100 books like The Death Of Ivan Ilych

By Leo Tolstoy,

Here are 100 books that The Death Of Ivan Ilych fans have personally recommended if you like The Death Of Ivan Ilych. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life And Letters From Westerbork

Jerome A. Miller Author Of Sobering Wisdom: Philosophical Explorations of Twelve Step Spirituality

From my list on spiritual breakthrough.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my 37 years of teaching philosophy to undergraduate students, most of whom had no prior exposure to it, my purpose was to promote self-examination of the sort practiced and encouraged by Socrates. Such self-examination is upsetting, unsettling. It leads one to insights and realizations one would prefer not to have. But by undermining one’s assumptions, these insights break one open to a whole universe of which one had been oblivious. Breakdowns make possible breakthroughs. My students didn’t realize that, just as I was trying to provoke this kind of spiritual transformation in them, their questions, criticisms, challenges, and insights provoked it in me. 

Jerome's book list on spiritual breakthrough

Jerome A. Miller Why did Jerome love this book?

Why include on this list the diaries of a secular Jewish woman who is in the grip of self-centered anxieties and an unusual, if not bizarre, relationship with her analyst? Because spiritual transformation begins and evolves in uncanny ways, leading one to find transcendence where one never would have expected it. Etty’s diaries and letters allow us to follow the process by which she became so profoundly lucid and open-hearted that she was able to see the humanity even in the Nazis organizing extermination.

By Etty Hillesum,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

For the first time, Etty Hillesum's diary and letters appear together to give us the fullest possible portrait of this extraordinary woman in the midst of World War II.

In the darkest years of Nazi occupation and genocide, Etty Hillesum remained a celebrant of life whose lucid intelligence, sympathy, and almost impossible gallantry were themselves a form of inner resistance. The adult counterpart to Anne Frank, Hillesum testifies to the possibility of awareness and compassion in the face of the most devastating challenge to one's humanity. She died at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of twenty-nine.


Book cover of The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

Jerome A. Miller Author Of Sobering Wisdom: Philosophical Explorations of Twelve Step Spirituality

From my list on spiritual breakthrough.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my 37 years of teaching philosophy to undergraduate students, most of whom had no prior exposure to it, my purpose was to promote self-examination of the sort practiced and encouraged by Socrates. Such self-examination is upsetting, unsettling. It leads one to insights and realizations one would prefer not to have. But by undermining one’s assumptions, these insights break one open to a whole universe of which one had been oblivious. Breakdowns make possible breakthroughs. My students didn’t realize that, just as I was trying to provoke this kind of spiritual transformation in them, their questions, criticisms, challenges, and insights provoked it in me. 

Jerome's book list on spiritual breakthrough

Jerome A. Miller Why did Jerome love this book?

Drawing upon stories from all the great spiritual traditions, Kurtz and Ketcham keep shocking us out of our assumptions about the spiritual life, and inviting us to abandon the pursuit of perfection that many of us identify with it. They pull the rug out from under us, telling us what we don’t expect to hear. There’s something comical about embracing imperfection. But if they’re right, it’s the only real alternative to living tragically. I suggest watching Chaplin’s City Lights and Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box, as you make your way through the chapters of this book.

By Ernest Kurtz, Katherine Ketcham,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

I Am Not Perfect is a simple statement of profound truth, the first step toward  understanding the human condition, for to deny your essential imperfection is to deny yourself and your own humanity. The spirituality of imperfection, steeped in the rich traditions of the Hebrew prophets and Greek thinkers, Buddhist sages and Christian disciples, is a message as timeless as it is  timely. This insightful work draws on the wisdom stories of the ages to provide an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in these troubled times.

Who are we? Why so…


Book cover of Praisesong for the Widow

Jerome A. Miller Author Of Sobering Wisdom: Philosophical Explorations of Twelve Step Spirituality

From my list on spiritual breakthrough.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my 37 years of teaching philosophy to undergraduate students, most of whom had no prior exposure to it, my purpose was to promote self-examination of the sort practiced and encouraged by Socrates. Such self-examination is upsetting, unsettling. It leads one to insights and realizations one would prefer not to have. But by undermining one’s assumptions, these insights break one open to a whole universe of which one had been oblivious. Breakdowns make possible breakthroughs. My students didn’t realize that, just as I was trying to provoke this kind of spiritual transformation in them, their questions, criticisms, challenges, and insights provoked it in me. 

Jerome's book list on spiritual breakthrough

Jerome A. Miller Why did Jerome love this book?

