Books like The white earth by Andrew McGahan

Charles Dickens’ classic bildungsroman follows an orphan named Pip as he grows from humble beginnings in Kent to London society, encountering wealth, poverty, love, and moral triumph.

During World War II, a foster girl in Nazi Germany steals books to share with neighbors and a hidden Jewish man, proving literature’s power to nourish the soul amid darkness.

In Dickens’s sweeping novel, the protracted Jarndyce and Jarndyce case in the Court of Chancery pulls together a disparate cast— from heirs torn by legal costs to a mysterious ward, a cunning lawyer, and a destitute street sweeper— exposing London’s social decay.

Thomas Hardy’s bleak final novel follows Jude Fawley, a stonemason from rural Wessex, whose search for faith, love and independence collides with society’s harsh conventions and leads to tragedy.

A Booker Prize-winning novel that weaves mystery, romance, and the complex encounter between Maori and European cultures in New Zealand, exploring family dynamics, violence, and spirituality through the lives of a widower, his mute wife, and a young boy.

In Tim Winton’s sweeping Australian novel, the Lamb and Pickle families, both scarred by tragedy, become intertwined in a sprawling house that serves as a microcosm of working‑class life.

"A woman and her young son are traveling together by car through the southern and mid-western United States in the mid-to-late 1950s. As the mother drives, she and the boy, Roy, talk about their lives, their disappointments, and their dreams. "Wyoming" exists as a state of mind rather than an actual place, a place neither the boy nor his mother have ever been, an idyll where the two of them can live an untroubled life. Told entirely in dialogue, the story of Roy and his mother traverses both real and imaginary states of being, on a tour through an uncertain but hopeful landscape of longing and myth. As Roy's mother tells him, "Everybody needs Wyoming.""--BOOK JACKET.

*"Although this is Australian author Tsiolkas’ fourth novel, it is the first to be published in the U.S. With its raw style, liberal use of profanity and racial epithets, and laserlike focus on the travails of suburban life, it is a down-and-dirty version of Tom Perrotta’s best-selling Little Children (2004). At a barbecue in a Melbourne suburb, a man loses his temper and slaps the child of the host’s friends. This incident unleashes a slew of divisive opinions, pitting friends and families against each other as the child’s parents take the man to court. Told from eight different viewpoints, the novel also deftly fills in disparate backstories encompassing young and old, single and married, gay and straight, as well as depicting how multiculturalism is increasingly impacting the traditional Aussie ethos. For good measure, the author also throws in male vanity, infidelity, and homophobia. Tsiolkas’ in-your-face style is sure to alienate some readers—the child’s parents, for example, are among the book’s most unlikable characters—but his novel, which won the 2009 Commonwealth Prize, fairly radiates with vitality as it depicts the messy complications of family life."* -- Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist

A 12‑year‑old boy named Benjamin Moorhouse is locked in a rituals‑driven life centered around his stuffed letter ‘H’, named Elliot. "H" chronicles his condition as seen by his mother, psychiatrist, and camp counselors, who miss the fragile genius hidden beneath his compulsions.

A London waterman sentenced to New South Wales faces the ultimate decision when he is transported as a convict, forcing him to confront themes of love, identity and belonging in the harsh early colonial landscape.

In a tight‑knit Southern Australian town, teen friends Jasper and Charlie team up to conceal a murder and then investigate the true killer, navigating family secrets and hidden truths.

John Egan claims to spot lies instantly, hoping fame will follow—yet his quest for truth endangers the fragile life of his poor Irish family.

The Wish Maker follows fatherless boy Zaki Shirazi and his cousin Samar Api as they grow up in a politically active Pakistani household, exploring friendship, family, and the challenges of a changing society.

A curated collection of beloved young‑reader classics, from Brontë’s *Wuthering Heights* to Conrad’s *Typhoon*, *The Last of the Mohicans* and Rawlings’s *The Yearling*, spanning themes of love, family, and adventure.

When a church catches fire, seventeen‑year‑old Andy Lockwood rescues children and survives, but the blaze raises doubts about the kind of hero his overprotective mother, Laurel, fears she might have missed.

An omnibus collection of Charles Dickens’ most famous novels—Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Tale of Two Cities—offering a broad look at 19th‑century English society, poverty, orphanhood, and the French Revolution.

Shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize.