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30120+ Fiction Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest . If you’re looking for the best fiction short stories to read online, we’ve got you covered. Wide-ranging and ever-curious, these free short stories will meet your reading needs.

🏆 Winning stories

“ hearts are trump ” by sarah coury.

🏆 Winner of Contest #246

Uncle Abe and Uncle Will haven’t played cards together in years. If you want to get real technical about it, Uncle Abe and Uncle Will haven’t even shared the same room in years, but that ain’t news to anyone east of Livernois. By now, the entire city of Detroit knows about Abraham and William Haddad—at least those who regularly stop into the family party store for their weekly supply of meats, spirits, and fresh-baked pita. It’s old news. Two bitter brothers broken up over a girl who left town anyway. It’s been ages and the aunties need fres...

“ Everything is Connected ” by Olivier Breuleux

🏆 Winner of Contest #245

Many people don't believe that everything is connected. It's strange. They believe in magnets, in electromagnetic waves, in quantum action at a distance. They believe that the force of gravity makes the Earth revolve around the Sun, and yet they do not believe that the same forces can influence the smaller details of our fate. They believe that it is all up to them. That they have free will. They say that Jupiter can gently pull the Sun, yet it cannot move our infinitely smaller souls.A paradox.The stars are difficult to read, for sure. The ...

“ KILLER IN THE WILLOWS ” by Kajsa Ohman

🏆 Winner of Contest #235

KILLER IN THE WILLOWSJust do it, so the T-shirts say. Just pick up the gun, pull the trigger—but maybe aim first, aim at the upper sternum and then pull the trigger, congratulating yourself that at last, in your long, passive life, you have shot somebody dead. So she did, and thus she became a murderer. She slipped through the night after that and disappeared into the willows to wash off any blood that spattered onto her clothing. The willows were thickl...

⭐️ Recommended stories

“ lost in the backwoods ” by brian haddad.

Submitted to Contest #249

"It seems the Bermuda Triangle has moved to the backwoods," Andrew muttered to himself. He glanced over at his phone, where the navigation app was still confidently tracing out a path deeper and deeper into the woods. He checked the time and his heart jumped. An hour ago he was supposed to be five minutes away from his destination. An hour ago? he thought. "OK, something is definitely wrong," he announced aloud to himself, pulling over on the dirt road that cut a rough, untraveled path through a dense standing of ancient trees.Grabbing his p...

“ LOST ” by Carol Hopkins

LOST!She had driven the route back and forth the hospital many times but this time she was distracted by worry – this was her father’s third heart attack! Her sister sat in the front seat beside her and the two women chatted nonstop as they drove through the rural countryside.Anna’s fingers frequently drummed on the steering wheel as she drove.“Liz, do you think we can convince Dad to move in with one of us? Since Mom died it’s such a terrible worry,” Anna said, glancing quickly at her sister. The car lurched. Forced to press the brakes, har...

“ Persuasion ” by T. S. Parnell

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #248

Twelve years old is the minimum age to enter the annual calf scramble. But none had ever taken home a calf. The fifteen-, sixteen-, and seventeen-year-olds were more experienced, and usually faster and stronger. Caleb Duskin caught one when he was thirteen, but he already had a mustache and played linebacker on the freshman football team. Lily Parsons turned twelve on July 30th, the day before the deadline to enter a name in the drawing to participate. Two days later, after the ten names were drawn, Lily’s mother got the phone call. “Hello,”...

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🏆 Featuring 12 prize-winning stories from our community. Download it now for FREE .

✍️ All stories

“ the reservoir ” by stevie burges.

The ReservoirMargaret began to feel fear rising in her throat as she drove in the dark. Where the hell was she? “Oh my god, what’s that?” she thought. Peering over the driving wheel, she realised it was a vast body of water that had appeared suddenly out of nowhere. Her car’s main beam caught sight of a small country lane to her right and, turning the car wheel, began to ascend rapidly. As she neared the summit, putting her foot on the brake, she scrabbled around on the passenger seat and located the discarded map. L...

“ Lost and Found ” by John Steckley

Discovering that I am Lost           I am so lost. I shouldn’t be surprised by that though. Not knowing what I am doing or why I am doing it is an increasing part of my life these days. This kind of ‘what am I doing and why am I doing it’ began a few years back when I turned 70 years of age. I would open the refrigerator door, and have no idea what it was I was looking for. I would stare and stare and eventually would give up and shut the refrigerator door. ...

“ Game, Set, and Match ” by PJ Town

(contains swearing and irreverent references to God)I hurried off the stage and made for the dressing-room, which was more like a cupboard really. When I got there, I extricated the bank notes tucked into my waist band and stockings, stuffing them straight in my purse. Fighting back the nausea I always felt after a number, I stripped, ran a cloth under the tap, and wiped myself down.The whisky bottle called me from the make-up table. I poured myself a good measure, downing it in one. And that’s when it caught my eye: an envelope at the foot ...

“ Persuasion ” by Kyle Gardner

Submitted to Contest #248

A fictional story unfortunately based on real people.          All men are carsalesmen, and it is only a matter of time before you find out he sold you a lemon. -Ana Raymond was a man, and an arrogant one at that. He was the type of man that was sure of himself, a man who possessed that perverse, yet often quite comical, faux self-awareness of the many gifts he had to offer to the world. And by the world, I mean to half of the world’s population, and by half of the world’s population, I mean the f...

“ The Wind in the Willows ” by Beatrice Racine

The Wind in the Willows-Beatrice RacineWeeping willows sway aimlessly in the cold breeze, their limbs reaching weakly for the leaf-littered ground, the earth hard and frozen. A shadow looms over the dreary forest, casting shades of violet onto the moss-covered boulders and crumbling rotten logs, dewdrops glinting dimly in the waning light. The sound of waves can be heard in the distance as they crash onto rocky shores, the cold water leaving slick stones crawling with rust-colored crabs and spotted with pale barnacles. Clouds rumble and cry ...

“ The Wind in the Willows ” by Maria St

The Wind In The Willowsby Maria McShane Detective Jax O'Riley huddled beneath the willow trees, protected from the mist and view when he saw her. The lone hooded figure approached the tombstone. She knelt before it and touched the granite-etched-name, tracing each letter, C A J U N  V E L V E T. Something in how she held her right thumb, the same manner as the deceased used to after breaking hers long ago, jarred Jax into awareness. Cajun had returned from the dead to right the wrongs of the past. "Damn you, Cajun," Jax breathed....

“ Paradise Lost ” by Roneta Davis

Trigger Warning: Throughout this tale, there will be subtle mentions relating to mental health, body image, sexuality, physical violence, and religious tone. Shakey blistered-sunburned fingers holding a pair of binoculars scan the sparse landscape seeking anything to ease the ache of solitude and impending doom. The sun's rays twinkled off the beads of sweat racing each other as they fell from brow to chin. A parched tongue gently soothes the sting of salted droplets on red cracked lips. Weeks had passed since any adequate shelter or provis...

“ Paradise Lost ” by Jae Po

Day 1, on my ownThe others have gone. After marching for days, we’d stopped for a few minutes to rest. I closed my eyes for what felt like seconds. When I woke up, I’m not even sure if on the same day, they were gone. I looked around and saw no one in sight. We’d been marching in lockstep and following our commander without question, as we’ve always done. So, I hadn’t bothered to pay attention, nor was given any information, about where we were or where we were headed at the time. I noticed that, it had clearly rained as I had rested, which ...

