was a series of audiobooks that chronicled the journey of a British Rifleman who fought in every battle against Napoleon’s army, from the ports of Portugal to Waterloo. 

This book is the first novel in a new series by Cornwall called The Saxon Series, which begins the tale of Britain. It is told through the eyes of a Saxon noble (Utred of Bebbanburg) who is captured and raised by invading Danish Vikings. He is assimilated into their warrior culture before events lead him into service to King Alfred of Wessex. His knowledge of Viking battle tactics and his ruthless approach to war make him invaluable in a number of battles.

The story immerses you in the history of Britain, following a compelling protagonist whose story weaves you into the politics of Britain’s early days. I walked away thoroughly entertained and informed. This series was… show more.

Once upon a time, war was portrayed as glorious. Smartly-dressed soldiers strutted off to battle as admiring crowds cheered their departure. But then came Erich Maria Remarque’s stunning semi-autographical rebuke. Remarque was conscripted into the Imperial German Army at 18 and was wounded in the poisonous trenches of World War I. While he survived, like many, he did not return home unscathed.  

This book centers around young Paul Bäumer, an idealistic German boy raised in a picturesque village where patriotic speeches in school romanticize war and urge young men to sign up and fight for the Fatherland. He and his friends do just that and soon find themselves mired in the horrific conditions of trench warfare, a new kind of battle where little ground is ever made, and men die in all sorts of miserable ways.

As Paul and his peers struggle to do their duty, they succumb physically and… show more.

This book filled me with the thrill and horror of being a sailor, the addiction to the sea, and the beauty and tragedy of the world at the time of the Napoleonic wars; it filled me with this experience as if I were there, friends with the protagonists, seeing the sails fill and shine in the sun, receiving my bowl of grog, preparing for battle.

Patrick O’Brian was one of the world’s top experts on the British Navy and the Napoleonic wars, and this gorgeously written series takes you into their most intimate experiences. O’Brian bases his battles on move-by-move histories of real events, and by listening to Patrick Tull read the audiobook (could Tull be the best reader of all time?), I not only feel that world to be real to me, but I wish people spoke to each other with the articulation and meaning of his characters.

I actually think that Shaara has outdone his father. Both, of course, weave the story around actual historical events, although Shaara Junior’s introduction of fictional characters livens the narrative up. I’ve enjoyed all of Shaara’s books, regardless of their historical setting, but I chose this one because it was a good way for me to learn more about the Civil War post-Gettysburg and also have a really good read.

I was quite taken with Thom’s meticulous evocation of the great Tecumseh, an American much of whose life is unknown but whose formidable effort to form a Native American confederacy came at a time when the British and Americans were engaged in the War of 1812. With convincing detail, Thom gives us a Native American perspective on those turbulent times and shows us a Tecumseh who was not only a warrior but also a political strategist and a diplomat.

I am deeply passionate about Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace because I find that when I re-read it, I can always learn profound new lessons about human behavior. The setting of War and Peace is Russia in the period before, during, and after the Napoleonic Wars–roughly the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Both directly and indirectly, Tolstoy is dealing with the question of what happens after great revolutions.

France has experienced its great revolution and is now ruled by Emperor Napoleon. The talk is of spreading ‘revolutionary justice’ to the rest of Europe (and the world). In practice, Napoleon is making his own family members monarchs–the revolutionaries are the new aristocracy. Russia also experienced a kind of revolution because the French army's invasion of Mother Russia turned the Russian world upside down.

After invading Russia and capturing Moscow, the French military found themselves… show more.

This quintessential historical fiction book on Old Florida was both a nominee of the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Rich in history and unforgettable characters, the story follows the MacIveys, as they scrap out a living as dirt farmers, beginning in the mid-1800s, through the 1960s. Not hurricanes, the Civil War, freezes, or near-starvation can staunch the family’s resilience, ultimately allowing them to build a great fortune. This novel truly touches my heart as my family came from Georgia, with little in their pockets, in the early 20th century, seeking to fulfill their own dreams. This is writing at its best, steeped in rich and authentic detail, making this a novel that will live on through the ages.

What struck me most was the use of simple language to portray powerful intimacy and connection between human and animal, and by extension, environment. Murphy’s humorous dialogue, together with sparing, often ironic, descriptions, struck deep into my heart. The play starts in 1535 on an ice shelf up north—when an Inuk widow risks her life to save a lost one-eared polar bear cub on an ice floe, and adopts him. In the last scene five hundred years later in the oily waters of the Northwest Passage, the same bear—starving and cruelly injured by eco-tourists on a cruise ship—struggles to keep from drowning. No one on the ship cares. No one weeps for him. But I did. I wept for him and for his world destroyed by apathy. 

In the 19th century, it was believed that if a way could be found through North America’s ice barrier, beyond lay an open sea offering ships a shortcut to the Pacific.  The quest to find it became a litany of disaster, suffering, human spirit stretched to breaking point and heroic survival. Canada’s greatest historian, Pierre Burton, turns factual accounts into a riveting read, ‘a cliff-hanger with colorful characters’ as Newsweek described it. This is another book I hate to lend for fear I’ll never get it back.