10 best-selling historical fiction books like O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

Cover of O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

O Caledonia

By: Elspeth Barker

3.98

Format: 188 pages, Paperback

In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern …

If you liked the historical fiction plot in O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker , here is a list of 10 books like this:

1. Lolly Willowes

By: Sylvia Townsend Warner , Alison Lurie

3.50

Format: 24 pages, Paperback

In Lolly Willowes, an ageing spinster rebels against her role as the universal aunt, at everybody's… read more

Similar categories in Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

Cover of Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

2. Quartet in Autumn

By: Barbara Pym

3.90

Format: 186 pages, Paperback

This is the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief… read more

Similar categories in Barbara Pym's Quartet in Autumn book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • classics
  • fiction
Cover of Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

3. Poor Things

By: Alasdair Gray

3.94

Format: 318 pages, Paperback

One of Alasdair Gray's most brilliant creations, Poor Things is a postmodern revision of Frankenste… read more

Similar categories in Alasdair Gray's Poor Things book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • gothic
  • literary fiction
  • classics
  • historical
  • scotland
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"Besides, a life without freedom to choose is not worth having."

-Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

"She also said the wicked people needed love as much as good people and were much better at it."

-Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

"Baxter knows a lot more than I do, I told her. Yes, said Baxter, but I will never tell people all of it."

-Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

"You, dear reader, have now two accounts to choose between and there can be no doubt which is most probable."

-Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

4. The Springs of Affection

By: Maeve Brennan

3.78

Format: None pages, Paperback

These masterly stories trace the patterns of love in three middle-class Dublin families, patterns a… read more

Similar categories in Maeve Brennan's The Springs of Affection book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

5. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

By: Barbara Comyns

3.40

Format: None pages,

read more

Similar categories in Barbara Comyns's Our Spoons Came from Woolworths book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

6. Foster

By: Claire Keegan

3.92

Format: 256 pages, Paperback

A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when s… read more

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's Foster book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

Cover of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

7. 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 Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"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 The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

8. 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 Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"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 North Woods by Daniel       Mason

9. 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 Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Cover of Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

10. Birnam Wood

By: Eleanor Catton

3.82

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

Birnam Wood is on the move . . . Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening gro… read more

Similar categories in Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • mystery
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"...wondering, not for the first time, when exactly she had become so technologically dependent that her first instinct in every unpredicted circumstance was to outsource her imagination to her phone."

-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

"Not at all,’ he said. ‘I was just going to remark that being a cliche can be very useful. You ought to consider it some time.’ ’Oh yeah?’ ’Yeah,’ he said. ‘It means people underestimate you. They thi…"

-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

"As his rhetoric and reading life matured, he grew intensely scornful of what passed at his high school for 'education' - the mania for testing; the intolerance of real dissent; and the conformist cel…"

-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

"... his future, had either been sold or laid to waste by his parents' generation, trapping him in a perpetual adolescence that was further heightened by the infantilising unreality of the Internet as…"

-Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

Cover of Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

11. Martyr!

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.24

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
Cover of The Fraud by Zadie Smith

12. The Fraud

By: Zadie Smith

3.30

Format: 464 pages, Hardcover

The extraordinary first historical novel from bestselling author of White Teeth Zadie Smith It i… read more

Similar categories in Zadie Smith's The Fraud book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • mystery
"Eliza had long understood her cousin to be beyond the reach of editorial intervention."

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

"What possesses people? Unhappiness, always. Happiness is otherwise occupied. It has an object on which to focus. It has daisies, it has snowdrifts. Unhappiness opens up the void, which then requires …"

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

"I know this country well. Well enough to understand that justice takes time, and that the freedoms of a minority are rarely self-evident to the majority. What is perfectly selfevident to God is – unf…"

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

"God preserve me from novel-writing, thought Mrs Touchet. God preserve me from that tragic indulgence, that useless vanity, that blindness! In a cold dormitory, two hundred miles away, three heartbrok…"

-Zadie Smith, The Fraud

Cover of Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

13. 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 Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Cover of The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

14. The Vaster Wilds

By: Lauren Groff

3.77

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited g… read more

Similar categories in Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"For what is a girl but a vessel made to hold the desires of men."

