10 best-selling historical books like The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Cover of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

The Heart in Winter

By: Kevin Barry

4.02

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romant…

"... the morning was starkly lit under a migraine - white and vast opening sky."

-Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter

If you liked the historical plot in The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry , here is a list of 10 books like this:

Cover of Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan

1. Caledonian Road

By: Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Format: 608 pages, Hardcover

A biting portrait of British class, politics, and money told through five interconnected families a… read more

Similar categories in Andrew O'Hagan's Caledonian Road book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

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

2. 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 Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
Cover of Wild Houses by Colin  Barrett

3. Wild Houses

By: Colin Barrett

3.78

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and sma… read more

Similar categories in Colin Barrett's Wild Houses book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
"What you are in, Dev, is a holding pattern, only you're not holding out for anything."

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"All boys, all children, are capable of cruelty at the right juncture of opportunity and circumstance, but only a few become committed prodigies of sadism..."

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"In the dream, exactly as he had in real life, he sensed the slow, inexorable approach of the shapeless, prospectless days to come, days when there would be no need to get out of bed or brush his teet…"

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

"He looked around the empty kitchen. A part of him wanted this of course. A part of him had always wanted this, to be alone, away from even the prospect of any demand upon him to talk, to interact, to…"

-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses

Cover of Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

4. Headshot

By: Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical inti… read more

Similar categories in Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"The desire to please people is the desire to not be singular."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"Tanya Maw's sister is two years older, the perfect age gap for wisdom transmission."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"It can be intoxicating to play a sport that requires one to look in their opponent's eyes."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

"It's a warmth that she'll feel again very few times in her life. It's almost like love, but it has a surer, less desperate edge to it."

-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot

Cover of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

5. The Heart in Winter

By: Kevin Barry

4.02

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romant… read more

Similar categories in Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • adventure
  • westerns
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
"... the morning was starkly lit under a migraine - white and vast opening sky."

-Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter

Cover of Whale Fall by Elizabeth  O'Connor

6. Whale Fall

By: Elizabeth O'Connor

3.87

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A stunning debut from an award-winning writer, about loss, isolation, folklore, and the joy and dis… read more

Similar categories in Elizabeth O'Connor's Whale Fall book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Clear by Carys Davies

7. 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 Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of The Coast Road by Alan Murrin

8. The Coast Road

By: Alan Murrin

3.99

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

A poignant and heartbreaking debut novel set in the 1990s in a claustrophobic coast town. With divo… read more

Similar categories in Alan Murrin's The Coast Road book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
Cover of This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

9. This Strange Eventful History

By: Claire Messud

3.63

Format: 448 pages, Hardcover

An immersive, masterful story of a family born on the wrong side of history, from one of our finest… read more

Similar categories in Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
"Family life, like playing chess, involved always thinking several steps ahead."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"Literature... Now, that's a religion I can believe in. That is perhaps my God."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"... she'd been a fool, enamored of a figment, had created the soul of a man who never existed -"

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"All-U-Can Hi-way 4-Sale Thru. This American English thrilled him - its energy, its freedom, its carelessness."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

Cover of Orbital by Samantha Harvey

10. 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 Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"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 My Friends by Hisham Matar

11. My Friends

By: Hisham Matar

4.34

Format: 399 pages, Hardcover

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return , a luminous novel of friendship, family, and … read more

Similar categories in Hisham Matar's My Friends book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • historical
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
"A vast distance exists between a protester and his slogan; the entire history of politics exists in that gap."

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

"For a writer, exile is prison, a severing from the source, and so, courageous or not, he dies in front of our eyes."

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

"She was older and all the more beautiful, had the weary tiredness of one who, in surrendering to her life, was ennobled by it."

