100 books like The Painted Veil

I found Count Alexander Rostov to be a fascinating character with real depth. Sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life, he outwits his opponents at every turn. I love how he changes the lives of everyone around him, whether they are his friends or his jailers, and ultimately how he is changed by them.

By far, my favorite book of 2020, Hamnet, reimagines Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, not as the older spouse who trapped him into a loveless marriage but as the woman I’ve always imagined and wanted her to be – her husband’s match in every way.

Although, having said that, this particular time travel trip wasn’t easy, given that the book opens with a scene of the boy, Hamnet, racing through a village desperately trying to find help for his sister who has been struck down by the plague - a scene that painfully mirrored my own sense of fear and panic in what were then the early days of the COVID pandemic. 

Thankfully I forged on, and in the end was entranced by O’Farrell’s portrayal of Anne, captivated by her textured recreation of life in Elizabethan England and enthralled by her masterful telling of a timeless story about love, loss,… show more.

You don’t have to know much about the Spanish civil war to have heard of Guernica. If you’ve ever seen Picasso’s work depicting the bombing, this book creates the story of the people of the town going about their everyday lives just before the painting’s horror. As a reader, you know what is coming but are helpless to do anything but care for characters who are oblivious to the destruction coming their way. 

As an author, I found inspiration in this novel for my own portrayal of the civil war in Spain. The trick is to let ordinary people tell the story for you.

Set in Mexico in the 1930s when the revolutionary government engaged in an active campaign against the Catholic Church, Greene’s hero, the so-called Whiskey Priest, is a drunk who has also failed to adhere to his vow of chastity, but his kindness and commitment to worshippers make him an intensely sympathetic figure, as he is hunted by the local police chief determined to put him behind bars.

The book was a revelation to me when I first read it in college. I did not realize that the Mexican government had engaged in this war against the Church so recently. Nor did I realize that a novel so gripping could be told with such literary grace. 

The Author’s style is totally immersive. It begins with time travel through standing stones, and the genres multiply from there. The story has a good pace, plenty of action and adventure, humour, and a hunky scotsman… what else could you ask for?

In all seriousness, the main character is a feisty WW2 nurse who, when challenged, is ready to voice her opinions with plenty of sass. She is also strong, skilled, kind-hearted, and downright funny at times. She reminds me a lot of myself.

I am particularly drawn to stories about early adventures at sea. 

Life on a whaling ship was difficult and bred all manner of contemptible acts by the crew. When the journey was ill-fated, like the one in this book, it pointed the spotlight directly on the tainted core of ship life. 

This book introduced the greedy side of the 1800s whaling industry and told the story surrounding the doomed whaling ship and the ship’s drug-addicted surgeon. It presented the raw side of humanity and what lengths desperate men resort to in order to survive. It was shades of whaling seamen Herman Melville and John Rumell’s experiences surviving with savages. 

The story was riveting and begged the question: Who are the real savages?

OK, I’m a historian. I think the origins are interesting. Herman Melville’s book was there at the start of intruder tales. It is also a virtual time transformer, transporting the reader to a vivid other time and place. The narrative is based on Melville's experiences on the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands, where he deserted the ship to hang out.  The prose, like Stevenson’s, has that considered, flowing, Victorian narrative style I find refreshing—the type of prose you wrote slowly with a quill pen.

This book and its subsequent sister volume Omoo were Melville’s most famous books in his lifetime, far better known than Moby Dick. It is considered a classic in travel and adventure literature.

Norwegian-born Thor Hyerdahl was disenchanted with the civilized world and desired a more primitive lifestyle. In 1938, he took a bride and set out for the wild and remote Marquesan Island of Fatu Hiva—minus all worldly possessions. 

The couple stepped headlong into the unknown—most notably the natives. But the once-hostile natives had abandoned their savage ways, allowing for a peaceful co-existence. A year later, the extreme hazards of island living won out over idealism, forcing the Hyerdahls to return to civilization.

Hyerdahl’s notion that he could shed his civilized cloak to live bare-skinned in paradise was foolhardy. Like Herman Melville, Hyerdahl survived to tell his amazing story. Other daring adventurers, like my branded relative, were less fortunate.

Charles E. Rosenberg published his book, The Cholera Years, in 1962, and it has remained the classic book on the history of medicine in the 19th century United States. Rosenberg has had a singular impact on the field and has written on many public health topics, but his first book remains my favorite. Cleverly integrating the histories of social change, religion, and the contentious politics of New York City into a richly detailed chronicle of three separate epidemics of cholera, Rosenberg provides a gripping account of how Americans’ responses to public health crises have changed over time.

The Ghost Map is the fantastic story of an important Cholera epidemic in London in 1854.

The book swept me along with its narrative, plunging straight into the fetid world of Victorian London. Johnson weaves together the stories of the people affected, and the desperate hunt by Dr. John Snow to understand the cause of the disease. He also provides fascinating descriptions of the dangers to life in a time before sewers, and the evolution of such systems that ultimately transformed city life.

I definitely look at toilets, pipes, and sewer grates differently after reading this book.