20 must-read audiobook books like Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Cover of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

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…

"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 house, whose light was on."

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

If you liked the audiobook plot in Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan , here is a list of 20 books like this:

Cover of I Who Have Never Known Men by Ros Schwartz, Jacqueline Harpman

1. I Who Have Never Known Men

By: Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Format: 208 pages, Paperback

"As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker." A young woman is kept in a cage underg… read more

Similar categories in Ros Schwartz's I Who Have Never Known Men book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Only now, I tell myself that what I'd felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were prob…"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

Cover of Trust by Hernan Diaz

2. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • 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

3. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • novella
  • christmas
  • short stories
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • 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

4. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • 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 Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

5. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"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 You Are Here by David Nicholls

6. You Are Here

By: David Nicholls

4.08

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way . . . Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his… read more

Similar categories in David Nicholls's You Are Here book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

"You were traumatised.’ ‘I wonder if people use that word too much.’ ‘It’s the right word for something traumatic.’ ‘But it wasn’t war. People get beaten up every Friday night.’ ‘And are traumatised b…"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

"she went on a solo trip to Italy, role-playing a character in a Forster novel. In Florence, she read performatively in cafés and sat in the cool of exquisite churches, straining for some kind of spir…"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

"Books saw her through the pupal stage of thirteen to sixteen, frowning at Kafka and Woolf, then tearing through John Irving and Maeve Binchy, widely read in the proper sense, making no distinction be…"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

Cover of The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

7. The Wren, the Wren

By: Anne Enright

3.55

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of… read more

Similar categories in Anne Enright's The Wren, the Wren book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
"It's not that I think about him constantly, he is my way of thinking. His mind is my compass, his eyes my only mirror."

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

"We don’t walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can…"

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

"We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can…"

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

Cover of James by Percival Everett

8. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of In Memoriam by Alice Winn

9. In Memoriam

By: Alice Winn

4.53

Format: 382 pages, Hardcover

A haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during a time of war. It'… read more

Similar categories in Alice Winn's In Memoriam book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
"It’s intimate."

-Alice Winn, In Memoriam

"Call me Sidney,"

-Alice Winn, In Memoriam

"Where’s the rest of it?"

-Alice Winn, In Memoriam

"Do you believe in magic?"

-Alice Winn, In Memoriam

Cover of North Woods by Daniel       Mason

10. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

11. Blue Sisters

By: Coco Mellors

4.21

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death… read more

Similar categories in Coco Mellors's Blue Sisters book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used a…"

-Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters

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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

13. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • 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 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) by Colm Tóibín

14. Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

By: Colm Tóibín

3.82

Format: 294 pages, Hardcover

From the beloved, critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly movi… read more

Similar categories in Colm Tóibín's Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
Cover of The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

15. The Bee Sting

By: Paul Murray

3.96

Format: 656 pages, Hardcover

From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and … read more

Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
"It is for love. You are doing this for love."

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"We all have problems. But often instead of accepting the truth about ourselves, we cover it up. We try to make ourselves the way we think we’re expected to be."

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"Maybe every era has an atrocity woven into its fabric. Maybe every society is complicit in terrible things and only afterwards gets around to pretending they didn’t know. When the kids ask, tell them…"

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

"Maybe that’s how it will go – instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of ‘anomalies’, each time lasting longer, with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apar…"

-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting

Cover of The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

16. The Rachel Incident

By: Caroline O'Donoghue

4.09

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately tr… read more

Similar categories in Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
"I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"He was a doctor and I was supposed to take what he said seriously; but he was a dentist and my dad so I didn’t."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"It's not that we weren't capable of warmth as a family. But we were regularly seduced by the concept of being wronged."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"I thought of my parents as heads on Easter Island, and it took moving two miles away to realise they had been people all along."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

Cover of The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

17. The Marriage Portrait

By: Maggie O'Farrell

4.01

Format: 355 pages, Hardcover

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here. The author of award-winning Hamnet… read more

Similar categories in Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
"May I keep this?"

-Maggie O'Farrell, The Marriage Portrait

"Was there no hope? the tigress seemed to be asking her. Will I always remain here? Will I never return home?"

-Maggie O'Farrell, The Marriage Portrait

"The animal was orange, burnished gold, fire made flesh; she was power and anger, she was vicious and exquisite;"

-Maggie O'Farrell, The Marriage Portrait

"Is it possible for a woman to be so unsettled in spirit that a child will have no hope of taking root within her?"

-Maggie O'Farrell, The Marriage Portrait

Cover of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

18. 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 Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"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 Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

19. Trespasses

By: Louise Kennedy

4.00

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between … read more

Similar categories in Louise Kennedy's Trespasses book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
Cover of Good Material by Dolly Alderton

20. Good Material

By: Dolly Alderton

3.91

Format: 345 pages, Paperback

From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a story of heartbreak and f… read more

Similar categories in Dolly Alderton's Good Material book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Thirty-five is the youth of middle age."

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"Remember, a broken heart is a jester's greatest prop."

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"You know how to be along without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is?"

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"Why is it that London always seems the most alive and full of possibility on the nights when you've got no plans?"

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

Cover of The Trees by Percival Everett

21. The Trees

By: Percival Everett

4.06

Format: 309 pages, Paperback

When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, Mississippi… read more

Similar categories in Percival Everett's The Trees book and Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"Unknown Male is a name,"

-Percival Everett, The Trees

"Goddamnit, I hate murder more than just about anything,"

-Percival Everett, The Trees

"You should know I consider police shootings to be lynchings"

-Percival Everett, The Trees

"People should know, understand that not all Thursdays are the same."

-Percival Everett, The Trees

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

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21 Best fiction books like You Are Here by David Nicholls

Transform Your Habits

Caledonian Road

Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Transform Your Habits

The List of Suspicious Things

Jennie Godfrey

4.29

Transform Your Habits

You Are Here

David Nicholls

4.08

Transform Your Habits

Earth

John Boyne

4.34

View all the books

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