14 Best historical fiction books like The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Cover of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys

By: Colson Whitehead

4.26

Format: 213 pages, Kindle Edition

Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of Ameri…

"Even in death the boys were trouble."

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

"Violence is the only lever big enough to move the world"

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

"People get rid of plenty when they move--sometimes they're changing not just places but personalities."

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

"The encyclopedias are empty. There are people who trick you and deliver emptiness with a smile, while others rob you of your self-respect. You need to remember who you are."

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

If you liked the historical fiction plot in The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead , here is a list of 14 books like this:

Cover of The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

1. The Sympathizer

By: Viet Thanh Nguyen

3.83

Format: 28 pages, Hardcover

The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as five other awards, The Sympathizeris … read more

Similar categories in Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
Cover of Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

2. Sing, Unburied, Sing

By: Jesmyn Ward

3.81

Format: 343 pages, Hardcover

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2017 A searing and profound Southern odyssey. In Jesm… read more

Similar categories in Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • race
  • fiction
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of The Women by Kristin Hannah

3. The Women

By: Kristin Hannah

4.64

Format: 471 pages, Hardcover

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these wor… read more

Similar categories in Kristin Hannah's The Women book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Words were creators of worlds; you had to be careful with them."

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

"Love mattered in this ruined world, but so did honor. What was one without the other?"

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

"Love. A thing to be shouted from the rooftops, celebrated, not cultivated in secret and clipped into shape in the dark."

-Kristin Hannah, The Women

Cover of Trust by Hernan Diaz

4. Trust

By: Hernan Diaz

3.83

Format: 402 pages, Hardcover

10 hours, 21 minutes From an award-winning chronicler of our nation's history and its legends co… read more

Similar categories in Hernan Diaz's Trust book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Where there's a ventriloquist, there's a dummy."

-Hernan Diaz, Trust

"Chaos is a vortex that spins faster with each thing it swallows."

-Hernan Diaz, Trust

"Silence between 2 is always shared. But 1 of the 2 owns it and shares it with the other."

-Hernan Diaz, Trust

"I’ve come to think one is truly married only when one is more committed to one’s vows than the person they refer to."

-Hernan Diaz, Trust

Cover of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

5. Small Things Like These

By: Claire Keegan

4.18

Format: 128 pages, Hardcover

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal me… read more

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
"Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people."

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

"for people were bound, he knew, to reveal not only themselves, but what they knew, in conversation"

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

"And then the nights came on and the frosts took hold again, and blades of cold slid under doors and cut the knees off those who still knelt to say the rosary."

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

"When he reached the yard gate and found the padlock seized with frost, he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed, but he made himself carry on and crossed to a neighbour’s hou…"

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

Cover of Prophet Song by Paul    Lynch

6. Prophet Song

By: Paul Lynch

4.10

Format: 259 pages, Kindle Edition

A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internat… read more

Similar categories in Paul Lynch's Prophet Song book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"people are entitled to some small moment of peace."

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

"the child absorbing the mother’s trauma and storing it in his body for later use,"

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

"... time is at once addition and subtraction, time adds one day to the next and always takes away from what's left..."

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

"...knowing how it is so that all boys grow up and pull away from home to unmake the world in the guise of making it, nature decrees it so."

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

Cover of The Berry Pickers by Amanda    Peters

7. The Berry Pickers

By: Amanda Peters

4.14

Format: 307 pages, Hardcover

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mys… read more

Similar categories in Amanda Peters's The Berry Pickers book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

8. Tom Lake

By: Ann Patchett

3.99

Format: 309 pages, Hardcover

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again prov… read more

Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
"You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murder…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"Hazel, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something important, you need to be brave.' I then explained to the dog how I have told myself for so many years that my career fell apart because I wasn't …"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

"It's as if someone bought all the diamonds at Tiffany's, and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cu…"

-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

Cover of James by Percival Everett

9. James

By: Percival Everett

4.54

Format: 303 pages, Hardcover

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and f… read more

Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • race
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of There There by Tommy Orange

10. There There

By: Tommy Orange

3.98

Format: 294 pages, Hardcover

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375. Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel foll… read more

Similar categories in Tommy Orange's There There book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • race
  • fiction
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Everything is new and doomed."

-Tommy Orange, There There

"Being Indian has never been about returning to the land. The land is everywhere or nowhere."

-Tommy Orange, There There

"...nothing is original, everything comes from something that came before, which was once nothing. Everything is new and doomed."