“ Desperate Remedies ” by Kelsey Fuentes

Wendy, a very curious and precocious child with a brilliant mind, eagerly explored the world around her, soaking up knowledge like a sponge and leaving a trail of wonder in her wake. Once she began to recognize the beauty around her, the more she wanted to share it with others, her enthusiasm infectious and her passion palpable. Unfortunately, though, her mental health was often a struggle, casting shadows on her otherwise bright spirit. Each time she wanted to share her light and the beauty she discovered, the shadow wanted to bind her and ...

“ Persuasion ” by Noah Graham

“I really can’t have more than one beer, I need to write a story later” Neil said. “You’ve written like 50 stories and had only 1 professionally published.Unless you do something different, you’ll be using your talents to write toasts for my retirement party in a few years.” Marcus slurred “I got a few good ones ready. What’s so wrong with that?” “What if the reason your stories don’t sell is because you don’t have the emotional honesty people want? What if you could fix that?” Marcus asked smiling “How would I ever do that?” “Easy bro. Just...

“ Desperate Remedies ” by Erika Sams

Desperate RemediesBy Erika Sams After a week on a meditation retreat in the middle of nowhere Josephine had decided the Zen life was bullshit. Behind the smiles and high-pitched whispers of welcome was a rage barely contained with deep breathing and overdosing on lavender tea. Fuck, that tea was delicious though. Either way, she knew all these lost souls were one misfortune away from snapping. How was she so sure? Because the yoga instructor was dead in her trunk. In Josephine’s defense, she was feeling much better! The smell of lavender fro...

“ Paradise Lost ” by Gregg Voss

Sensitive content: Language. There was the world, an amorphous form of fallen humanity traveling a great and wide highway careening toward hell.           But there were also those who were enlightened, those who had found the truth and built their dwelling on that granite cornerstone. Because of that, disaster would not venture near their tent.           There was room for all in the kingdom, Pops had drilled into my head with count...

“ Persuasion ” by Easton W. Kraston

The red hand lurches forward, trekking across the face of the clock. He taps his finger on the rim of his coffee cup, precisely in time with the torturous beat. Despite the bustling cafe around him, he swears he can hear it.Tick, tick, tick. He wishes it would pause. If only to stop her from walking through the door behind him and sitting across from him.He glances at the small table before him, dark rings staining its wooden surface. Too small. It's too small to stop her from reaching across and slapping him or perhaps to move before she th...

“ Desperate Remedies ” by Steven Nimocks

Chapter 1The alarm clock's speakers shattered the blissful peace by blasting the chorus of Highway to Hell. Noah Vale needed the shock to wake up at 4:30 A.M. He stood up and stretched. For the last 10 years, it signaled another mundane day for Noah at Omni-Forge Industries. His wife of 15 years still laid there as the weather forecast began."Lauren, get up or I'll be late," he said, finding her still in bed when he finished his morning routine."C'mon, I got ten minutes left." He gathered his things to leave. Lauren got up and made breakfast...

The Best Fiction Short Stories

Short fiction stories are a fantastic way to access the literary world in compact, bite-sized reading sessions. The short story as we know it today began in the 19th century, when the increasing interest in print literary magazines led to many authors like Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens writing and publishing stories. Later, with the onset of modernism in the beginning of the 20th century, the fiction short story began to adopt more abstract forms, embracing ambiguity and inconclusivity. The later 20th century brought the increasing popularity of the short story as an artistic and literary undertaking. 

Short fiction stories span every imaginable genre. From literary fiction (the likes of which you’ll see published in The New Yorker ), to crime, fantasy, and romance stories, the form is remarkable for its versatility and adaptability.

Looking for fiction short stories to read?

On this page, you can read fiction short stories for free! These are stories that have been submitted to Reedsy’s weekly writing contest, with shortlisted or winning stories chosen by our judges appearing at the top of the page for your convenience. And if you're looking for more of the contest's best entries, make sure to claim your free copy of Prompted , our new literary magazine.

If you discover a writer whose work you really enjoy and admire, head over to their profile and click ‘Follow’ to keep up to date with their newest writing. They’ll appreciate it!

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Short and sweet: the best stories to read right now

Thought-provoking, intense and consumed in one sitting, do short stories make for a perfect reading experience? Chris Power finds out, and shares the all-time greats

M arcel Proust’s brother said the problem with In Search of Lost Time was that people “have to be very ill or have a broken leg” in order to read it. Or, he might add today, be confined to their homes in response to a global pandemic. In the early days of the coronavirus lockdown my Twitter feed was full of conversations about whether it was time to read Middlemarch or The Brothers Karamazov , Bleak House or The Anatomy of Melancholy . Whether because of furloughing or just not being able to go to the pub, the general assumption among readers was that there would be a lot of free time to catch up on the big ones that had until now, like Ahab’s white whale , got away.

But as time passed I saw these plans fall beneath an avalanche of sourdough starters, 1,000-piece puzzles and Zoom pub quizzes. Even for those who weren’t poleaxed by home schooling and the demands of childcare, something seemed to be making it hard to concentrate on novels – or at least the ones that hadn’t been filmed and considerately deployed to iPlayer, like Sally Rooney’s Normal People .

So did the lockdown represent the perfect moment for short stories: those small, sharp bursts of literary flavour? Those Skittles of the book world, as some seem to consider them. I’ve written before against the argument that short stories are ideal for time-pressured readers, or, even worse, short attention spans, but I can’t put it better than Lorrie Moore:

There’s a lot of yak about how short stories are perfect for the declining public attention span. But we know that’s not true. Stories require concentration and seriousness. The busier people get, the less time they have to read a story … people often don’t have a straight half hour of time to read at all. But they have 15 minutes. And that is often how novels are read, 15 minutes at a time. You can’t read stories that way.

The time just before lockdown began was weird and chaotic: my wife and I and our daughters fell ill with presumed Covid-19, and it killed my best friend’s mum. But as we recovered and settled into the strange new everyday, I found that short stories really were the reading material that best fit my days. Not because they slip down easily, but because whenever I put a book down, the move from fiction back to reality was so jarring that what I’d just read would be overpowered. The space in my mind where novels persisted when I wasn’t reading them suddenly seemed to be missing, or busy with some other task (comparing national death rates, perhaps). The only things that survived were those I began and finished in one sitting.

So whenever I could, between cooking and trying to teach maths, I read a story. I read “The Open Boat” , Stephen Crane’s gripping tale of survival at sea, Joseph Conrad’s haunting account of doubleness, “The Secret Sharer” , and Julio Cortázar’s ingenious Möbius strip of a story, “Continuity of Parks”. They took me far from locked-down London, to Paris, Thailand and the Florida coast, and brought me back again before the next news report or government briefing colonised anything else I was trying to think about.

But then, I am a special case: I knew this was going to be a spring and summer of reading short fiction anyway, because I’m one of the judges for this year’s BBC National short story award . In order to test my theory I needed to see if other people shared my experience, ideally people who habitually read a wide range of literature, including short stories. So I got in touch with writers who had won or been shortlisted for the NSSA over the last 14 years – a cohort that represents a recent history of the short story in the UK.

Some have struggled to read fiction of any kind. “I’m finding stories a bit too long, and also made up,” Kate Clanchy tells me. “There doesn’t seem any need to make anything up right now. I’m only able to read poetry, essays, and the newspapers.” Lionel Shriver feels the same way. “I have been so rattled by the news,” she says, “that other than the odd short story I have stopped reading fiction. I’m ashamed to say that because at the same time I’m releasing a novel, so I obviously expect other people to read my fiction.”

