100 Books Like The Painted Veil

This book has been criticized for ignoring the brutal aspects of the Bolshevik revolution and giving us only old-world elegance and luxury. Hello? It’s historical FICTION! Instead of facts, the author gives us atmosphere, a charming main character who is being gradually revealed to us.

It made me ask: Did time change him, or was he always that way, and the events brought out his “true” self? It’s a story told in a polished style or, as one reviewer put it, with “a permanently arched eyebrow.” 

The characters in Maggie O'Farrell's book are so real and compelling that they make historical figures feel like your next-door neighbors. I've always been obsessed with Shakespeare, and it's fascinating to learn more about how much Shakespeare was inspired by the death of his son Hamnet. It shows Shakespeare the man but also brings to life the other people in his life, especially the women, who history has forgotten about.

Behind every great man is an army of unseen women, and O'Farrell's novel gives those women voice and agency, showing what life (and death) was like for women in previous centuries, and showing that the experience of grief is universal.

You don’t have to know much about the Spanish civil war to have heard of Guernica. If you’ve ever seen Picasso’s work depicting the bombing, this book creates the story of the people of the town going about their everyday lives just before the painting’s horror. As a reader, you know what is coming but are helpless to do anything but care for characters who are oblivious to the destruction coming their way. 

As an author, I found inspiration in this novel for my own portrayal of the civil war in Spain. The trick is to let ordinary people tell the story for you.

Set in Mexico in the 1930s when the revolutionary government engaged in an active campaign against the Catholic Church, Greene’s hero, the so-called Whiskey Priest, is a drunk who has also failed to adhere to his vow of chastity, but his kindness and commitment to worshippers make him an intensely sympathetic figure, as he is hunted by the local police chief determined to put him behind bars.

The book was a revelation to me when I first read it in college. I did not realize that the Mexican government had engaged in this war against the Church so recently. Nor did I realize that a novel so gripping could be told with such literary grace. 

This book resonated with me because it’s the story of a journey. A journey of personal discovery and resilience.

I know what it’s like to lose loved ones. My whole family is gone. I know what’s it’s like to have the life you’ve led, the life you’ve believed in, be dismantled. And I know what it’s like to go on an expedition to find yourself again.

It doesn’t matter how that expedition takes form; the journey to find yourself again is powerful, and I’m still on that road.

This book is so hopeful. Painful, yes, and dark in many ways, but in the end, it’s hopeful. We all have a past, and to a lesser or greater extent, we all have suffered, and this book makes me feel like whatever happens, it can be overcome.

I love how this book allows you to travel the world with Franny, the protagonist, and at the same time follow her tragic past as it catches up to her. And this novel moves—not just in geography—but as you learn piece by piece about how she’s suffered and why she’s following the birds to Antarctica. It sounds kind of bizarre and yet it’s all totally believable.  

I loved this book because it is another time-slip novel, but mostly because of the characters that Gabaldon has created. Claire is a strong woman both in the present time zone–post-war Britain–and the Scottish Highland time zone of the seventeenth century and the uprising. You sense immediately that she is in danger as the story is told from her point of view. 

I loved learning about the lives of the Scottish highlanders, how the story moves from one-time zone to another, and how the characters overlap.

I love this novel because not only did it put me on a sailboat in the middle of the sea (gorgeous but also terrifying), but it also pulled me into the wrenching complexities of marriage and motherhood in the most gripping and believable way.

I especially loved how the characters try to escape their past by going on this sea voyage, only to find that there’s no escape. Those painful memories always seem to rear their ugly heads.

I am particularly drawn to stories about early adventures at sea. 

Life on a whaling ship was difficult and bred all manner of contemptible acts by the crew. When the journey was ill-fated, like the one in this book, it pointed the spotlight directly on the tainted core of ship life. 

This book introduced the greedy side of the 1800s whaling industry and told the story surrounding the doomed whaling ship and the ship’s drug-addicted surgeon. It presented the raw side of humanity and what lengths desperate men resort to in order to survive. It was shades of whaling seamen Herman Melville and John Rumell’s experiences surviving with savages. 

The story was riveting and begged the question: Who are the real savages?

OK, I’m a historian. I think the origins are interesting. Herman Melville’s book was there at the start of intruder tales. It is also a virtual time transformer, transporting the reader to a vivid other time and place. The narrative is based on Melville's experiences on the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands, where he deserted the ship to hang out.  The prose, like Stevenson’s, has that considered, flowing, Victorian narrative style I find refreshing—the type of prose you wrote slowly with a quill pen.

This book and its subsequent sister volume Omoo were Melville’s most famous books in his lifetime, far better known than Moby Dick. It is considered a classic in travel and adventure literature.