97 books like The Portrait of a Lady

By Henry James, Roger Luckhurst (editor),

Here are 97 books that The Portrait of a Lady fans have personally recommended if you like The Portrait of a Lady. 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 Hamlet

Robert Rotenberg Author Of Old City Hall

From my list on from writing legal thrillers to historical thrillers.

Why am I passionate about this?

Before W. Somerset Maugham became the most popular writer in the world, he spent five years as a doctor in a London hospital. He says it was perfect training to be a novelist: he learned everything about human behavior from his patients. I’ve been a criminal lawyer for more than 33 years, and every day, someone tells me a story I could never dream up. I meet my clients at the point of crisis and work with them through shock, anger, depression, denial, bargaining, and acceptance. It’s the same for my characters, who are as alive to me and my readers as anyone in my life.

Robert's book list on from writing legal thrillers to historical thrillers

Robert Rotenberg Why did Robert love this book?

Okay, technically, this is not a book. But it is the greatest work in the English language. When I do public speaking, I like to say my ” favorite mystery is Scandinavian.” Everyone nods. “There’s a questionable murder to begin, then a suicide, an attempted kidnapping, and a big fight when the two main characters die.” People nod again. “It’s called Hamlet. Have you ever heard of it?” And everyone laughs. 

I then ask the question: what is the difference between a mystery and a thriller? I believe in a mystery the protagonist is ahead of the reader. (Think classic detective novels such as The Big Sleep). But in a thriller, the audience is ahead of the protagonist. (Think a movie such as Wait Until Dark). In Hamlet, we have both. The first half is a mystery. Was his father really murdered? But in the crucial midpoint,…

By William Shakespeare,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'The Mona Lisa of literature' T. S. Eliot

In Shakespeare's verbally dazzling and eternally enigmatic exploration of conscience, madness and the nature of humanity, a young prince meets his father's ghost in the middle of the night, who accuses his own brother - now married to his widow - of murdering him. The prince devises a scheme to test the truth of the ghost's accusation, feigning wild insanity while plotting revenge. But his actions soon begin to wreak havoc on innocent and guilty alike.

Used and Recommended by the National Theatre

General Editor Stanley Wells
Edited by T. J. B.…


Book cover of The Sound and the Fury

Karl F. Zender Author Of Shakespeare and Faulkner: Selves and Others

From my list on the most wonderful American, British, and Irish writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up on a small farm in southern Ohio, I was the first generation of my family to attend both high school and college. Literature, reading it, talking about it, studying it, was my entry into a world of larger possibilities than my family’s somewhat straitened circumstances had allowed me. Faulkner attracted me because the rural enclave in which we lived, and my neighbors, resembled locales and characters in his fiction. Shakespeare attracted me for many reasons, most notably the beauty of his language and the ability of his plays to reveal new meanings as my life experiences changed.

Karl's book list on the most wonderful American, British, and Irish writers

Karl F. Zender Why did Karl love this book?

Many years ago, when I first tried to read this novel, I gave up after three pages. Its title comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:  Life, Macbeth says, “is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”  Indeed, the first of the novel’s four sections is told by an “idiot,” the mentally handicapped Benjy Compson.

A seemingly chaotic assemblage of visual impressions and intrusive memories, the section is, in fact, highly organized and internally consistent. It gradually reveals Benjy’s inchoate sorrow at his sister Caddy's absence from the family, she who alone loved and nurtured him.

The second and third sections are in the voices of Benjy’s two brothers, the suicidal Quentin and the racist and misogynistic Jason. Both also offer difficulties, Quentin’s especially. The final section is an overview in the form of a third-person narrative.

Taken together, the four sections provide a…

By William Faulkner,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A complex, intense American novel of family from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

With an introduction by Richard Hughes

Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, the novel explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart, this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it.

What else…


Book cover of Conversations with Friends

Karl F. Zender Author Of Shakespeare and Faulkner: Selves and Others

From my list on the most wonderful American, British, and Irish writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up on a small farm in southern Ohio, I was the first generation of my family to attend both high school and college. Literature, reading it, talking about it, studying it, was my entry into a world of larger possibilities than my family’s somewhat straitened circumstances had allowed me. Faulkner attracted me because the rural enclave in which we lived, and my neighbors, resembled locales and characters in his fiction. Shakespeare attracted me for many reasons, most notably the beauty of his language and the ability of his plays to reveal new meanings as my life experiences changed.

Karl's book list on the most wonderful American, British, and Irish writers

Karl F. Zender Why did Karl love this book?