Lucy Caldwell , twice shortlisted and one of my fellow judges this year, tells a similar story of disturbed reading patterns, describing her engagement with books as “idle, frantic, slippery, vague. I’m reading far less than normal and am a much worse reader, which is terrifying: for my whole life, reading has been the place I go to.” This idea of reading as refuge made me wonder about comfort reading, a concept I’ve always found troubling: what about being challenged, upset or disturbed? One of the things I love most about short stories is their ambiguity and irresolution – the opposite of comfort.

Sarah Hall helped clarify my thinking when she told me: “I don’t turn to literature for comfort or consolation.” Short stories, she said, “require steady nerves and receptiveness on the part of the reader – a willingness to be affected, troubled and accept opacity”. This chimed with something Claire-Louise Bennett had said to me a few days earlier: “The first short stories I read were folk tales, which, on the one hand, are so vivid and specific, yet intensely mysterious and unyielding too. Those stories were not reassuring and they weren’t meant to be.”

But it is also the case that taking comfort or pleasure in a book needn’t mean the literary equivalent of sponge pudding or a hot water bottle. “If a book is well written it doesn’t matter if it’s about something horrific or depressing,” says Jon McGregor . “I just take pleasure in the construction and the writing of it.” Shriver, citing “You Will Never Be Forgotten” by Mary South, a story “about a woman stalking her rapist”, says that, “there’s nothing comforting about that material. What comforts me is good writing. Beyond that, I’m happy to be disturbed.”

Tahmima Anam , however, feels quite differently. “I want to be consoled by fiction right now,” she says. “I want it to give me a warm, non-judgmental hug. At the start of lockdown, when I was feeling particularly tender, all I could stomach was a little Jane Austen. I went straight for Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility , and by the time I was finished the world felt a bit less cold.”

For Hall, challenge is its own reward. She describes reading a good short story as like “being held between two opposing magnetic forces, which has something to do with both compression of narrative form and the content of the story – that’s the real draw for me, the insecurity and possible reversals I’ll face as a reader.” Once she’s there, she says, “I don’t care how much I’m messed around with psychologically or morally – the more the better, probably. I imagine I’ll always love short stories, even in the apocalypse.”

But Anam’s position isn’t about avoiding difficult subject matter. “It’s not that I want to be comforted as in not challenged, but I want to be satisfied. Short stories are shots of espresso – bitter, sharp, and always leaving you slightly unsatisfied. The end of a novel is satisfying the way the end of a short story could never be.” Tessa Hadley , one of the country’s most accomplished short-story writers, also “loves that feeling of immersion in a good novel, a whole world you re-enter each time you pick the book up, as known and alive as your own world is alive.” If fewer readers enjoy short stories, she thinks it’s probably because of “the strenuousness of short story reading”, which demands “more finding your way. More strangeness, perhaps, in the sense that inside a story we’re more puzzled, proportionately, for more of the total of pages, making out what the world of the story is, who its inhabitants are, and what we’re supposed to make of them.” I am struck by how her words could double as a description of the last few months, which we fumbled through as if determining the shape of a new world, and what we made of it.

But I didn’t only want to know the outline of what these writers had been reading. I wanted to talk specifics. What has everyone been reading? McGregor has found himself returning to George Saunders, “for the fun he has with voice and register, and how much he loves his characters – even, or especially, the flawed ones”. He has also gone back to Wendy Erskine’s collection Sweet Home , “because I can’t work out how she breathes so much life into her stories”. Cynan Jones, who when I spoke to him hadn’t left his rural property for 70 days, “other than one car dash to check a neighbour’s farm gate was closed”, has felt the need for tales of adventure, “the old-fashioned thing that drew me to stories in the first place. I read Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner last week. Wow! Everyone should read it.”

Hadley has been rereading Lucia Berlin ’s “superb” short stories, as has Lucy Caldwell: “On a sentence-by-sentence level she’s peerless.” Ingrid Persaud, the 2018 NSSA winner, found strength in Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges , a book she describes as having the ability to “stare down” the current moment of instability and anxiety. Mark Haddon recommended Ted Chiang’s collection Exhalation , and he and Jo Lloyd, winner of last year’s prize, both vouched for the Calvino-like inventions of Kanishk Tharoor ’s Swimmer Among the Stars .

Lloyd has been avoiding her favourites – Deborah Eisenberg and Edward P Jones – in favour of stories “with a little bit of magic or otherness”, including “Madame Bovary’s Greyhound” by Karen Russell, and “The Lonesome Southern Trials of Knut the Whaler” by Jessie Greengrass . Di Speirs, books editor for BBC Radio and, as a founder of the NSSA and sitting judge, perhaps the best-read short story-lover in the country, recommends William Trevor ’s collection The Ballroom of Romance , Alice Munro and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black .

Hadley and Anam also gave Alice Munro a nod. For Anam she’s “flawless”, while Hadley praised her story “Carried Away”, “because it’s magnificent, and because it’s set in the aftermath of the first world war and the flu epidemic, and yet it’s so clear-eyed, funny, hungry, salty with irony.” For something from the here and now, another former winner of the prize, KJ Orr, told me she’s been kept up at night by the stories in Dima Alzayat’s recent debut collection Alligator .

Short stories have been the answer for me during the lockdown, but they might not be for you. Perhaps what you’re looking for isn’t even to be found in the pages of a book. “I don’t go to books for reassurance and solace,” Cynan Jones told me. “I find that around me in the natural world, and sometimes in a Negroni.”

Chris Power is the author of Mothers. He is a judge for the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University, celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2020. www.bbc.co.uk/NSSA

Six of the best recent short story collections

Nudibranch by Irenosen Okojie Okojie, who is also judging this year’s NSSA, has an extraordinary imagination: from time-travelling monks to Ballardian islands, these stories show you things you’ll have never seen before.

A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth by Daniel Mason Mason’s set of fanciful, absorbing historical tales includes fictional versions of the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and the pharaoh Psammetichus I, as well as balloonists, pugilists and madmen.

Lot by Bryan Washington This beautifully written debut collection of interconnected stories, which recently won the Dylan Thomas prize, follows a cast of young queer people of colour through the neighbourhoods of Houston, Texas.

The Voice in My Ear by Frances Leviston Another brilliant debut, Leviston’s stories – each of which feature a different girl or woman called Claire – use technology, needlework, sex and horror to uncover the fractures that run through family life.

The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan Unusually skilled at compression, Scanlan writes short short stories that are often just a page or so long. She can make a sentence do the work of a page.

Your Duck Is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg Eisenberg might work slowly – this is her fifth collection of stories in 35 years – but her stories are close to faultless: hilarious, ingenious, singular. She deserves to be much, much better known.

Ten of the best short stories ever written

“The Dead” by James Joyce Over the course of a single Dublin evening Joyce presents a devastating portrait of the fragile male ego. The closing lines are some of the most famous in English literature.

“Emergency” by Denis Johnson Two drug-addled hospital orderlies stumble out of work, go for a drive and get lost in the woods. A line-by-line wonder that’s both funny and profound.

“The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield Mansfield’s story of a poor carter’s death on the day of a wealthy family’s garden party was never dated, but during the pandemic, when Covid-19 deaths continue amid pub reopenings, it feels freshly and disturbingly relevant.

