Read-alikes and related books

Books like Alfred and Emily

If you loved Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing, this shelf of 24 books shares the same pull — rooted in World War I, Literary Figures, 20th Century, and Personal Memoirs.

World War I Literary Figures 20th Century Personal Memoirs Women Historical Biography & Autobiography Fiction

Top related books to Alfred and Emily

Curated picks selected for thematic resonance, narrative overlap, and author diversity.

Vera Brittain and the First World War The Story of Testament of Youth

Mark Bostridge

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • 20th Century

Zorba the Greek

Nikos Kazantzakis

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • 20th Century

The Narnian The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis

Alan Jacobs

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • 20th Century

An Unfinished Love Story A Personal History of the 1960s

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

Mad World Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead

Paula Byrne

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

Tolkien And The Great War The Threshold Of Middle-earth

John Garth

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • Personal Memoirs

Girl Sleuth Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her

Melanie Rehak

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

Rachel Carson Witness for Nature

Linda Lear

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

Assembling My Father A Daughter’s Detective Story

Anna Cypra Oliver

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#10

Good-Bye to All That An Autobiography

Robert Graves

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • Personal Memoirs

#11

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#12

The Land Remembers The Story of a Farm and Its People

Ben Logan

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#13

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918

Joseph Loconte

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • 20th Century

#14

Woman of Rome A Life of Elsa Morante

Lily Tuck

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#15

The Peacemaker Nixon: the Man, President, and My Friend

Ben Stein

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#16

When We Were the Kennedys A Memoir from Mexico, Maine

Monica Wood

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#17

Defying Hitler A Memoir

Sebastian Haffner

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#18

Night

Elie Wiesel

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#19

Chasing History A Kid in the Newsroom

Carl Bernstein

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Personal Memoirs

#20

A Writer’s Diary Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Themes: Literary Figures • Personal Memoirs • Women

#21

Anne Morrow Lindbergh First Lady of the Air

Kathleen C. Winters

Themes: Literary Figures • 20th Century • Women

#22

The Blue Beast Power and Passion in the Great War

Jonathan Walker

Themes: World War I • 20th Century • Women

#23

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Siegfried Sassoon

Themes: World War I • Literary Figures • Historical

#24

A Coastline is an Immeasurable Thing A Memoir Across Three Continents

Mary-Alice Daniel

Themes: Literary Figures • Personal Memoirs • Women

The 24 books on this list are tied together by themes of World War I, Literary Figures, 20th Century — the same threads that run through Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing. Among the authors featured: Mark Bostridge, Nikos Kazantzakis, Alan Jacobs, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and others.