This, Sally Rooney’s first novel, was greeted with widespread critical acclaim. Fresh, witty, knowing, and au courant in its exploration of present-day sexual and romantic entanglements, the novel was clearly the work of a major talent. 

Both Conversations and Rooney’s highly popular second novel, Normal People, have been adapted for television. Perhaps you’ve seen one or both and have read the novels as a result. If not, I urge you to do so, beginning with Conversations

I haven’t yet watched either adaptation, but I believe that watching and reading have different sorts of advantages. Against the immediacy and vividness of watching TV shows, reading the novel will allow you to move at your own pace, to savor Rooney’s verbal dexterity, to revisit earlier scenes, and to discover their added significance. Watch (if you haven’t already), read, enjoy!

By Sally Rooney,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Conversations with Friends as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

***NOW ON BBC THREE AND iPLAYER***

'This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone.'
- Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram)

'Brilliant, funny and startling.' Guardian

'I really like Conversations with Friends. I like the tone [Rooney] takes when she's writing. I think it's like being inside someone's mind.' - Taylor Swift

'A sharp, darkly funny comment on modern relationships.' Sunday Telegraph

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend.…


Book cover of The Open Boat: A tale intended to be after the fact. Being the experience of four men from the sunk steamer “Commodore”

Karl F. Zender Author Of Shakespeare and Faulkner: Selves and Others

From my list on the most wonderful American, British, and Irish writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up on a small farm in southern Ohio, I was the first generation of my family to attend both high school and college. Literature, reading it, talking about it, studying it, was my entry into a world of larger possibilities than my family’s somewhat straitened circumstances had allowed me. Faulkner attracted me because the rural enclave in which we lived, and my neighbors, resembled locales and characters in his fiction. Shakespeare attracted me for many reasons, most notably the beauty of his language and the ability of his plays to reveal new meanings as my life experiences changed.

Karl's book list on the most wonderful American, British, and Irish writers

Karl F. Zender Why did Karl love this book?

I’ve read, taught, and loved Stephen Crane’s stories for years. Harried out of the United States because of “immoral” behavior, Crane moved to England, where he died from tuberculosis at the age of 29.  Henry James wept when he heard of Crane’s death.

The Open Boat is based on an actual event. On his way to Cuba as a correspondent during the Spanish-American war, Crane and three companions spent thirty hours in a small dinghy after their ship sank, with only three surviving the ordeal.

Crane transforms these circumstances into a great short story. In a tone at times whimsical, ironic, and meditative, the Correspondent, the only character whose consciousness we enter, arrives at a double awareness.

He learns that nature is “flatly indifferent” to his plight—and, amazingly, that “the subtle brotherhood of men” established in the dinghy offers more-than-adequate compensation for that bleak realization.

By Stephen Crane,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and by the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and, moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a new leap, and a leap…


Book cover of Thorn in my Heart

Jennifer Deibel Author Of The Lady of Galway Manor

From my list on to scratch your travel itch.

Why am I passionate about this?

After living in Europe for nearly 10 years, I’ve spent more time in planes, trains, and cars than I could ever count. I was able to travel more in that time than I ever dreamed possible, making trips ranging from Gibraltar to Romania to the Isle of Skye. Most of my time was spent all around Ireland where I took tour groups around to help them get beyond Blarney and experience the real Ireland.

Jennifer's book list on to scratch your travel itch

Jennifer Deibel Why did Jennifer love this book?

Higgs whisks us away to 18th century Scotland in this sweeping, epic historical romance trilogy. The Scottish landscape is practically its own character as we follow the saga of Jaime, Leanna, and Rose in their quest for happiness, justice, and love. You’ll feel the misty air on your cheeks and want to wrap up against the brisk Scottish chill as you read. You’ll dine on delectable cuisine, and be left wanting more of this enchanting country and her people.

By Liz Curtis Higgs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Thorn in my Heart as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two brothers fight to claim one father’s blessing. Two sisters long to claim one man’s heart.

In the autumn of 1788, amid the moors and glens of the Scottish Lowlands, two brothers and two sisters each embark on a painful journey of discovery. Jamie and Evan McKie both want their father Alec’s flocks and lands, yet only one brother will inherit Glentrool. Leana and Rose McBride both yearn to catch the eye of the same handsome lad, yet only one sister will be his bride.