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin Baldwin’s story describes two estranged brothers reconnecting in 1950s Harlem. Their experience gives a grim account of the black American life but moves towards the light in its unforgettable final scene.

“Gusev” by Anton Chekhov The least characteristic of Chekhov’s masterpieces, “Gusev” describes the feverish last days of a soldier sailing home to Russia and contains one of the most extraordinary portrayals of death in literature.

“The True Story of Ah Q” by Lu Xun This satirical, picaresque and ultimately bleak story describes the misadventures of the everyman Ah Q, whose triumphs always transform into defeats.

“Where is the Voice Coming From?” by Eudora Welty Told from the point of view of a racist killer, this story was written in the immediate aftermath of the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Welty said that “anger lit the fuse” of her story, which seems to seethe on the page.

“Fits” by Alice Munro In 1982 Munro wrote: “Every final draft, every published story, is still only an attempt, an approach, to the story.” “Fits” embodies this belief, as a small town’s inhabitants concoct their own explanations for a murder-suicide that happened in their midst.

“Looking for a Rain God” by Bessie Head Head’s stories, based on interviews she conducted with the villagers of Serowe, Botswana, are like elaborated folktales: the original story, in this case about a terrible drought, is overlaid with a sense of irony, knowledge of history and taste for enigma.

“The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter In her collection The Bloody Chamber , Carter updated folktales, bringing their “latent content” to the surface to expose their patriarchal assumptions and misogyny. “The Company of Wolves” is her memorable “revisioning” of “Little Red Riding Hood”.

• Short stories
• Marcel Proust
• Sally Rooney
• Lorrie Moore

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10 of the Best Very Short Stories That Can Be Read Online

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

One very short story – often attributed to Ernest Hemingway but actually the work of another writer – is just six words long: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’. And some of the greatest fiction-writers of the last two centuries have written memorable short stories which stretch to little more than a few pages: short enough to be read in a coffee break.

Below, we introduce ten classic short stories – very short stories – from some of the finest authors in the literary canon. All of the stories can be read online: follow the links provided to read them.

1. Anton Chekhov, ‘ The Student ’.

A key device in many Chekhov short stories is the epiphany : a sudden realisation or moment of enlightenment experienced by one of the story’s characters, usually the protagonist. In many ways, the epiphany can be said to perform a similar function to the plot twist or revelation at the end of a more traditional (i.e., plot-driven) short story.

In ‘The Student’, one of Chekhov’s shortest stories, a young seminary is travelling home on Good Friday. He meets two women, a mother and her daughter who have both been widowed, and joins them around their fire, and the conversation turns to the Gospels, since it is Easter.

The student begins telling them about the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus, and this tale reawakens painful memories in the two women. Here, the emphasis is more on character and emotion than plot and incident, as we discuss in our analysis of the story .

2. Kate Chopin, ‘ The Story of an Hour ’.

Some short stories can say all they need to do in just a few pages, and Kate Chopin’s three-page 1894 story ‘The Story of an Hour’ (sometimes known as ‘The Dream of an Hour’) is a classic example. Yet those three pages remain tantalisingly ambiguous, perhaps because so little is said, so much merely hinted at.

Chopin’s short story is a subtle, studied analysis of death, marriage, and personal wishes. Written in April 1894 and originally published in Vogue in December of that year, the story focuses on an hour in the life of a married woman who has just learnt that her husband has apparently died.

We have analysed this story here .

3. Saki, ‘ The Lumber-Room ’.

Saki, born Hector Hugh Munro, is one of the wittiest short-story writers in English, a missing link between Wilde and Wodehouse. Yet he remains undervalued.

‘The Lumber Room’ is a classic short story about a child who is too clever for the adults: a mischievous boy, Nicholas, seeks to outwit his aunt so he can gain access to the lumber-room with its hidden treasures and curiosities. The story is also about the nature of obedience and the limited view of the world adults have, when contrasted with the child’s more expansive and imaginative outlook.

We have analysed this wonderful story here .

4. Virginia Woolf, ‘ A Haunted House ’.

In the pioneering short stories Woolf wrote in the period from around 1917 until 1921, she not only developed her own ‘modernist’ voice but also offered a commentary on other literary forms and styles.

This two-page story is a good example: we find a woman living in a house which is apparently haunted by a ghostly couple. The story that emerges is less frightening than it is touching, and as much romance as horror, as Woolf provides a modernist, stream-of-consciousness take on the conventional ghost story, all in a brief vignette of around 600 words.

We have analysed the story here .

5. Franz Kafka, ‘ Before the Law ’.

This is a very short story or parable by the German-language Bohemian (now Czech) author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It was published in 1915 and later included in Kafka’s (posthumously published) novel The Trial , where its meaning is discussed by the protagonist Josef K. and a priest he meets in a cathedral. ‘Before the Law’ has inspired numerous critical interpretations and prompted many a debate, in its turn, about what it means.

A man approaches a doorkeeper and asks to be admitted to ‘the law’. The doorkeeper tells him he cannot grant him access, but that it may be possible to admit the man later. We won’t say what happens next, but the parable is typically Kafkaesque – in so far as anything else – in its comic absurdism and depiction of the futility of human endeavour. The story is often interpreted as a tale about religion.

We discuss the story in more depth in our summary and analysis of it.

6. Katherine Mansfield, ‘ Miss Brill ’.

‘Miss Brill’ is a short story by the New-Zealand-born modernist writer Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), published in the Athenaeum in 1920 and then included in Mansfield’s 1922 collection The Garden Party and Other Stories .

Every Sunday, a lady named Miss Brill goes to the local public gardens to hear the band play and to sit in the gardens and people-watch. On the particular Sunday that is the focus of the story, the unmarried Miss Brill comes to realise that she, and all of the other people gathered in the gardens, appear to be in a sort of play. But when she overhears a young couple making apparently disparaging remarks about her, she appears to undergo an epiphany …

We discuss the story in more detail in our analysis of it.

7. Ernest Hemingway, ‘ Cat in the Rain ’.

This short tale was published in Hemingway’s early 1925 collection In Our Time ; he wrote ‘Cat in the Rain’ for his wife Hadley while they were living in Paris. She wanted to get a cat, but he said they were too poor.

‘Cat in the Rain’ was supposedly inspired by a specific event in 1923 when, while staying at the home of Ezra Pound (a famous cat-lover) in Rapallo, Italy, Hadley befriended a stray kitten. We find a woman in a hotel seeking to rescue a cat she spots in the rain outside, but the story takes in deeper longings, too.

We have offered an analysis of this story in a separate post.

8. Jorge Luis Borges, ‘ The Lottery in Babylon ’.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges is one of the great short-fiction writers of the twentieth century, and many of his classic tales stretch to just a few pages.

‘The Lottery in Babylon’, first published in 1941, is among his most ‘Kafkaesque’ tales. When he wrote the story, Borges was working a rather unfulfilling library job refilling the bookshelves, and ‘The Lottery in Babylon’ reflects the sense of futility in all human endeavour which Borges was feeling at this time. We are told of a lottery in the (fictional) land of Babylon, which becomes compulsory, and which delivers both rewards and punishments to its lucky (or unlucky) participants. Although Borges’ story is satirical and humorous, it also taps into the horrific realities of totalitarian regimes.

Find out more about this story by reading our analysis of it .