-Tommy Orange, There There

"We've all been through a lot we don't understand in a world made to either break us or make us so hard we can't break even when it's what we need most to do."

-Tommy Orange, There There

Cover of North Woods by Daniel       Mason

11. North Woods

By: Daniel Mason

4.15

Format: 372 pages, Hardcover

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those … read more

Similar categories in Daniel Mason's North Woods book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James   McBride

12. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

By: James McBride

4.00

Format: 385 pages, Hardcover

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing de… read more

Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • adult
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

13. Wandering Stars

By: Tommy Orange

3.89

Format: 315 pages, Hardcover

The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout best seller There … read more

Similar categories in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
"And in the year 1924 Indian citizenship will have been granted, even though they will mean to dissolve tribes by giving citizenship, dissolve being another word for disappearance, a kind of chemical …"

-Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars

Cover of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

14. Yellowface

By: R.F. Kuang

3.77

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says… read more

Similar categories in R.F. Kuang's Yellowface book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
"The truth is fluid, there is always another way to spin the story."

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

"They tell authors never to look at Goodreads, but nobody follows that advice—none of us can resist the urge to know how our work is being received."

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

"Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hu…"

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

Cover of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

15. Chain-Gang All-Stars

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

4.14

Format: 367 pages, Hardcover

Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far… read more

Similar categories in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • adult
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"They were all humans, and yet they had completely different ideas about what humanity meant."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"My brother-in-law is an alien. I have a bunch of alien friends. I can't be racist," Randy Mac continued."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"An absurd thing for the murderous state to plead for, but, as always, the massive violence of the state was “justice,"

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"...despite how hard it was, she wasn't afraid with love. She knew how to wield it, how to grow it, and how to receive it."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

Cover of The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

16. The Night Watchman

By: Louise Erdrich

4.10

Format: 464 pages, ebook

Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather … read more

Similar categories in Louise Erdrich's The Night Watchman book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"But every so often the government remembered about Indians and when they did they always tried to solve Indians, thought Thomas. They solve us by getting rid of us. And do they tell us when they plan…"

-Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

Cover of The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

17. The Dutch House

By: Ann Patchett

4.10

Format: 337 pages, Hardcover

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to beg… read more

Similar categories in Ann Patchett's The Dutch House book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
"You don't have to like your work to be good at it."

-Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

"We had stepped into the river that takes you forward."

-Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

"Even the stupidest ideas have resonance once they’ve happened"

-Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

"We were all so young, you know. We were still our best selves."

-Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

Cover of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

18. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

By: David Grann

4.14

Format: 416 pages, Paperback

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklaho… read more

Similar categories in David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • historical
  • audiobook
"An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?"

-David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

"The Osage elders sang the traditional songs for the dead, only now the songs seemed for the living, for those who had to endure this world of killing."

-David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Cover of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

19. Demon Copperhead

By: Barbara Kingsolver

4.50

Format: 560 pages, Hardcover

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose." Set in t… read more

Similar categories in Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

"I can still feel in my bones how being mad was the one thing holding me together."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

"Counting on Jesus to save the day is no more real than sending up the Batman signal."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

"life is a wild, impetuous ride. There could be good shit up ahead, don’t rule it out."

-Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

Cover of No matarás by Ana Sofía González

20. No matarás

By: Ana Sofía González

4.11

Format: 312 pages, Kindle Edition

«—Vicky, ven, acércate, te voy a decir un el infierno no existe, son los papás—le susurró al oído y… read more

Similar categories in Ana Sofía González's No matarás book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

Cover of The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

21. The Nickel Boys

By: Colson Whitehead

4.26

Format: 213 pages, Kindle Edition

Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of Ameri… read more

Similar categories in Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys book and Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • race
  • historical
  • adult
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • novels
  • african american
  • audiobook
"Even in death the boys were trouble."

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

"Violence is the only lever big enough to move the world"

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

"People get rid of plenty when they move--sometimes they're changing not just places but personalities."

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

"The encyclopedias are empty. There are people who trick you and deliver emptiness with a smile, while others rob you of your self-respect. You need to remember who you are."

-Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

19 Top audiobook books like The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Transform Your Habits

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jesmyn Ward

3.81

Transform Your Habits

The Women

Kristin Hannah

4.64

Transform Your Habits

Trust

Hernan Diaz

3.83

Transform Your Habits

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan

4.18

View all the books

21 Top fiction books like Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Transform Your Habits

I Who Have Never Known Men

Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Trust

Hernan Diaz

3.83

Transform Your Habits

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan

4.18

Transform Your Habits

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch

4.10

View all the books

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