21 Top fiction books like The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

If you liked the fiction plot in The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak , here is a list of 21 books like this:

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• 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

Similar categories in Shelley Read's Go as a River book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• book club
• audiobook

"Women endure. That’s what we do."

-Shelley Read, Go as a River

"Loss has nothing to do with what you do deserve and don’t deserve."

-Shelley Read, Go as a River

"I learned from their subtle relations... that love is a private matter, to be nurtured, and even mourned, between two beings alone. It belongs to them, and no one else, like a secret treasure, like a…"

-Shelley Read, Go as a River

"Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, the moments of our becoming cannot be carefully plucked like the ripest and most satisfying peach from the bough. In the endless stumble toward oursel…"

-Shelley Read, Go as a River

Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• fiction
• historical fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• 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

Similar categories in Abraham Verghese's The Covenant of Water book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• book club
• audiobook

Similar categories in David Nicholls's You Are Here book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• 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

Similar categories in Sarah Winman's Still Life book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• book club
• audiobook

"But when have women not sacrificed to live as they feel?"

-Sarah Winman, Still Life

"We were an unconventional family. Scandal was a rite of passage."

-Sarah Winman, Still Life

"No single act of generosity remains in isolation. The ripples are many."

-Sarah Winman, Still Life

"He needed to know everyone was safe because without them he was nothing."

-Sarah Winman, Still Life

Similar categories in Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• magical realism
• historical
• fiction
• contemporary
• historical fiction
• book club
• fantasy
• audiobook

"She was no part of anything. In her unbroken loneliness, she was complete. Never had she felt so exposed, yet si powerful."

-Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

"So I guess it is in my genes, this melancholy I can never quite shake off. Carved with an invisible knife into my arborescent skin."

-Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

"You don't share a language, you think, and then you realise, grief is a language. We understand each other, people with troubled pasts."

-Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

"To immigrants and exiles everywhere, the uprooted, the re-rooted, the rootless, And to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories ..."

-Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

Similar categories in Shehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• fantasy
• audiobook

"Even suicide requires perseverance."

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

"Why should a Creator watch over you? Wasn't creating you enough?"

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

"You were simply a handsome man who enjoyed beautiful boys. Nothing more, nothing less and no one's business."

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

"Despair always begins as a snack that you nibble on when bored and then becomes a meal that you have thrice a day."

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Similar categories in Alice Winn's In Memoriam book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• 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

Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• book club
• audiobook

Similar categories in Ann Napolitano's Hello Beautiful book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• fiction
• historical fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• audiobook

"The child inside Julia lay wide-eyed in the dark, knowing that she was Jo, but only because Sylvie was Beth."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"You and your sisters have so many reference points, such a dense history," William said. "I never get used to it."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"She was Julia's wild hair, she was the lake her husband had once been carried out of, and no matter what happened next, she was love."

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

"You’re depressed, not crazy. It’s not insane to be depressed in this world. It’s more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what’s going on. Those are the o…"

-Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

Similar categories in Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• fiction
• historical fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• audiobook

"Friendship,"

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"How I will miss the horses."

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"You try again. You fail better."

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

"There are no ghosts, but up here"

-Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Similar categories in R.F. Kuang's Yellowface book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• 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

Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• 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

Similar categories in Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• book club
• 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

Similar categories in Priscilla Morris's Black Butterflies book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• contemporary
• audiobook

Similar categories in Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• fiction
• historical fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• 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

Similar categories in Emilia Hart's Weyward book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• magical realism
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• fantasy
• audiobook

" Altha . A strange name. Soft and yet powerful. Like an incantation."

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

"It took skill, Violet thought, to make even your handwriting look angry"

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

"She named me Altha, after all. Not Alice, meaning noble woman, nor Agnes, lamb of God. Altha. Healer."

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

"I thought he loved me for myself. But you were right. To him I am but an animal, like those he hunts and puts on display"

-Emilia Hart, Weyward

Similar categories in Dolly Alderton's Good Material book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• book club
• 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

Similar categories in Cecile Pin's Wandering Souls book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• historical fiction
• contemporary
• audiobook

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live. We tell ourselves stories in order to heal."

-Cecile Pin, Wandering Souls

"I didn't know that my culture had fashioned the shape of my mourning; I didn't know that my grief could be improper."

-Cecile Pin, Wandering Souls

Similar categories in Thrity Umrigar's Honor book and Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees

• romance
• literary fiction
• historical
• fiction
• contemporary
• historical fiction
• book club
• audiobook

"It was as if a gust of wind had blown open a window in my heart and a sweet bird had flown in and made a nest."

-Thrity Umrigar, Honor

"Because a woman can live in one of two houses--fear or love. It is impossible to live in both at the same time."

-Thrity Umrigar, Honor

"Because a woman can live in one of two houses--- fear or love. It is impossible to live in both at the same time."

-Thrity Umrigar, Honor

"When Radha and I were children, we used to play a game. She would ask, “What is the true color of the world, Didi?"

-Thrity Umrigar, Honor