A cruise ship is, perhaps, the least likely of all possible venues for the beginning of a spiritual breakthrough. But this is where spiritual transformation starts for Avey Johnson, the 64-year-old African American woman who is the central character in this Marshall novel. Breakthroughs are often set in motion deep down inside us, below the surface of our ordinary awareness. In fact, a real breakthrough can’t happen unless it goes all the way down in us. I know of no book that conveys this truth more effectively.

By Paule Marshall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Praisesong for the Widow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the acclaimed author of Daughters and Brown Girl, Brownstones comes a "work of exceptional wisdom, maturity, and generosity, one in which the palpable humanity of its characters transcends any considerations of race or sex"(Washington Post Book World).

Avey Johnson-a black, middle-aged, middle-class widow given to hats, gloves, and pearls-has long since put behind her the Harlem of her childhood. Then on a cruise to the Caribbean with two friends, inspired by a troubling dream, she senses her life beginning to unravel-and in a panic packs her bag in the middle of the night and abandons her friends at the…


Book cover of Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation

Jerome A. Miller Author Of Sobering Wisdom: Philosophical Explorations of Twelve Step Spirituality

From my list on spiritual breakthrough.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my 37 years of teaching philosophy to undergraduate students, most of whom had no prior exposure to it, my purpose was to promote self-examination of the sort practiced and encouraged by Socrates. Such self-examination is upsetting, unsettling. It leads one to insights and realizations one would prefer not to have. But by undermining one’s assumptions, these insights break one open to a whole universe of which one had been oblivious. Breakdowns make possible breakthroughs. My students didn’t realize that, just as I was trying to provoke this kind of spiritual transformation in them, their questions, criticisms, challenges, and insights provoked it in me. 

Jerome's book list on spiritual breakthrough

Jerome A. Miller Why did Jerome love this book?

Because Lear is a philosopher and a psychoanalyst, his book has a more academic flavor than the others on my list. But because he’s a philosopher and psychoanalyst attentive to lived experience, his book draws us into the devastating loss suffered by the Crow Nation, and especially by Plenty Coups, their last great chief, when their culture was stripped from them. This was, of course, an irreparable trauma from which it was impossible to recover. But instead of trying to retrieve what was unrecoverable, Plenty Coups turned to the unknowable, unprecedented future with the “radical hope” that it could be charged with transcendent meaning for his people. Perhaps the spiritual life, especially in these crisis-ridden days, consists in learning how to practice such hope.

By Jonathan Lear,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story-up to a certain point. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground," he said, "and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened." It is precisely this point-that of a people faced with the end of their way of life-that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear's view, Plenty Coups's story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all: how should one face…


Book cover of The Hiding Place

Elizabeth Millane Author Of Sixty Blades of Grass

From my list on WWII Resistance and Survival in europe.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was six years old, my Dutch relatives visited. Stories swirled about their bravery in getting secrets from the Germans and sharing the intel with the Allies, about their privation during the hunger winter, and their work hiding their Jewish countrymen. I studied abroad in 1977-1978 and took the opportunity to visit my Dutch relatives. They told me more stories of their resistance work, their escapades, and, most importantly, their “why” during my time with them. Such stories don’t leave you–ever. They percolated in my head for years until a voice came to me, Rika’s voice, and I began to write. Sixty Blades of Grass is the result.

Elizabeth's book list on WWII Resistance and Survival in europe

Elizabeth Millane Why did Elizabeth love this book?

This is the Dutch Underground at its finest. The “why” people would risk their lives and resist the German persecution of the Jews came through loud and clear here.

Based on a true story, Corrie Ten Boom ran an underground cell out of her home in Harlem with the support of her family. Her religion sustained her through tremendous losses and suffering but enabled her to find peace for herself and others post-war.

By Corrie Ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill , Tim Foley (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Hiding Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

The True Story of a Real-Life Hero

It's World War II. Darkness has fallen over Europe as the Nazis spread hatred, fear and war across the globe. But on a quiet city corner in the Netherlands, one woman fights against the darkness.

In her quiet watchmaking shop, she and her family risk their lives to hide Jews, and others hunted by the Nazis, in a secret room, a "hiding place" that they built in the old building.

One day, however, Corrie and her family are betrayed. They're captured and sent to the notorious Nazi concentration camps to die. Yet even…


Book cover of Silas Marner

Rebecca Rosenblum Author Of These Days Are Numbered: Diary of a High-Rise Lockdown

From my list on community and connection.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been deeply interested in how people connect to those around them—it is something I write about constantly. My first novel, So Much Love, was about how a community reacts to terrible loss and uncertainty, and my recent book of nonfiction, These Days Are Numbered, is about how my own community—and I—reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic. I am always looking at how humans human, separately and especially together. That is one of the joys of narrative fiction for me—the way we can use it to examine our behaviour and interactions, and how we form relationships and communities. I hope these books enthrall you as much as they did me.