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

"I walked off feeling an emptiness well up inside me. It seemed, for all the emptiness that it was, a presence. It made me want to run away, dive deeper into myself, into that cold desolation, to the …"

-Hisham Matar, My Friends

Cover of The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

12. The Alternatives

By: Caoilinn Hughes

3.48

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

“A tale about sisterhood, a novel of ideas, a chronicle of our collective follies, a requiem for ou… read more

Similar categories in Caoilinn Hughes's The Alternatives book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • audiobook
Cover of The Horse by Willy Vlautin

13. The Horse

By: Willy Vlautin

4.26

Format: 194 pages, Hardcover

Award-winning author Willy Vlautin explores loneliness, art, addiction, regret, love, and hard-won … read more

Similar categories in Willy Vlautin's The Horse book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

14. The Safekeep

By: Yael van der Wouden

4.08

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the … read more

Similar categories in Yael van der Wouden's The Safekeep book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Held by Anne   Michaels

15. Held

By: Anne Michaels

3.66

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A breathtaking and mysterious new novel from the beloved Anne Michaels, internationally bestselling… read more

Similar categories in Anne Michaels's Held book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
"Who can say what happens when we are remembered?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"Do we really need our own misery to teach us to be kind?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"Would he know the moment of his death or would it be like night falling."

-Anne Michaels, Held

Cover of The Road to the Country by Chigozie Obioma

16. The Road to the Country

By: Chigozie Obioma

3.92

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

A sweeping, heart-racing, mystical novel about a university student in Lagos trying to save his bro… read more

Similar categories in Chigozie Obioma's The Road to the Country book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • historical
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
  • audiobook
"It has always seemed to him that the world was full of things; that even in one’s loneliest moments, there was often a crowd. But the things one loved remained invisible, hidden amongst the multitude…"

-Chigozie Obioma, The Road to the Country

Cover of Ghost Mountain by Ronan Hession

17. Ghost Mountain

By: Ronan Hession

3.99

Format: None pages, Paperback

Ghost Mountain is a simple fable-like novel about a mountain that appears suddenly and the way in w… read more

Similar categories in Ronan Hession's Ghost Mountain book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • fiction
Cover of Godwin by Joseph O'Neill

18. Godwin

By: Joseph O'Neill

3.60

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

The odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might cha… read more

Similar categories in Joseph O'Neill's Godwin book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan

19. Heart, Be at Peace

By: Donal Ryan

4.22

Format: 208 pages, Kindle Edition

‘I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise…’ S… read more

Similar categories in Donal Ryan's Heart, Be at Peace book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • ireland
  • irish literature
  • fiction
Cover of Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu

20. Someone Like Us

By: Dinaw Mengestu

3.66

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

After abandoning his once promising career as a journalist in search of a new life in Paris, Mamush… read more

Similar categories in Dinaw Mengestu's Someone Like Us book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Sometimes I look at you and think that things go right through you. You're like a donut. There's a hole in the middle, where something solid should be"

-Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

Cover of Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

21. Creation Lake

By: Rachel Kushner

3.67

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of th… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Kushner's Creation Lake book and Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Charisma does not originate inside the person called "charismatic." It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist."

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"Plus, Lucien said, a lot of them had come from other social milieus and had tattoos from earlier lives, since people who change affinities are the same kinds of people who are attracted to the perman…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"My biker and these tramps, as people who organize their life around some subculture or other: People can sometimes pretend so thoroughly that they forget they are pretending. At which point, it could…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

"I could sense him gathering a false hindsight that afternoon in the Place des Vosges, shaping a retrospective narrative, the thing a person tells himself about fate, about how everything had seemed f…"

-Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

21 Best fiction books like The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Transform Your Habits

Caledonian Road

Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Transform Your Habits

Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

Colm Tóibín

3.82

Transform Your Habits

Wild Houses

Colin Barrett

3.78

Transform Your Habits

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

View all the books

20 must-read fiction books like Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan

Transform Your Habits

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch

4.10

Transform Your Habits

Caledonian Road

Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Transform Your Habits

You Are Here

David Nicholls

4.08

Transform Your Habits

The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright

3.55

View all the books

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