9. Lydia Davis, ‘ On the Train ’.

Very few stories in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis are longer than a few pages, and many are a single page, like prose haiku or short vignettes. Her stories are usually less about narrative and more about observation, seemingly insignificant details, and a refusal to sentimentalise. Indeed, her stories are almost clinical in their precision and emotional tautness.

We’ve opted for ‘On the Train’ as it’s one of the few Davis stories available online via the link above, but we could have chosen any number of short stories from the collected edition mentioned above. Highly recommended.

10. David Foster Wallace, ‘ A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life ’.

This is the shortest story on this list. Published on ‘page zero’ of Wallace’s 2000 collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men , it is another vignette, about how the way we behave is ultimately motivated by our longing to be liked by others.

The rise of social media has only brought home even more clearly what Wallace brilliantly and wittily reveals here: that much of our behaviour is purely performative, with the individual having lost any sense of authenticity or true identity.

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The 100 Must-Read Books of 2021

The fiction, nonfiction and poetry that shifted our perspectives, uncovered essential truths and encouraged us forward Annabel Gutterman, Cady Lang, Arianna Rebolini and Lucas Wittmann

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

Acts of desperation, afterparties, aftershocks, all that she carried, all the frequent troubles of our days, america on fire, beautiful world, where are you, the book of form and emptiness, call us what we carry, the chosen and the beautiful, chronicles from the land of the happiest people on earth, cloud cuckoo land, the code breaker, the committed, the copenhagen trilogy, covered with night, crying in h mart, dear senthuran, detransition, baby, empire of pain, everyone knows your mother is a witch, the family roe, the final girl support group, finding the mother tree, four thousand weeks, the free world, great circle, harlem shuffle, hell of a book, how the word is passed, invisible child, the kissing bug, klara and the sun, the life of the mind, the lincoln highway, a little devil in america, the loneliest americans, the love songs of w.e.b. du bois, malibu rising, the man who lived underground, mike nichols: a life, milk blood heat, my darling from the lions, my monticello, my year abroad, no one is talking about this, oh william, on juneteenth, one friday in april, one last stop, orwell's roses, the other black girl, our country friends, a passage north, pilgrim bell, poet warrior, the promise, the prophets, razorblade tears, real estate, the removed, remote control, the rib king, second place, seeing ghosts, somebody's daughter, something new under the sun, the sum of us, the sunflower cast a spell to save us from the void, the sweetness of water, a swim in a pond in the rain, tastes like war, there’s no such thing as an easy job, under a white sky, until proven safe, while we were dating, white magic, who is maud dixon, who they was, who will pay reparations on my soul, you got anything stronger, you're history, by ai weiwei, by megan nolan, by anthony veasna so, by nadia owusu, by tiya miles, by rebecca donner, by elizabeth hinton, by sally rooney, by ruth ozeki, by amanda gorman, by sunjeev sahota, by wole soyinka, by anthony doerr, by walter isaacson, by viet thanh nguyen, by tove ditlevsen, by nicole eustace, by jonathan franzen, by michelle zauner, by akwaeke emezi, by torrey peters, by patrick radden keefe, by rivka galchen, by joshua prager, by grady hendrix, by suzanne simard, by oliver burkeman, by louis menand, by melissa febos, by maggie shipstead, by colson whitehead, by mieko kawakami, by jason mott, by clint smith, by katie kitamura, by andrea elliott, by daisy hernández, by kazuo ishiguro, by kaitlyn greenidge, by christine smallwood, by amor towles, by hanif abdurraqib, by jay caspian kang, by honorée fanonne jeffers, by taylor jenkins reid, by richard wright, by lauren groff, by mark harris, by dantiel w. moniz, by melissa broder.

by Rachel Long

By jocelyn nicole johnson, by chang-rae lee, by patricia lockwood, by elizabeth strout, by annette gordon-reed, by donald antrim, by casey mcquiston, by caleb azumah nelson, by rebecca solnit, by zakiya dalila harris, by gary shteyngart, by anuk arudpragasam, by kaveh akbar, by joy harjo, by larissa pham, by damon galgut, by robert jones, jr., by s.a. cosby, by deborah levy, by brandon hobson, by nnedi okorafor, by ladee hubbard, by chibundu onuzo, by rachel cusk, by kat chow, by kristen radtke, by john le carré, by sarah ruhl, by ashley c. ford, by alexandra kleeman, by rivers solomon, by heather mcghee, by jackie wang, by nathan harris, by george saunders, by grace m. cho, by percival everett, by kikuko tsumura, by tarana burke, by elizabeth kolbert, by geoff manaugh and nicola twilley, by jasmine guillory, by elissa washuta, by alexandra andrews, by gabriel krauze, by jesse mccarthy, by gabrielle union, by lesley chow.

This project is led by Lucy Feldman and Annabel Gutterman, with writing, reporting and additional editing by Eliza Berman, Kelly Conniff, Mariah Espada, Lori Fradkin, Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath, Cady Lang, Nik Popli, Arianna Rebolini, Lucas Wittmann and Julia Zorthian; art and photography editing by Whitney Matewe and Jennifer Prandato; and production by Paulina Cachero and Nadia Suleman.

25 Novels Based on True Stories

Did you know that Emma Donoghue’s Room was based on a real case?

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While fictionalizing real world events can attract debate (as with the controversy surrounding Viola Davis’s star turn as the leader of a real, all-female warrior tribe in the 2022 film The Woman King ), the real danger is in telling one story and expecting that to suffice. We need more stories, more perspectives, and more art examining real events through different vantage points and lenses. Fiction has the power to humanize the past, bringing to life stories of those whom historical archives may have misrepresented, or ignored entirely. In honor of this power (and in celebration of the 2023 National Book Awards finalists), we're gathering some of our favorite novels from the past few years that take true stories to imaginative new heights.

The Acrobat , by Edward J. Delaney

If Hollywood ever had royalty, Cary Grant was it. With good looks, charisma, talent, and sophistication in unparalleled combination, the actor, who began his career as a circus performer, remains one of the United States’ most indelible screen idols. And yet that gilded persona masked a myriad of contradictions. Even after he became a great actor, the working-class Englishman born Archibald Alexander Leach experienced a tremendous darkness he long struggled to conquer. This fictionalized and sympathetic biographical novel focuses on a turbulent period when Grant turned to experimental LSD therapies to address his troubles by journeying inward.

The Christie Affair , by Nina de Gramont

Like many of the characters she invented, Dame Agatha Christie was once the center of her own unhappy domestic intrigue. Just hours following her husband’s announcement that he was leaving her and marrying his mistress, developments to which she strenuously objected, Christie left her dog and her daughter at home and disappeared without explanation. That evening, her car was found abandoned in a ditch. Soon the whole nation was captivated and her errant husband under suspicion. Though she was found safe in a hotel after being missing for 11 days, little is known of what happened to Christie in the interim. It’s the one mystery she refused to solve to public satisfaction. De Gramont imagines what might have transpired, filling in the gaps of the scandal and adding a murder mystery enriched by psychological suspense.

Sister Mother Warrior , by Vanessa Riley

On the surface, a historical novel depicting the role of women in the Haitian revolution would seem to have little in common with Viola Davis’s blockbuster The Woman King. But these works share a common DNA. Both are fictionalizations of the lives of female legends of the Kingdom of Dahomey. While the movie is a larger-than-life heroic depiction of women warriors who fought against French colonizers in the country now known as Benin, the novel is a meticulously researched and more intimate portrait of a pivotal time in history when a Dahomey soldier became one of two key female figures in the Haitian fight for freedom.