A thorny love triangle emerges, plagued by lies and deception, jealousy and desire, hidden secrets…


Book cover of Fair is the Rose

Elizabeth Goddard Author Of Shadows at Dusk

From my list on Christian stories that take readers to stunning locations.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m always inspired by nature. I’m sure that’s because my parents always took us to beautiful places on our summer vacations. I enjoyed snorkeling in Florida, hiking in the Rockies, exploring at Yellowstone National Park, to name a few places. I’ve never forgotten how in awe I was at seeing such beauty, and when I started writing romantic suspense novels, it seemed natural to look for a setting that not only inspired me to write but would lend to the suspense and tension aspect of my novels as well as provide an exciting adventure. Even now, when we travel and explore, it’s always setting that inspires me with new story ideas.

Elizabeth's book list on Christian stories that take readers to stunning locations

Elizabeth Goddard Why did Elizabeth love this book?

This book 2 in the Scottish Lowlands series is set in, well, the Scottish Lowlands. This book transported me to beautiful Scotland. I adore the author’s writing and appreciate the meticulous research she conducted to inform her story.

Before reading this, I knew it was based on the Biblical Jacob, Rachel and Leah’s story, but I was especially curious how the author could possibly depict this tale and transport these characters to Scotland in the late 1700’s.

Fair is the Rose is filled with passion, romance, betrayal, hope, and redemption. Everything a reader could want. I was completely captivated by the story. Fair is the Rose pulled on all my heartstrings. Of course, the stunning setting of Scotland deepened the experience for me. 

By Liz Curtis Higgs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fair is the Rose as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Scottish Lowlands, October 1789.

Ayear has come and gone since Jamie McKie fled for his life, arriving at Auchengray in search of sanctuary and a bonny wife. Young Rose McBride, as fair a lass as any in Scotland, dearly loves her handsome cousin—but so does her older sister, Leana.

Determined to have Jamie all to herself, Rose puts in motion one desperate plan after another, enlisting the aid of Lillias Brown, a wise woman—a wutch, some say—still keen on the old ways. Impetuous Rose ignores the cruel whispers that travel up and down the parish hills, never dreaming of…


Book cover of Waiting

Jack B. Rochester Author Of Wild Blue Yonder

From my list on coming of age novels that tell fascinating stories anyone can relate to.

Why am I passionate about this?

A youthful summer with my grandparents transformed me into a voracious reader, but I don’t recall what turned me into becoming a lifelong writer and editor. My first two teenaged short stories concerned a rock and a stoplight. My writing got better, and I’ve never stopped reading. As a grad student teaching literature, I longed to see my name on a book cover. Today, it’s on 20 books. My career was in publishing; I wrote and edited nonfiction for decades until 2007, when I turned to writing novels. My most recent is a collection of my early poetry. I also enjoy helping writers become published on The Fictional Café.

Jack's book list on coming of age novels that tell fascinating stories anyone can relate to

Jack B. Rochester Why did Jack love this book?

Emotion, in particular love, knows no bounds of race, culture, past, or future. I think love reaches uncommon heights in times of stress, which accounts for falling in love with abandon–like in wartime. Or when culture curbs or forbids love’s expression.

So here in this book, Lin Kong, a doctor, feels constrained during the Chinese Cultural Revolution–perhaps seeing through its façade of freedom, particularly in his own marriage. And upon that conundrum rests the plot: Lin’s waiting 18 years (by law) for divorce so he can be with the woman he desires. But the longer he waits, the more he desires her; then, once the waiting is over, desire leaves him.

Perhaps it is better for Lin to live in never-ending desire? Was his grass greener on the other side? 

By Ha Jin,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

For more than seventeen years, Lin Kong, a devoted and ambitious doctor, has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in his traditional home village lives the humble, loyal wife his family chose for him years ago. Every summer, he returns to ask her for a divorce and every summer his compliant wife agrees but then backs out. This time, after eighteen years' waiting, Lin promises it will be different.


Book cover of The Volcano Lover: A Romance

Hettie Judah Author Of Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

From my list on making you fall in love with stones.

Why am I passionate about this?

In my day job I write about art for British newspapers and magazines. I’m lucky enough to spend a lot of time talking to artists. As a group they’re always one step ahead in identifying important issues and ideas. So Lapidarium has been fuelled by years of conversations with artists exploring geology as a way to think about things like migration, ecology, diaspora, empire, and the human body. The book is also embedded in personal experience. stone artefacts from cities I’ve lived in, from Washington D.C. to Istanbul. I’m never happier than when walking with my dog, so many of the stories in Lapidarium are also rooted in the British landscape.

Hettie's book list on making you fall in love with stones

Hettie Judah Why did Hettie love this book?