Rebecca's book list on community and connection

Rebecca Rosenblum Why did Rebecca love this book?

Yes, it’s a Victorian novel but it’s also the slenderest and sweetest one, by my lights.

Cast out from his narrow religious community by the acts of a dishonest friend, Silas Marner flees to a new village and resolves to live a life apart, money his only security. Then along comes a tiny child in need and Silas cannot help but help—even though this new challenge comes on the heels of a devastating robbery.

The man’s generosity has the effect of opening him up to the generosity of others until, little by little, he becomes a part of the community he has lived apart from for so long. There is never a bad time to read this lovely, hopeful little novella about the worst and best of human nature. 

By George Eliot,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Gold! - his own gold - brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away!

Falsely accused of theft, Silas Marner is cut off from his community but finds refuge in the village of Raveloe, where he is eyed with distant suspicion. Like a spider from a fairy-tale, Silas fills fifteen monotonous years with weaving and accumulating gold. The son of the wealthy local Squire, Godfrey Cass also seeks an escape from his past. One snowy winter, two events change the course of their lives: Silas's gold is stolen and, a child crawls across his threshold.

Combining…


Book cover of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Susan M Soesbe Author Of Bringing Mom Home: How Two Sisters Moved Their Mother Out of Assisted Living to Care For Her Under One Amazingly Large Roof

From my list on portraying death and loss honestly and hopefully.

Why am I passionate about this?

I lost my marriage. I lost my dad to cancer, and my mom to Alzheimer’s Disease (and wrote a memoir about it). Along the way, I lost my sense of superiority and entitlement. I gained the ability to laugh at myself and trust God for everything. I found that I was not as important as I had tacitly assumed. I’ve learned Jesus’s words are true: “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” When I see this depicted well in a book, I think, “Thank God for writers who will tell me the truth.” Today, I’m a fiction book coach with a goal of helping writers tell the whole awful, glorious truth.

Susan's book list on portraying death and loss honestly and hopefully

Susan M Soesbe Why did Susan love this book?

Edward Tulane is a vain, selfish, coldhearted toy rabbit. And, except for the toy rabbit part, I am Edward Tulane. That’s why I needed this book.

Whilst the family is on the Queen Mary, Edward is cast overboard, like Jonah. Outside the bosom of his family, Edward is largely unloved and disrespected. Through many trials and tribulations, he is reunited with his family. It’s classic Odyssey territory, except that Edward’s trials broaden his perspective and enable him to appreciate – and, yes, love – those who love him.

Edward may be merely a toy rabbit, but he stands in for all of us who need to die in order to live.

By Kate DiCamillo, Bagram Ibatoulline (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

The Incredible Journey meets The Mouse and His Child, an enchanting tale that begs to be read aloud.

The magical story of the adventures of a lost toy rabbit from a New York Times bestselling author, twice winner of the Newbery Medal. Abilene loves her blue china rabbit, but Edward Tulane is extremely vain and only loves himself. On a voyage from New York to London, Edward falls overboard and from there finds himself on an amazing journey. He travels with tramps, works as a scarecrow, comforts a dying child ... and finally learns what it is to truly love.


Book cover of In This House of Brede

Susan M Soesbe Author Of Bringing Mom Home: How Two Sisters Moved Their Mother Out of Assisted Living to Care For Her Under One Amazingly Large Roof

From my list on portraying death and loss honestly and hopefully.

Why am I passionate about this?

I lost my marriage. I lost my dad to cancer, and my mom to Alzheimer’s Disease (and wrote a memoir about it). Along the way, I lost my sense of superiority and entitlement. I gained the ability to laugh at myself and trust God for everything. I found that I was not as important as I had tacitly assumed. I’ve learned Jesus’s words are true: “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” When I see this depicted well in a book, I think, “Thank God for writers who will tell me the truth.” Today, I’m a fiction book coach with a goal of helping writers tell the whole awful, glorious truth.

Susan's book list on portraying death and loss honestly and hopefully

Susan M Soesbe Why did Susan love this book?

I love this story because it portrays people choosing to die to themselves in order to live for God.

These Benedictine sisters are not running away from the world. Each woman faces her past, present, and future through the lens of devotion to God. Centering their lives around worship has cost them dearly but, as I read, I began to grasp its worth with greater clarity. I’ve seen myself that believers in Christ who die to themselves, paradoxically, seem more alive.