Winter Work , by Dan Fesperman

This masterful novel blends espionage, domestic drama, and murder. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the final coda to the Cold War and ushered in massive geopolitical and social change. But those events also impacted the lives of millions of people in more intimate ways. In addition to shifting the borders of nations, it dismantled the state spy apparatus known as the Stasi, putting a treasure trove of sensitive secrets up for grabs, and precipitating a mad scramble by potential state buyers including the USA and the Soviet Union. This multilayered murder mystery captures what happened in the region formerly known as East Germany both on a political level—including how the cache of secrets ultimately found its way to the CIA—and a personal one, showing how these world events affected individuals, from the perspective of an unusual protagonist, a sympathetic East German spy with a complicated and messy home life.

Lady Joker, Volume 1 , by Kaoru Takamura

Obliterating the line between literary and crime fiction, a Japanese legend makes a riveting English language debut. This epic novel sold more than a million copies and garnered overwhelming critical praise in its initial release. With its panoramic yet incisive view into Japanese society, it’s a perfect example of how the best of crime fiction provides insight into why crime happens. In this mainstay of Japanese literature, the question is not just who dunnit but why.

Anon Pls. , by Deuxmoi with Jessica Goodman

In this juicy and propulsive debut novel, turning her personal account into a gossip blog turns an influencer’s life topsy-turvy. Based on the popular and infamous Instagram influencer known as Deuxmoi, this carnival ride of a novel explores the world of celebrity culture and social media from a refreshingly critical and informed view.

The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Belle da Costa Greene, born Belle Greener, lived much of her remarkable life on the shadowy margins of America's highest echelons, so it’s fitting that her remembrance is also extraordinary. Though she languished in obscurity for decades, there are now two books— Belle Greene , by Alexandra Lapierre, and The Personal Librarian, published just one year apart—devoted to memorializing her legacy. Both are explorations of two of America’s favorite obsessions: race and reinvention. Though Greene attempted to erase herself from the narrative by burning her personal papers, these two extraordinary novels are dedicated to telling her story. Both books tell the real-life story of “passing” that I’ve thought about for a long time after reading. I wonder whether the authors truly captured the essence of person they based the story on, but there’s no doubt they created a compelling narrative that stands on its own. From biographical sources and related histories, this story seems more pristine and reverential, less reckless, less restive, and slightly less compelling in her humanity than the person they set out to study.

Take My Hand , by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Some of America’s ugliest and most contested episodes involve the intersection of healthcare and the legal system. When sex and race are intertwined, the conflict grows all the more heated. Perkins-Valdez based her novel on a true case of involuntary sterilization that revives issues that still swirl around the idea of reproductive freedom today. New birth control methods have brought greater freedom, but they’ve also made marginalized women, many of whom are Black or brown, vulnerable to targeting by people who want to change America’s racial makeup: “When birth control was becoming more widely available to women, it was sort of a double-edged sword…on the one hand, it promised reproductive control and freedom, but on the other hand, it was possibly going to be used as a form of repression and eugenics.”

Code Name Hélène , by Ariel Lawhon

Nancy Wake was a glittering socialite with a glamorous career as a writer for Hearst. She was also a spy who killed a man with her bare hands and one of the most decorated women of World War II.

Hélène was just one of her aliases. Lucienne Carlier was another, the name Nancy used to smuggle people and documents across the French border. Singled out for distinction by both Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly, this thriller tells the exciting and moving story of the reporter and Australian expat turned spy.

By Her Own Design , by Piper Huguley

This is an all-American story in the best sense of the term. When Jacqueline Bouvier married John F. Kennedy, it was the society event of the season. Even the highly scrutinized and celebrated dress secured a place in history. The talented woman who designed the piece of fashion history was Ann Lowe, a Black woman raised in Jim Crow Alabama, who learned to sew from her own mother and her formerly enslaved grandmother, both legendary seamstresses in their own right. Now this fascinating artist is enjoying renewed and long overdue attention, thanks to this moving novel by Huguley, a storyteller and chronicler of African American history.

The Perfect Nanny , by Leila Slimani

Slimani was so enthralled with the true tale of Yoselyn Ortega, the New York City nanny who murdered two children under her care in 2012, that she turned it into this award-winning bestseller. The French Moroccan author moved the story to her own home of Paris and focused her lens on the relationship between the grieving mother and the "perfect nanny" she regrettably trusted with her young son and daughter.

Never Anyone But You , by Rupert Thomson

Lucie and Suzanne are step-sisters in love, a complicated and uncouth scenario in the early-to-mid 1900s. The pair move to progressive Paris to reinvent themselves, where they become surrealist artists and change their names. Now going by Claude Cahun, Lucie is recognized for her gender-bending photography and Suzanne's alter-ego Marcel Moore narrates their life spent cohabitating and collaborating. This fictionalized retelling of the real couple's relationship is populated with other famous figures of the lost generation and plays out their resistance against antisemitism, as well as their eventual imprisonment by the Nazis.

Red Joan , by Jennie Rooney

For most of her life, Melita Norwood got away with treason. The British civil servant provided Russian intelligence with private information before retiring and going into hiding. But in 1999, at age 87, Norwood (alias: Red Joan) was found. In her fictionalized novel, author Rooney begins with Red Joan's late-in-life questioning by the MI5 and flashes back to when she made the life-defining decision to work with the Russians. A 2019 film adaptation based on the novel has Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson playing the titular Red Joan through different eras of her life.

Women Talking , by Miriam Toews

That Toews's Women Talking, now an award-winning film by the same name, is based in truth makes it that much more difficult to read—but if you’re able to stomach the multiple abuses a group of Mennonite girls and women are forced to endure in the mid-2000s, you'll agree she was preordained to tell this story. The author, who left the church at 18, said she felt compelled to write the novel after hearing about those in a Manitoba Colony of Bolivia who had been repeatedly anesthetized and sexually assaulted, only to be told by the perpetrators they were hysterical. The women seek retribution in the novel like they did in real life, but the reckoning that occurs has them questioning their previously unshakable faith.

Beautiful Exiles , by Meg Waite Clayton

War correspondent Martha Gellhorn met Ernest Hemingway in 1936, and, despite Hemingway's marriage to journalist Pauline Pfeiffer, their flirtatious friendship quickly became romantic. Their own eventual marriage was tumultuous, which, of course, makes for a great read—especially with Clayton's talent for taking years of research and spinning it into something sexy. Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen starred in a 2012 take on their relationship, Hemingway & Gellhorn , but Beautiful Exiles further explores who Gellhorn was in her own right.

White Houses , Amy Bloom

When Lorena "Hick" Hickok was sent to the White House to report on First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, she wasn't expecting to fall in love. The secret relationship took place for years, with details only having emerged in posthumously published love letters between the two women. Bloom's novel fictionalizes their lengthy romance from Hick's point of view, sharing juicy details about the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, including his own extramarital affairs.

The Flight Portfolio , by Julie Orringer

American journalist Varian Fry was so incensed by the Holocaust that he left the States and helped to found the Emergency Rescue Committee, a volunteer-run network that helped persecuted artists, writers, and thinkers out of Nazi-occupied France. In The Flight Portfolio , Orringer imagines Fry's experiences convincing the likes of Hannah Arendt, Max Ernst, and Marcel Duchamp that relocating to the States was the only option, while simultaneously struggling with the return of a (fictional) old flame. Fry is conflicted when this past love reemerges.

See What I Have Done , by Sarah Schmidt

Lizzie Borden's life story is based on lore as much as it is documented history, and has been told several different ways both on the page and screen. Schmidt's take is from four individual vantage points, one of which is Borden herself. The writing is gorgeously grotesque in its description of a claustrophobic household that leads a stifled young woman to murder her father and his wife.

Salvage the Bones , by Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward, author of Oprah's 103rd Book Club Pick, Let Us Descend, based her second novel on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, something she, unfortunately, experienced firsthand. The rich detail Ward provides in this 2011 National Book Awards–winning story is largely due to these devastating circumstances, but gives the story an authenticity to accompany its candor. Narrator Esch is 15 and pregnant, living with her brothers and father in a fictional dilapidated part of Mississippi called Bois Sauvage. As Katrina descends, the family barricades themselves inside, and while they're dealing with more than just the impending storm, the stakes are much higher because of it.

The Girls , by Emma Cline

Cline's debut novel has a lot in common with the story of Charles Manson and the young women who quickly became his devotees. Set in the summer of the late '60s, not long before the violent killing of actress Sharon Tate, the fictional Evie becomes enchanted with Suzanne, an enigmatic personality she discovers in a Los Angeles park. Evie's infatuation soon has her following Suzanne into a cult led by the Manson-esque Russell, who has his members doing his murderous bidding. It's up to Evie if she'll be able to go through with all that is asked of her, and readers will be ravenous in finding out for themselves.

Carole V Bell is a Jamaican-born writer, culture critic and communication researcher focusing on media, politics, and identity. You can find her on Twitter @BellCV. 

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Books based on true stories are ideal for when facts leave off and a little imagination (and outright speculation) is needed to fill the gaps in a story or a reading list.

From the teenage concubine who ruled China for 47 years and the gorilla who lived most of his life in a shopping mall to the Borden axe murders, here are 21 of the best books based on true stories.

1. The Good People  by Hannah Kent

True story: In mid–19th century Ireland a woman called Anne Roche was tried for the murder of Michael Leahy, a young boy. Roche claimed that Leahy was a changeling and was eventually acquitted.

2. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

True story: Empress Dowager Cixi was a concubine who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and ruled China for 47 years. This is a fictional account of how she managed it.

3. Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart

True story: Constance Kopp was one of the first women to become a deputy sheriff in the USA. After becoming the victim to a crime herself (nothing grim, I promise) Constance joined forces with her sisters to bring the perpetrator to justice, and ended up with a job on the New Jersey police force.

4. Beautiful Exiles by Meg Waite Clayton

True story: Legendary war reporter Martha Gellhorn fell in love with Ernest Hemingway while she was covering the Spanish Civil War in Madrid. The two of them toured the world and inspired Clayton to write this fictionalized account of their relationship.

5. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

True story: In late August, 2005, Ward decided to visit her family in small town Mississippi, prior to starting teaching at the University of Michigan. That decision placed her right at the heart of Hurricane Katrina.

6. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

True story: 1903 was the year of the ‘Great Wyrley Outrages’, when a number of cows, horses and sheep were “slashed”. Suspicion feel on George Edalji, a local man of Parsi-heritage who did three years hard labour for the crime before he was proved innocent by Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, the Sherlock Holmes guy.

7. See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

True story: In 1892 the infamous Borden axe murders rocked the U.S. and the one of the daughters of the house (Lizzie Borden) was the prime suspect. This novel was longlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

8. The Man Who Walked Away by Maud Casey

True story: Albert Dadas had the misfortune to be a psychiatric patient in the 19th century. Unable to find a diagnosis for his compulsion to wander (often ending up in a new country with no memory of getting there), Dadas spent decades searching for a cure.

9. Murder on the Orient Express   by Agatha Christie

True story: The kidnapping and murder of the 20-month-old Charles Lindburgh heir made international headlines, and the case was still hotly debate two years later when Christie used it as inspiration for  Murder on the Orient Express .

10. Without a Country by Ayşe Kulin

True story: During World War II the Turkish government offered asylum to a number of Jewish academics, including Hungarian Professor Philipp Schwartz. In Without A Country, author Kulin explores how Schwartz and his family escaped the Nazis and made a home for themselves in Turkey.

11. The Revenant by Michael Punke

True story: In 1823 fur trapper Hugh Glass was (some might say justly) mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by his companions. Despite not having any supplies, Glass survived and tracked down the men who had abandoned him.

12. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

True story: During the Second Sudanese Civil War (1987–2005) over 40,000 boys were displaced by the fighting and left to roam the country in search of shelter. In this YA novel, Park weaves one of the boys stories with that of a contemporary Sudanese girl.

13. Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig

True story: Craig’s mother was crowned Burma’s first beauty queen, shortly before the country became a dictatorship. This is the story of how generations of Craig’s familiar navigated this tumultuous time in Burma’s history.

14. Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

True story: During the Holocaust Krakow business man Oskar Schindler saved the lives of over 1,200 Jewish Poles by employing them in his munitions factory. Keneally won the International Booker Prize for his fictional retelling of Schindler’s war years.

15. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

True story: An attempted assassination attempt on reggae legend Bob Marley inspired this Booker prize–winning novel from James.  A Brief History of Seven Killings spans decades and continents, tracking the repercussions of the botched murder.

16. The Girls by Emma Cline

True story: In 1968 the Manson Family murdered five people at the behest of their charismatic leader; Charles Manson. The fact that three of the Family were young girls attracted a lot of media attention and in  The Girls Cline has imagined the story from their POV, although she denies that it is a direct retelling.

17. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

True story: Ivan was a Congolese gorilla who was captured as a baby and spent 27 years on exhibition at a mall in Washington. This fictional story, told from Ivan’s point of view, covers those years and his eventual escape.

18. Orphan Number Eight by Kim van Alkemade

True story: Dr. Alfred F. Hess was a doctor at the New York Hebrew Infant Asylum in the early 20th century. Hess conducted medical experiments on the orphans in his care and in Orphan Number Eight he is given a fictional counterpart: Dr. Mildred Solomon.

19. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

True story: Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Dedé Mirabal were four sisters who bravely opposed Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo (El Jefe) in the late 1950s. Three of the sisters were assassinated and became important feminist symbols for Dominicans like Julia Alvarez.

20. Every Man for Himself by Beyrl Bainbridge

True story:  Every Man for Himself is composed of four parts, one for each day of HMS Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage. The fictional narrator meets many of the prominent real life passengers on the Titanic and watches as they struggle to cope with the maritime disaster.

21. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

True story: In 1666 the English village of Eyam responded to the plague ravaging Europe by shutting itself away from the rest of the world. Brooks writes from the point of view of Anna, a maid living in the village during the quarantine.

Want even more books based on true stories? Check out our list of the best true crime books here .  

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Book Reviews

A 19th-century bookbinder struggles with race and identity in 'the library thief'.

Keishel Williams

The examination of race and identity can be seen throughout literature, and increasingly today.

In her debut novel, The Library Thief , Kuchenga Shenjé explores these concepts — and the associated expectations that arise when society demands that every group be neatly categorized. Shenjé delves into the past in this work of historical fiction, posing inquiries about Black people's lives in the Victorian era.

In this 19th-century English story, Florence, an ambitious bookbinder, is expelled from her family home by her harsh and unforgiving father for being with a young man. Florence, a clever and savvy woman, persuades Lord Francis Belfield to let her stay at Rose Hall manor by promising to restore the priceless books in his library in time for an impending sale, assuring him that she is just as skilled as her father. Among Lord Belfield's minimal staff, Florence stands out as an educated, liberal woman.

