Books like Sole Survivor — picked by fans

Future-facing at the time of its publication in 1957, On the Beach isn’t really war fiction in the literal sense, because the fictional war around which it is built is already over.

Set in 1963 Australia, it details the life-affirming but grim experiences of a cast of characters including the crew of a US Navy submarine who are all facing inevitable and impending death from the aftereffects of massive nuclear war that has extinguished all life in the northern hemisphere.

The LA Times described it as "timely and ironic... an indelibly sad ending that leaves you tearful and disturbed," and The Economist called it "still incredibly moving after nearly half a century.” I’d call it a compelling and thought-provoking cautionary tale, and a ride you only want to go on via your imagination.

I love this book because it turns the biblical idea of good versus evil into something frighteningly human and tangible.

What stayed with me was not the plague or the supernatural elements, but how ordinary people reveal who they truly are when the world collapses. I felt constantly unsettled by how thin the line is between morality and survival.

This story made me reflect deeply on faith, corruption, and the fragile nature of civilization in ways that few novels ever have.

This book, the story of a Syrian refugee beekeeper, speaks volumes about what I believe in: the resiliency of human beings and the power of the mind.

The beekeeper’s journey reminds me of why I love working with people as a psychologist after 30+ years. I witnessed many times that hopes and dreams can carry people through the most difficult, dire situations. The title of the book also attracted me.

Being an amateur beekeeper, I have some understanding of beekeeper mentality. One has to be observant, patient, and persistent in order to befriend bees. This includes a willingness to learn, follow instinct, and trust what life can bring. These characteristics are reflected in the protagonist of this book.

His emotional journey is about surrendering to the unknown, working with what is in front of him, and trusting what the universe will bring him in the end. Warmth, kindness, and torments… show more.

Personal reveal – I love weather. I am in my happy place with a good thunderstorm overhead, shaking my house, lighting up my backyard in the dead of night. And so, I was drawn to read Braving the Storm.

The entire eastern seaboard of the United States is struck by Superstorm Nicole. The power grids fail, millions of residences and businesses are unprotected, in the dark. Anarchy erupts as gangs rule the streets forcing residents to make a choice; leave their homes or stay and fight. Four families flee the city, and join together, to live in a cabin in the middle of the forest and try to wait it out, survive.

This is a scenario not beyond the realm of possibility. Braving the Storm can also be read as a survival guide.

I love the setting of this mystery: New Zealand during World War II. Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealander, but most of her well-known mysteries are set in England. This one has fascinating Māori characters as well as the usual blustery English ones.

Add a Nazi spy and our intrepid Inspector Roderick Alleyn in disguise, a complex plot, plus a truly surprising ending, and you’ve got a recipe for exactly the kind of mystery I like to escape into. 

James Jones's brilliant debut novel must have had a great effect on me because I admit, in many ways, my book covers the same ground – how does a man maintain honor and dignity when constrained to live his life by the choices of other, and much more powerful men? I suppose the difference between our two themes is that the question in my book is about those same choices but wrapped in the question of race. Jones’s characters, while in the military, were dealing with personal issues. My Corporal Buck is dealing with an issue about which all of America is on fire.

From Here to Eternity is 70 years old. I read it in 1969, an eternity ago and it has lasted with me from there to here. When I was in the Marine Corps I knew everything that was happening to me. But I didn’t know what… show more.

This book is a gift to readers of World War II history. I had had it on my to-be-read list for years and finally opened the page earlier this year.

The prose is heart-grabbing and nerve-rattling and helped me better understand the unfathomable—flying in a WWII-era bomber, my hands frostbitten and bleeding, a tiny piece of shrapnel lodged in my eye as I try to reassemble my plane’s radio. Far from just another story of young men doing their duty to their country.

I read this book as a boy, and I couldn’t put it down. It’s the story of American PT boats in the South Pacific during World War II, and the story behind the title captivated me. Every soldier knows that he or she might be sacrificed by a commander to gain time for a retreat or as part of a super-dangerous mission.

The sailors on the boats in White’s story were living examples of how they could be expendable. Even as a boy, this book made me grateful for what I had and grateful to the members of the uniformed services who protected us. That they would make such a commitment makes me love America even more. 

Born in 1934 in Berchtesgaden, in the shadow of Hitler’s Eagles Nest, Irmgard Hunt witnessed the growth of fascist ideology among the people she loved during an otherwise idyllic childhood. As the shadow of World War II fell over the mountain, however, Hunt began to question and then disavow the Nazi doctrines she had accepted as a young child. As time went on and the regime crumbled literally before her eyes, she was vocal in confronting her country’s criminal past and in championing the democratic principles her elders had so easily dismissed.

Kristóf (1935-2011) was a Hungarian writer who fled to Switzerland during the war and wrote in French.

The Notebook (the first in the trilogy) is currently number one on my list of all-time favourites. It has all the elements of storytelling that I love: deep, psychological insight into the human heart; adroit use of archetypes, which give the book a timeless, folkloric feel; concision (no waffling) and a poetic, pared-back language that creates a sense of startling immediacy.

Kristóf writes about World War II through the eyes of two young brothers in a Nazi-occupied country (unnamed), and she shocks us awake not through sensationalised violence but through matter-of-fact narration.

It reads like a cross-between dramatic monologue and biblical parable – she stretches the novel form and opens up new possibilities for writing.