10 books like The Power and the Glory

This delightful novel was the first book I read after moving into a new apartment. It’s about a Russian aristocrat in the 1920s who is sentenced to live the rest of his days in a small attic room in the Hotel Metropol, and how he makes a life for himself there. Just by enjoying the story so much I actually found myself being more amused by, rather than wary of, the quirks of my own new neighbors. Gentle curiosity is a powerful weapon for surviving the unknown and this book helped sharpen mine.

In Hamnet, set in the late 16th century, I can “see” the town, the room, the farm, the children, the kittens, even the furniture. Agnes' role as a healer, a free soul, a caring mother, makes her an unforgettable heroine. The terrible transposing of the illness from one twin to the other is something O'Farrell makes one believe could happen. Add to that the desperate plight of Agnes' son in a world that, despite her reputation as a healer, has no remedy for most illnesses and especially the plague. The grief she feels enters your psyche and is made more terrible by her having to experience it alone. That Hamlet could be based on Hamnet, is Hamnet, is Shakespeare's son too, is to me entirely credible.

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.

I love adventure stories that offer unexpected challenges in foreign lands. 

This story, set in upper-class England and rural China in the 1920s, is about Kitty, a selfish, beautiful, and attention-seeking woman, and the shy and unattractive English bacteriologist, Walter, who falls hopelessly in love and asks for Kitty’s hand in marriage. Kitty consents, but Walter’s discovery of her lover and the resulting social pressure, force the couple to enter into a marriage doomed for failure. 

Even though bitterness prevails, the couple set off for Walter’s assignment in the cholera-infected area of China. It is an act of suicide, fraught with peril. 

During their dangerous sojourn in this strange and foreign land, the couple’s discoveries are many. In the end, they realize that the greatest discovery is their mutual love.

Fitzgerald himself saw the book as a struggle between rich and poor. Bootlegging functions as a backdrop to the corruption of America and its aspiring classes. The narrator, Nick Carraway, escapes the attention of most readers who think the book is about Gatsby, when in fact it is about Nick, who at the outset disapproves of Gatsby and concludes by praising him. I particularly like the irony that Nick and readers of the novel think Gatsby foolish for thinking that you can repeat the past; but in fact, the book proves that you can repeat it. Nick relates his story two years after the events occurred; Tom Buchanan is still reliving his football glories from college; and. most importantly, Gatsby and Daisy resume an affair that began shortly before he went off to war.

The first in Sansom’s dazzling series involving the exploits of London lawyer Matthew Shardlake as he grapples with the demands of Henry VIII and lethal lackey Thomas Cromwell. Comedy is not the essence of this tale, though there are comic moments, but it is certainly lively! As one who loves to be immersed in an atmosphere of intrigue and the occasional murder, this suited me admirably. It suited me even better that the sixteenth-century scene is so vividly evoked. My own novels are mainly light-hearted and frivolous, but the value of setting and context has always mattered. Without social context few stories ring true... and this one rings with a splendid resonance. If you enjoy history, mystery, and an oddly quirky protagonist, this is the novel to get – the start of a truly remarkable series. 

Mervyn Peake’s writing is unusual. In Gormenghast he creates a bizarre world of weird hierarchical rituals, peopled by eccentric characters, each one singular in a different way. What really brings this novel to life is Peake’s wonderfully rich prose, as he describes the destruction of an ancient social structure.

Double Indemnity is an American noir crime novella written in the 1940s. From the opening words, the reader is taken into the life of the protagonist, a gullible salesman who becomes entangled with a married woman. When she turns out to have more on her mind than adultery,  he is seduced into becoming involved in a terrible crime. The narrative voice is both convincing and compelling, leading the reader along a devastating journey where the outcome eventually seems inevitable. 

This is the oldest book on my list, and one of my all-time favorites. The Thorn Birds tells the sweeping story of Meggie Cleary and her life in rural Australia in the early 20th century. But it is her forbidden decades-long love affair with the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart, that is at its heart. This story grabbed me for its immersive qualities, certainly. But it’s the intensity of their forbidden relationship that makes it tragic in a way that settles into your soul. How does one survive a life without the love you yearn for? And how many times can a woman’s heart break? There’s a reason that this book is a classic—it reminds us why love is essential to the human condition.

Evocative, engaging, and clever, if, on occasion, desperately bleak. This is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of plague in the north of England. Although very well researched the book carries some of the hallmarks of contemporary fiction and so avoids many of the stereotypes (and irritations) of historical novels. Sometimes fiction can be as effective as ‘fact’ in showing the fate of individuals caught up in moments of revolutionary change.