But Florence is not as polished as she wants her new acquaintances to believe. Being raised by a single father and not knowing her mother, whom she was told is dead, has fostered an emptiness in Florence she thought she could fill with books. She's adrift and feels unloved. This fragile foundation is fertile ground for the harrowing experiences Florence faces during her stay at the manor.

Florence arrives at Rose Hall to find that Lord Banfeild's wife has died, and the new widower is beside himself with grief. Immediately, Florence finds herself in the middle of a tightly woven plot of family secrets and lies that conveniently shroud the lives of the upper class. She becomes fixated on Lady Persephone's death and starts investigating suspicious activities around it. During her investigation, she uncovers some dark Banfield family secrets, which include violence, abuse, and "passing" family members. This journey of discovery forces Florence to confront her own identity and the mysteries surrounding her life.

Some characters in this novel intentionally or unintentionally pass as white because they find it easier than living as a Black person in Victorian England. While the topic of "passing" is frequently explored in literature set in the 1920s and 30s, Shenjé delves into what it means to be a Black person passing in the 19th century. She explores this theme in multiple ways: One character completely abandons their family to live as a white man, another maintains contact with her family but uses her husband's wealth and influence to hide in plain sight, and the third, and perhaps most intriguing, character lives as a white person without knowing they were actually Black.

Florence is uncertain about her own race, and she passionately advocates for the rights of Black people. She often becomes offended by the viewpoints of her friends, neighbors, and even their pastor towards Black people. Florence grew up in a white community and had limited interactions with Black people, other than through books until she met Lady Persephone's lady's maid — a beautiful, charming, and highly educated Black woman. "How could a whole sector of humanity once viewed as animals now be writing books and teaching universities and the like? We had been lied to," she says after a particularly awful sermon propagating the inferiority of African people.

At times, Shenjé's use of language attempting at inclusivity fails to achieve what appears to be the intended effect. The discussion of gender roles in a highly complex way seems forced and unrealistic. This is especially so when such language and philosophizing are attributed to certain characters in particular.

While The Library Thief doesn't exactly break new ground when it comes to exploring issues of race and identity, it does have some entertaining elements. Wesley is a standout character who should have received more attention. If a movie adaptation of the character were ever to happen, Patrick Walshe McBride would be an excellent choice to play the part. Shenjé also did an fantastic job planting hints throughout the story that lead to the main character's true identity. The best part of the book is the unexpected twist at the end that ties up the murder mystery. Kudos to Shenjé for that surprise ending.

Keishel Williams is a Trinidadian American book reviewer, arts & culture writer, and editor.

She was looking for a retirement project. She found ‘lesbian paradise.’

In “The Pagoda,” Rose Norman details a lesbian-feminist community that thrived in Florida for over 20 years.

In 2010, Rose Norman found herself staring down a whiteboard with six potential writing projects. She’d recently retired from 27 years of teaching college English, but that didn’t mean the Alabama native was going to stop working.

One of those projects, an effort to preserve the accomplishments of Southern lesbian feminists , would come to define the next chapter of her life. In 2012, Norman co-founded the Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project . She has since conducted more than 100 interviews, guest-edited six issues of the lesbian quarterly Sinister Wisdom and written an almost-400-page book.

That book is “ The Pagoda : A Lesbian Community by the Sea,” in which Norman, now 74, tells the story of a nexus of lesbian-feminist spirituality and culture in St. Augustine, Fla. She relies on 58 interviews and several decades’ worth of archival material — among them, newsletters, guestbooks and VHS tapes — to give readers a glimpse of, as guests called it, “lesbian paradise.”

Norman got her first peek at Pagoda history in April 2013, when she interviewed six former residents who went on to form another community called Alapine . She immediately knew there was enough material about the Pagoda for a book. The project “took off like a wave,” she recalled. “Like you’re almost caught in a riptide. It just kept getting bigger and bigger.”

The Pagoda was founded by two lesbian couples in 1977 and remained a lesbian community until 2000. At its largest, it consisted of 12 cottages, a duplex, a two-story house and a swimming pool. The big house, dubbed the Center, hosted concerts, plays, art shows, religious rituals and guests from all over the country, including cultural giants like the poet Adrienne Rich and the filmmaker Barbara Hammer.

The community had an auspicious beginning. Morgana MacVicar, Suzanne Chance, Rena Carney and Kathleen Clementson were looking for theater space when Chance spotted the newspaper ad that would change lesbian history: “seaside cottages for sale, $6000.”

“It seemed to almost happen to us — a gift from the Goddess,” MacVicar wrote in 1978. In fact, an entire religion fell right into their laps. When the women were looking for a way to legally solidify their women-only status and achieve tax exemption, Toni Head, the founder of the Mother Church, was searching for someone to take over operations. Pagoda residents jumped at the chance, renaming the Mother Church to the Pagoda-temple of Love.

“There was no place, really, at that time, that had a community like ours,” MacVicar said in a phone interview. “Where lesbians could have the safety of being in women-only space, and cultural and spiritual stimulation.”

Norman’s “The Pagoda” captures the ideals and challenges that defined the community. Some of the Pagoda’s polarizing stances on female separatism, bisexuality and BDSM were hotly debated in similar spaces throughout the country. But the Pagoda’s unique status as a lesbian resort, cultural center and church led to even more granular disputes. Vacationers and residents approached the space with different attitudes, leading to occasional friction. (On one occasion, a fight about sexual ethics broke out after one visitor left a bloody handprint, outlined by erotic writing, in the guest book.) Some residents took issue with the community’s dedication to spirituality and activism. The Pagoda’s commitment to women-only affordable housing put it consistently in the red.

One might be tempted to downplay these struggles in 2024, when there have been many advances in rights for women and queer people. But these women were essentially pilot-testing a new era of female existence.

“I’m not old enough to remember when we didn’t have the vote, but I am old enough to remember when I couldn’t get a credit card without a husband’s signature,” said Barbara Lieu, who arrived at the Pagoda in 1978. “When you couldn’t get a mortgage, no matter how good a job you had.”

Residents never advertised for the Pagoda outside of lesbian-specific networks and newsletters, but their dedication to maintaining the community space was as bold as it was invaluable. The Pagoda’s grand opening took place on Nov. 19, 1977, mere months after Anita Bryant, the anti-gay activist and orange juice spokeswoman, successfully campaigned to repeal an ordinance against anti-gay discrimination in Dade County, Fla. Carney performed a mocking monologue as Bryant, which started with her singing and throwing oranges into the audience.

Even as they were seeking new ways of living on their own terms, lesbian feminists fueled social and legal progress for other marginalized people — including in the South. But the Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project, which paved the way for Norman to write “The Pagoda,” began when one of Norman’s friends, a writer known as Merril Mushroom, observed that these efforts have largely gone unrecognized.

“I do think it’s important that women’s stories not be lost,” Norman said, “especially when their stories are so interesting.”

Though she didn’t visit the Pagoda until after its heyday, Norman was sensitive to the fact that she was writing about her own peers. At times she worked on the book from Carney’s Pagoda cottage, which Carney still owns to this day.

“I keep thinking that someone should write the novel version,” Norman said. “I had to leave out a lot that maybe was too personal to include.”

Lena Wilson is a writer based in Brooklyn, where she lives with her girlfriend and two senior dogs.

More from Book World

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