Love Suspended Sentences? Readers share 100 books like Suspended Sentences...

By Patrick Modiano, Mark Polizzotti (translator),

Here are 100 books that Suspended Sentences fans have personally recommended if you like Suspended Sentences. 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 The Radetzky March

Patrick Joyce Author Of Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World

From my list on vanishing human worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the son of Irish rural immigrants who at the age of nearly eighty already occupies several vanished worlds myself: London in the 1950s and 60s, the old world of the European peasantry, and a time when the greatest war in human history was still a daily presence. I spent most of my life as an academic historian writing books for an academic audience. Then, to my surprise, at the tender age of seventy, I discovered that I could write prose that had a certain grace and dignity and which seemed to move people as well as inform them. So, I began a second career as what is called a “writer.”   

Patrick's book list on vanishing human worlds

Patrick Joyce Why did Patrick love this book?

Josef Roth is now recognized as one of the greatest German writers of the twentieth century. As a historian myself, I was entranced by reading it by the way in which the book catches the vast temporal arc of the transformation and then fall of a society that had for centuries been a major force in European history, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now forgotten, this was the world of Vienna’s great resplendence, then fall.

The story is told through the generational story of one family, the von Trottas. Impending loss is conveyed alongside great affection as a whole world is lost in the disasters of the First World War. The book was first published in English in 1933. In the words of another of Josef Roth’s books, “I was there,” which he was.

By Joseph Roth, Joachim Neugroschel (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Radetzky March as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE RADETSKY MARCH is subtle and touching study of family life at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Writing in the traditional form of the family saga, Roth nevertheless manages to bring to his story a completely individual manner which gives at the same time the detailed and intimate portrait of a life and the wider panorama of a failing dynasty. Not yet well known in English-speaking countries, Joseph Roth is one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, worthy to be bracketed with Musil and Kraus.


Book cover of Voices of the Old Sea

Patrick Joyce Author Of Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World

From my list on vanishing human worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the son of Irish rural immigrants who at the age of nearly eighty already occupies several vanished worlds myself: London in the 1950s and 60s, the old world of the European peasantry, and a time when the greatest war in human history was still a daily presence. I spent most of my life as an academic historian writing books for an academic audience. Then, to my surprise, at the tender age of seventy, I discovered that I could write prose that had a certain grace and dignity and which seemed to move people as well as inform them. So, I began a second career as what is called a “writer.”   

Patrick's book list on vanishing human worlds

Patrick Joyce Why did Patrick love this book?

Norman Lewis was what is usually called a travel writer. Today’s travel writers, however, pale beside him.

I read this book when it first came out in 1984. It describes the three summers in the late 1940s when Lewis lived and worked in a very remote fishing village on what is now called the Costa Brava. He records with utmost sympathy and acuteness of observation the last days of the old world of Mediterranean Spain before it became completely obliterated by mass tourism.

The book touched me deeply, for I had seen the last vestiges of other parts of Spain only a decade or so after Lewis. The book is a kind of monument for all parts of the world submerged by mass tourism.

By Norman Lewis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Voices of the Old Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

After World War II, Norman Lewis returned to Spain and settled in the remote fishing village of Farol, on what is now Costa Brava. Voices of the Old Sea describes his three successive summers in that almost medieval community where life revolved around the seasonal sardine catches, Alcade's bar, and satisfying feuds with neighbouring villages. It's lucky Lewis was there when he was. Soon after, Spain was discovered by its neighbours in a more prosperous northern Europe, and the tourist tide that ensued flowed inexorably over the old ways of the town and its inhabitants.


Book cover of Pig Earth

Patrick Joyce Author Of Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World

From my list on vanishing human worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the son of Irish rural immigrants who at the age of nearly eighty already occupies several vanished worlds myself: London in the 1950s and 60s, the old world of the European peasantry, and a time when the greatest war in human history was still a daily presence. I spent most of my life as an academic historian writing books for an academic audience. Then, to my surprise, at the tender age of seventy, I discovered that I could write prose that had a certain grace and dignity and which seemed to move people as well as inform them. So, I began a second career as what is called a “writer.”   

Patrick's book list on vanishing human worlds

Patrick Joyce Why did Patrick love this book?

This is French peasant life in its last days, a life rendered from the outside by one who became an insider.

Berger went to live and work among the peasants of the French south in 1962. This world, like that of Spain at much the same time, saw the death of the old peasantry. It is not a work of observation like Norman Lewis’s book but a series of fictional stories. It treats peasants as human beings, on an equal standing with all others in society. They have depth and gravity. Just like us all.

How awful most writing about peasants is. This stands out proudly from that awfulness. 

By John Berger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pig Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With this haunting first volume of his Into Their Labours trilogy, John Berger begins his chronicle of the eclipse of peasant cultures in the twentieth century. Set in a small village in the French Alps, Pig Earth relates the stories of skeptical, hard-working men and fiercely independent women; of calves born and pigs slaughtered; of summer haymaking and long dark winters f rest; of a message of forgiveness from a dead father to his prodigal son; and of the marvelous Lucie Cabrol, exiled to a hut high in the mountains, but an inexorable part of the lives of men who…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of I Could Read the Sky

Patrick Joyce Author Of Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World

From my list on vanishing human worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the son of Irish rural immigrants who at the age of nearly eighty already occupies several vanished worlds myself: London in the 1950s and 60s, the old world of the European peasantry, and a time when the greatest war in human history was still a daily presence. I spent most of my life as an academic historian writing books for an academic audience. Then, to my surprise, at the tender age of seventy, I discovered that I could write prose that had a certain grace and dignity and which seemed to move people as well as inform them. So, I began a second career as what is called a “writer.”   

Patrick's book list on vanishing human worlds

Patrick Joyce Why did Patrick love this book?

I treasure this book as I treasure the memory of my long-dead father, for this transcendently sad and beautiful book takes me into a world close in spirit to that of his own life. His own experience was the experience of the immigrant worker, the Irish rural one.

With the astonishing new economic prosperity of Ireland, the London of the book is no longer there. The prose of O’Grady and the photos of Pike constantly play one across the other to shattering effect. The book was made into a fine film.

Readers will note a certain interplay across my choices of books: John Berger wrote a beautiful foreword to the first edition. The beautifully produced 2023 edition is much better than the 1997 one. The epigraph of the book is from Seferis: “I whispered: memory hurts wherever you touch it.”

By Timothy O'Grady, Steve Pyke (photographer),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Could Read the Sky as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Think about a tune ... the unsayable, the invisible, the longing in music. Here is a book of tunes without musical notes ... It wrings the heart' John Berger

'The voice that O'Grady has crafted succeeds so well...running in parallel, Pyke's stark arresting images are laced between the paragraphs and chapters. The interplay between the two mediums is delicately powerful' Hilary White

'A masterpiece' Robert Macfarlane

'O'Grady does not just respond to Pyke's stark, beautiful photographs: he gives voice to thousands' Louise Kennedy

'The experience of Irish emigration uniquely and powerfully illuminated' Mark Knopfler

'If the words tell the story…


Book cover of Fleeing Hitler: France 1940

Austin Denis Johnston Author Of 33 Days: A Memoir

From my list on the refugee crisis in Western Europe in WW2.

Why am I passionate about this?

Twenty years ago I nearly married a French woman and emigrated. I prepared vigorously to become an honorary Frenchman, cramming French history, language, and culture. Ultimately, I neither married nor emigrated, but the passion for that cultural acquisition project never left me, meaning many years of trips, reading, and language study. For the last decade, I've supplemented that interest by looking for historically significant French texts to translate (primarily contemporaneous texts about the World Wars and the interwar period). I have degrees in history and international affairs, plus professional experience in military affairs (including the Office of Secretary of Defense) and editing magazines (for Time, Inc.).

Austin's book list on the refugee crisis in Western Europe in WW2

Austin Denis Johnston Why did Austin love this book?

The first book to read on this subject. An accessible, expert synthesis of refugee experiences based on many accounts, including interviews, but focused on eight that contain extensive, significant detail (all by Paris residents, Léon Werth among them). Diamond concludes that Philippe Pétain leveraged refugees' suffering to propagandize for military capitulation and the legitimacy of his regime.

By Hanna Diamond,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fleeing Hitler as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Wednesday 12th June 1940. The Times reported 'thousands upon thousands of Parisians leaving the capital by every possible means, preferring to abandon home and property rather than risk even temporary Nazi domination'.

As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, the French government abandoned the city and its people, leaving behind them an atmosphere of panic. Roads heading south filled with ordinary people fleeing for their lives with whatever personal possessions they could carry, often with no particular destination in mind. During the long, hard journey, this mass exodus of predominantly women, children, and the elderly, would face constant bombings, machine gun…


Book cover of Mistress of the Ritz

Nancy Cole Silverman Author Of The Navigator's Daughter

From my list on women of WW2 and their untold stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love to travel, and I’m always interested in the history of where I visit, and what unusual and little known stories I might pick up. I spent twenty-five years working in news and talk radio and I suppose that’s why my fingers itch to get to a keyboard when I hear of an event or someone interesting that I’d like to meet on the pages of one of my books. These days it’s where I spend most of my time, crafting mysteries both national and international and always with sense of suspense, and for good measure, a little whimsey.   

Nancy's book list on women of WW2 and their untold stories

Nancy Cole Silverman Why did Nancy love this book?

You never know who can be until you have to be that person to survive.

Women should never underestimate themselves. That was my takeaway from Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin, a true life story about an American woman who worked for the French Resistance during World War II. 

I couldn’t help but be inspired by Blanche Auzello, a young American actress in Paris, who, as the Nazis are taking over the city, chooses to remain in Paris with her husband.

Despite the difficulties of the Nazi occupation, and the growing distance in her relationship with her husband, Blance takes on new challenges and roles she never expected to play that will forever change her life and the lives of those close to her.  

Mistress of the Ritz is the type of historical mystery that, despite knowing the outcome of the war, will keep readers turning pages and wondering...could…

By Melanie Benjamin,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A captivating novel based on the story of the extraordinary real-life American woman who secretly worked for the French Resistance during World War II—while playing hostess to the invading Germans at the iconic Hôtel Ritz in Paris—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue.

“A compelling portrait of a marriage and a nation at war from within.”—Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network

Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coco…


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Book cover of The Ballad of Falling Rock

The Ballad of Falling Rock by Jordan Dotson,

Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…

Book cover of France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944

Yehuda Moraly Author Of Revolution in Paradise: Veiled Representations of Jewish Characters in the Cinema of Occupied France

From my list on French theater and film during German occupation.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am teaching Theater studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among my courses, “The World of Theater in the Reflection of Cinema" was a notable one. My favorite film was Children of Paradise. However, I was taken aback when a friend questioned the film's alleged anti-Semitic elements. I scrutinized the character of the Old-Clothes Man, Josué, noticing his stereotypical Jewish traits. As my research went further, I discovered the original 1942 script, where Josué played a more significant role as an overt Jewish traitor, ultimately slain by the film's hero, Deburau. This revelation prompted extensive research in Paris and Jerusalem, uncovering veiled Jewish portrayals in other French films made during the German occupation.

Yehuda's book list on French theater and film during German occupation

Yehuda Moraly Why did Yehuda love this book?

I like very much the monumental book of Julian Jackson on Vichy and the French Occupation.

Despite its length, Jackson’s book remains engaging throughout. The book delves first into the formative years of Vichy. It sheds light on the political tensions that preceded this period. It elucidates how individuals from various political backgrounds were drawn to this attractive vision of societal rejuvenation. It emphasizes the unclear limits between right and wrong during this challenging era.

The book is very important both for students and researchers.

By Julian Jackson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The French call them 'the Dark Years'...

This definitive new history of Occupied France explores the myths and realities of four of the most divisive years in French history.

Taking in ordinary people's experiences of defeat, collaboration, resistance, and liberation, it uncovers the conflicting memories of occupation which ensure that even today France continues to debate the legacy of the Vichy years.


Book cover of All the Light We Cannot See

Melanie Maure Author Of Sisters of Belfast

From my list on women discovering strength through tragedy.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for this topic of women overcoming the odds stems from having worked with powerful, resilient women as a life coach and therapist for the past 15 years. I witness and continue to be inspired by women who surpass what they or those around them believe is possible internally and externally. Women are powerful in unimaginable ways, and I love to read a great story that depicts this truth.

Melanie's book list on women discovering strength through tragedy

Melanie Maure Why did Melanie love this book?

This novel took my breath away. The power of this novel is in the descriptive details and the fresh perspective on WWII. I adore a book that brings a global story down to the intricate details of the humans involved, their relationships, and, in particular, how people seemingly on opposite sides of violence are only love-seeking humans when all is said and done. The resilience of the characters, especially the young woman named Marie-Laure, who is blind, is truly inspiring. It's a reminder of the strength we all possess, even in the most challenging circumstances.

As with my other favorite novels, the unlikely protagonist and shero is a young woman named Marie-Laure, who is blind. I was taken by the way this novel explores her ability to navigate her known world and then a world that is devastated physically and emotionally. Marie-Laure, along with all of the characters in this…

By Anthony Doerr,

Why should I read it?

51 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 The Paris Architect

Victoria Arendt Author Of Broken Pencils

From my list on historical fiction set in the 1930s and 1940s.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most people, the carefree days of childhood are brought to a halt with the passage of time and the death of loved ones. As a wistful, dreamy, and introspective person, I wished to revisit the past, if only for a moment, to see what my grandparents experienced in their earlier lives. Currently, I’m under the spell of the 1930s and 1940s, and historical fiction books are an engaging way to learn about these marvelous decades.  

Victoria's book list on historical fiction set in the 1930s and 1940s

Victoria Arendt Why did Victoria love this book?

Set in Nazi-occupied Paris, The Paris Architect tells the most unusual story about an up-and-coming architect named Lucian who is offered a financially lucrative deal... but it’s a dangerous deal and one he doesn’t fully believe in. Forced to choose between safety or money, an envelope stuffed with his first payment emboldens his decision and creates a no-turning-back scenario.  

Set in the 1930s and 1940s, Charles Belfoure’s captivating writing will make you think about the past and wonder about other unsung heroes of that time.

By Charles Belfoure,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In 1942 Paris, gifted architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money - and maybe get him killed. But if he's clever enough, he'll avoid any trouble. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist. But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940

Austin Denis Johnston Author Of 33 Days: A Memoir

From my list on the refugee crisis in Western Europe in WW2.

Why am I passionate about this?

Twenty years ago I nearly married a French woman and emigrated. I prepared vigorously to become an honorary Frenchman, cramming French history, language, and culture. Ultimately, I neither married nor emigrated, but the passion for that cultural acquisition project never left me, meaning many years of trips, reading, and language study. For the last decade, I've supplemented that interest by looking for historically significant French texts to translate (primarily contemporaneous texts about the World Wars and the interwar period). I have degrees in history and international affairs, plus professional experience in military affairs (including the Office of Secretary of Defense) and editing magazines (for Time, Inc.).

Austin's book list on the refugee crisis in Western Europe in WW2

Austin Denis Johnston Why did Austin love this book?

Also for historical context, this is a more traditionally constructed history—though also a masterful synthesis of sources—and among those that view the refugee crisis as having a role in France's defeat. Clear, concise and comprehensive; if you read one book about the fall of France, read this.

By Julian Jackson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The German army had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and elsewhere, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. The mood in the meeting was one of panic and despair; there
was talk of evacuating Paris. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where is the…


Book cover of The Radetzky March
Book cover of Voices of the Old Sea
Book cover of Pig Earth

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Interested in the German occupation of Europe, France, and Paris?

France 958 books
Paris 400 books