If You Loved These Novels, Read These Fascinating Nonfiction Books

If you loved THE MARS ROOM by Rachel Kushner

After having read THE MARS ROOM, you might be interested to know how accurately the book portrays life in a women’s prison. REDEMPTION is a memoir by Stacy Lannert, who, after years of abuse by her father, shot and killed him and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. This is the story of Stacy’s life leading up to her sentencing, her time in prison, and her release after her sentence was commuted in 2009.

If you loved THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON by Adam Johnson

THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON was the first novel I read that really exposed me to life under North Korea’s totalitarian regime. It is a riveting book, and I immediately wanted to learn more. That’s how I came across ESCAPE FROM CAMP 14, a true story from the only known person to have been born inside a North Korean prison camp and who managed to escape.

If you loved ROOM by Emma Donoghue

ROOM is one of my favorite novels, and while it is a completely fictional account of a woman being kidnapped, held hostage, and forced to conceive a child, it is also a story that reflects several true accounts. Jaycee Dugard’s memoir is the harrowing account of her kidnapping in 1991 and the eighteen years of captivity that followed.

If you loved PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee

PACHINKO is an epic historical novel that follows four generations of a Korean family through the Japanese occupation of Korea, World War II, and the Korean War. PACHINKO mainly takes place in Japan, but if you want to learn more about the experiences of people in Korea during this period, LOST NAMES is the book you need to read. Originally published in 1970, this memoir depicts a character whose boyhood and early adolescence were spent in Korea during the height of the Japanese occupation.

If you loved ORPHAN TRAIN by Christina Baker Kline

The first time you heard about orphan trains may have been when you read ORPHAN TRAIN, but there is so much more information available about this time in American history. O’Connor’s ORPHAN TRAINS is part biography of the man who proposed the orphan train solution to an overpopulation of orphans in eastern cities and part firsthand accounts from the orphans themselves.

If you loved A GAME OF THRONES by George R. R. Martin

Maybe after watching or reading A GAME OF THRONES, you were inspired to learn more about chopping off heads and torture. We understand and have the perfect book for you. THE FAITHFUL EXECUTIONER is based on a rare journal kept by a sixteenth-century executioner. It tells the story of Meister Frantz Schmidt, the original owner of the journal, an outcast who sought to prove himself worthy of honor and free his children from the stigma set by his profession.

If you loved STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel

After reading STATION ELEVEN, you may have wondered if it’s really possible for such a pandemic to prevail against modern medicine. To learn more about the possibility of such a dystopian future, we must look to the past, specifically to the deadliest pandemic in history, which occurred much more recently than one would think. In 1918, a lethal influenza virus appeared in an army camp in Kansas; over the next two years, it killed more than 100 million people. THE GREAT INFLUENZA is the gripping account of how mankind barely survived.

If you loved A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS by Khaled Hosseini

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS is no doubt the novel to read about Afghan history and family. Following the reading of this incredible chronicle, we recommend you pick up Lemmon’s THE DRESSMAKER OF KHAIR KHANA, the true story of a young female entrepreneur who brought hope to dozens of women in war-torn Kabul in the wake of the Taliban’s rise to power.