-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

"O put the memory away, girl, she told herself sternly. For the sorrow could eat you entire."

-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

"And humans were not made to be always alone; humans survive only in the company of other humans."

-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

"Against the resistance of other minds, one's thoughts are pulled out of their comfortable shapes, and true thinking begins."

-Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

Cover of So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan

15. So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

By: Claire Keegan

3.99

Format: 128 pages, Hardcover

Librarian's Note: This is the entry for the short story collection. Please don't combine it with th… read more

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?’ ‘So I’m a misogynist now?’ ‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said."

-Claire Keegan, So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

Cover of O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

16. O Caledonia

By: Elspeth Barker

3.98

Format: 188 pages, Paperback

In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern … read more

Similar categories in Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • gothic
  • literary fiction
  • classics
  • coming of age
  • historical
  • scotland
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • mystery
  • horror
Cover of Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

17. Cursed Bread

By: Sophie Mackintosh

3.28

Format: 184 pages, Kindle Edition

From the Man Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of o… read more

Similar categories in Sophie Mackintosh's Cursed Bread book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • mystery
  • horror
"Pain becomes an animal, walking at your side. Pain becomes a home you can carry with you."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"The world is only ever one breach away from being unpeeled entirely, one tragedy, one glimpse behind the curtain."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"I've been looked at in pity and in fear and I've learned that the only way to really be seen is through desire. To be looked at and found whole. Found alive."

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

"I don't want a book, I don't want the trouble of it, he said. I don't want to get involved, I just want to watch what's going on. I know what's going to happen and then it happens, and I can go outsi…"

-Sophie Mackintosh, Cursed Bread

Cover of Clear by Carys Davies

18. Clear

By: Carys Davies

3.92

Format: 196 pages, Hardcover

A stunning, exquisite novel from an award-winning writer about a minister dispatched to a remote is… read more

Similar categories in Carys Davies's Clear book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • scotland
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Cover of Enlightenment by Sarah Perry

19. Enlightenment

By: Sarah Perry

3.70

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

A dazzling new work of literary fiction from the author of The Essex Serpent, a story of love and a… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Perry's Enlightenment book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"Thomas [Hart] lived where he'd been born, and where (so he often thought without rancor) he'd very likely die; and if he lived alone he was not lonely, that being a condition not of solitude but of l…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

"So I told her this: that it's true I've only rarely been happy, and perhaps more often been sad. But I have been content. I have lived. I have felt everything available to me: I've been faithless, de…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

"I wish I could say, James, that we forgave each other in the end. I wish I could say: she put her head on my shoulder and I welcomed it and we laughed and said all was well. But in fact we were quiet…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

"...in the ordinary way we love because we're loved, and give more or less what we're given. But to love without return is more strange and more wonderful, and not the humiliating thing I'd once taken…"

-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment

Cover of Orbital by Samantha Harvey

20. Orbital

By: Samantha Harvey

3.73

Format: 207 pages, Hardcover

A slender novel of epic power, Orbital  deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men … read more

Similar categories in Samantha Harvey's Orbital book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
"Maybe we're the new dinosaurs and need to watch out."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

"The past comes, the future, the past, the future. It's always now, it's never now."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

"Raw space is a panther, feral and primal; they dream it stalking through their quarters."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

"That's all this great human endeavor of space exploration really is, he thinks, an animal migration, a bid for survival. A looping song sent into the open, a territorial animal song."

-Samantha Harvey, Orbital

Cover of L'isola dove volano le femmine by Marta Lamalfa

21. L'isola dove volano le femmine

By: Marta Lamalfa

3.90

Format: 306 pages, Kindle Edition

«Un'isola siciliana tra le rocce, cielo e miseria. Un romanzo intenso fatto di carne e di sangue, d… read more

Similar categories in Marta Lamalfa's L'isola dove volano le femmine book and Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

16 Best fiction books like O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

Transform Your Habits

Quartet in Autumn

Barbara Pym

3.90

Transform Your Habits

Poor Things

Alasdair Gray

3.94

Transform Your Habits

Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan

4.18

Transform Your Habits

The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright

3.55

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

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