This House of Brede made me reflect on the concept of losing your life to save it. It reminded me that losing my life is tragically inevitable, but saving it is gloriously possible.

By Rumer Godden,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In This House of Brede as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By the author of Black Narcissus and The River

'Rumer Godden's novels have a timeless shimmer' GUARDIAN

'One hundred years after her birth, Rumer Godden's novels still pulse with life' MATTHEW DENNISON, TELEGRAPH

'Her craftsmanship is always sure' NEW YORK TIMES

'The motto was Pax but the word was set in a circle of thorns. Peace, but what a strange peace, made of unremitting toil and effort . . .'

Bruised by tragedy, Philippa Talbot leaves behind a successful career with the civil service for a new calling: to join an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns. In this small community…


Book cover of The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy

Susana Aikin Author Of We Shall See the Sky Sparkling

From my list on Russian literature that I consider masterpieces.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a writer and a filmmaker who has lived in New York City since 1982. In 1986 I started my own independent film production company, Starfish Productions, through which I produced and directed documentary films that won multiple awards, including an American Film Institute grant, a Rockefeller Fellowship, and an Emmy Award in 1997. I started writing fiction full-time in 2010. My debut novel, We Shall See the Sky Sparkling (Kensington Books) was published in 2/2019; my second novel The Weight of the Heart (Kensington Books) came out in 5/2020.

Susana's book list on Russian literature that I consider masterpieces

Susana Aikin Why did Susana love this book?

After worshiping Leo Tolstoy and his writing for long decades, the much later discovery of Sophia’s diaries came to me as a huge revelation: I learnt that no writer or artist is an island, but always part of a human ecosystem that nurtures and feeds their art. In the case of Tolstoy, it was his family and most particularly his wife. In her personal writings we meet the woman behind the great writer, married to him for 48 years, and who bore him 13 children. She was pivotal to his work, encouraging and supporting his literary career. Through her pages, we find out about her love for Tolstoy and their tormented marriage, in which she often felt neglected and provoked. We see the hidden, dark side of the great man of letters, a vastly gifted but troubled individual, and we also learn about Sophia’s undying vital energy that allowed her…

By Cathy Porter,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

When Sofia Behrs married Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of "War and Peace", husband and wife regularly exchanged diaries covering the years from 1862 to 1910. Sofia's life was not an easy one: she idealized her husband, but was tormented by him; even her many children were not an unmitigated blessing. In the background of her life was one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history: the transition from old feudal Russia to the three revolutions and three major international wars. Yet it is as Sofia Tolstoy's own life story, the study of one woman's private experience, that the…


Book cover of Laurus: The International Bestseller

Robin Gregory Author Of The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman

From my list on fantasy exploring love, loss, healing, and redemption.

Why am I passionate about this?

Do you ever wonder if you belong in this world? Since I was a kid, I’ve felt more at home in my imagination than with external events and people. When I first read Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, I felt like he spoke my language. He gave me permission to voice intuitive perceptions and deeply personal views through fiction. As time progressed, the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Borges, Lois Lowry, Toni Morrison, Angela Carter, and Adolfo Bioy Casares inspired me to further explore multi-layered realities through novels and screenwriting. 

Robin's book list on fantasy exploring love, loss, healing, and redemption

Robin Gregory Why did Robin love this book?

This book is brimming with themes that are super meaningful to me—love, loss, healing, the nature of reality, time travel, spirituality, faith, and redemption. He does this through language that waxes poetic in a formal, archaic voice, dropping into and out of time, occasionally lapsing into a hilarious, modern tone. Laurus, the protagonist, reminds me of myself, a holy fool, who believes in the healing power of mercy and compassion. As well, he keeps one foot in this world and the other in a mystical realm to which he longs to return.   

By Eugene Vodolazkin, Lisa C. Hayden (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD, THE LEO TOLSTOY YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD & THE READ RUSSIA AWARD

*A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016*

Fifteenth-century Russia

It is a time of plague and pestilence, and a young healer, skilled in the art of herbs and remedies, finds himself overcome with grief and guilt when he fails to save the one he holds closest to his heart. Leaving behind his village, his possessions and his name, he sets out on a quest for redemption, penniless and alone. But this is no ordinary journey: wandering across plague-ridden Europe, offering his healing…


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Interested in Leo Tolstoy, Russia, and Europe?

Leo Tolstoy 30 books
Russia 384 books
Europe 947 books