Topic
Survival
13 reading guides and book lists curated by the Editors Reads team.
13 posts
Where to Start with Daniel Defoe: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Daniel Defoe — how to approach Robinson Crusoe, his essential novel and the founding text of English prose fiction. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with Heather Morris: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Heather Morris — whether to begin with The Tattooist of Auschwitz or Cilka's Journey. A complete reading guide to the New Zealand historical novelist.
Where to Start with Jack London: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Jack London — whether to begin with The Call of the Wild, White Fang, or The Sea-Wolf. A complete reading guide to the American adventure novelist.
Where to Start with Laura Hillenbrand: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Laura Hillenbrand — how to approach Unbroken, her essential account of Louis Zamperini's impossible survival story. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with Yann Martel: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Yann Martel — whether to begin with Life of Pi or Beatrice and Virgil. A complete reading guide to the Canadian Booker Prize-winning author.
Best Books About Adventure and Survival: Essential Outdoor and Wilderness Reading
The best books about adventure and survival — from Into the Wild and Into Thin Air to Life of Pi and Wild. Essential outdoor and wilderness reading.
Best Books About Trauma and Survival: Fiction and Memoir
The best books about trauma and survival — from A Little Life and Beloved to The Body Keeps the Score and Shuggie Bain. Essential fiction and memoir.
Best Post-Apocalyptic Fiction: Essential Novels of the End
The best post-apocalyptic fiction — from The Road and Station Eleven to Oryx and Crake and On the Beach. Essential novels of collapse, survival, and what comes after.
Where to Start with James Dashner: A Reading Guide
Where to start with James Dashner — whether to begin with The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, or The Death Cure. A complete reading guide to the Maze Runner series.
Books Like Doctor Zhivago: Love, Art, and Survival Under History's Boot
Pasternak's Nobel-suppressed epic of a poet-doctor surviving the Russian Revolution while loving Lara is one of fiction's great statements on the individual caught inside historical catastrophe. These books share its sweep and its insistence on private life.
Books Like Man's Search for Meaning: Finding Purpose in Suffering
Viktor Frankl's account of surviving Auschwitz — and the logotherapy he developed from that experience — is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. These books share its insistence that meaning can be found even in the worst circumstances, and the particular authority of testimony written from inside suffering.
Books Like Station Eleven: Pandemic, Memory, and the Persistence of Art
Emily St. John Mandel's flu pandemic that destroys civilization — and the Travelling Symphony performing Shakespeare in the ruins — is the most hopeful post-apocalyptic novel ever written. These books share its belief that art survives, its non-linear structure, and its elegiac beauty.
Books Like The Martian: Problem-Solving, Survival, and Optimistic Science Fiction
Andy Weir's Mark Watney — abandoned on Mars, keeping himself alive by growing potatoes in a habitat fertilized with astronaut waste — is the most cheerful castaway in fiction. These books share its relentless ingenuity, its celebration of science, and its faith that problems have solutions.
Disclosure: Amazon links on this site are affiliate links. If you purchase through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.