Sontag’s historic novel focusses on two great romances: the one between Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton, and the other between her husband Sir William Hamilton and the volcano Vesuvius.

Hamilton is the titular ‘volcano lover’ (he also dallied with Etna) who documented the fluctuating moods of the crater with attentive devotion.

He is a fascinating figure – an eighteenth-century diplomat, collector, and connoisseur, he worked at a time when the foundations of modern science were being laid down.

Hamilton’s observations of Vesuvius and the flaming sulphur fields around Naples were recorded in the beautiful Campi Phlegraei.

European men of his time were driven to document, catalogue, name, and impose order on the world, often in a deliberate effort to distance themselves from natural religions and animistic beliefs that prevailed in territories exploited in the colonial era.

Sontag describes Hamilton caught in the balance between the worlds of…

By Susan Sontag,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A historical romance, Sontag's book is based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his wife, Emma, and Lord Nelson in the final decades of the eighteenth century. Passionately examining the shape of Western civilization since the Age of Enlightenment, Sontag's novel is an exquisitely detailed picture of revolution, the fate of nature, art and love.


Book cover of Shoulder Season

Maggie Ginsberg Author Of Still True

From my list on the essence of small town Wisconsin.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve only ever lived in small Midwestern towns. I grew up there, raised my kids there, recovered from a divorce there, remarried there. I’ve had the same best friends for 40 years. I’ve paid and bartered for my classmates’ trade services. I’ve argued with them in churches and cafes, rooted for and against their kids at high school basketball and football games all over the state. We’ve celebrated and buried each other’s loved ones. I’ve run hundreds of miles of Wisconsin trail, soaked in her waters, marveled at her sunsets. It’s as home to me as my own body, and I’ll never tire of reading about it. 

Maggie's book list on the essence of small town Wisconsin

Maggie Ginsberg Why did Maggie love this book?

I’ve lived in Wisconsin since 1985, and somehow I had no idea there used to be a thriving Playboy resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

After the book came out I learned I even have a family member who worked security there—that’s how little people around here talk about this juicy history. Christina Clancy’s book is set in the 1980s in both Lake Geneva and the smaller community of East Troy, and she does an excellent job of balancing the celebrity and historical elements with the young Wisconsin women themselves and the complex relationship so many of them had with the seedy perception of Playboy. A lot of them were from farms and rural towns, and their families didn’t even know they worked there.

This particular Playboy resort was even known as a family-friendly destination. I loved learning about a world I had no idea existed, set against one I thought…

By Christina Clancy,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The small town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is an unlikely location for a Playboy Resort, and nineteen-year old Sherri Taylor is an unlikely bunny. Growing up in neighbouring East Troy, Sherri plays the organ at the local church and has never felt comfortable in her own skin. But when her parents die in quick succession, she leaves the only home she's ever known for the chance to be part of a glamorous slice of history. In the winter of 1981, in a costume two sizes too small, her toes pinched by stilettos, Sherri joins the daughters of dairy farmers and…


Book cover of The End of the Affair

Paul Tomkins Author Of London Skies

From my list on heroism and flaws of the English during WWII.

Why am I passionate about this?

A lover of fiction since my teens, I only really took an interest in history in my 20s. I’m fascinated with WWII and the 1950s due to family histories and having visited key sites, like Bletchley Park and the Command Bunker in Uxbridge, near where I grew up. I’m not especially patriotic, but I am proud of what Britain had to do in 1940, as well as the toll the war took and the years of recovery. But it’s also the time, albeit decreasingly so, when people still alive today can look back at their youth, and we can all have a nostalgia for that time in our lives.

Paul's book list on heroism and flaws of the English during WWII

Paul Tomkins Why did Paul love this book?

I remember reading this in my student bedsit and being transfixed. I was studying art but had just decided that I wanted to be a novelist. As such, I loved the opening lines: “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

It is a simple yet beautiful book about love, belief, and betrayal. I’m not religious, but the testing of someone’s faith and how it may make them act stuck with me. Also, the facade of the ‘stiff upper lip,’ but underneath, the vulnerability.

By Graham Greene,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked The End of the Affair as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MONICA ALI

The love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off. After a chance meeting rekindles his love and jealousy two years later, Bendrix hires a private detective to follow Sarah, and slowly his love for her turns into an obsession.


Book cover of Hamlet
Book cover of The Sound and the Fury
Book cover of Conversations with Friends

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Interested in love triangle, inheritances, and Italy?

Love Triangle 77 books
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