Books like A Journey to the Rivers by Peter Handke

A Peace Corps teacher chronicles life in the remote Sichuan town of Fuling, weaving firsthand observations of Chinese countryside, historical moments, and the looming Three Gorges Dam into vivid travel prose.

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.

Some secrets don’t stay buried. They flow. They wait. And then they rise. Fifteen-year-old River stands in the cold waters of the Thames, talking to crabs, birds, and the ghosts of the friends he lost. Eleven days ago, five teenagers went out together. Only four came back. One is dead. One is missing. One lies in intensive care. One hasn’t spoken since. And River is the only one who remembers what happened that night — or thinks he does. When investigative journalist April arrives in the quiet, picturesque town, she expects a story. What she finds is a community wrapped in silence, a family shattered by fear, and a truth that no one wants to name. Every question she asks pulls another thread loose. Every answer leads her closer to something darker than she imagined. As a detective races against time, a father watches his son disappear into silence, and a missing boy fights to survive in the dark, the river keeps flowing — calm, indifferent, and full of secrets. RIVER is a haunting psychological thriller about memory, guilt, and the fragile line between survival and truth. Some stories aren’t meant to be told. This one refuses to stay quiet.

Colonel Samuel Shelby seeks peace with the Osage Indians and his faithless wife, but his mission turns to an iron‑clad love when he meets the headstrong Olivia St. Etienne amid the frontier’s rugged wilderness.

"A young survivor of the Bosnian War returns to his homeland to confront the people who betrayed his family. At age eleven, Kenan Trebincevic was a happy, karate-loving kid living with his family in the quiet Eastern European town of Brcko. Then, in the spring of 1992, war broke out and his friends, neighbors and teammates all turned on him. Pero - Kenan's beloved karate coach - showed up at his door with an AK-47, screaming: "You have one hour to leave or be killed!" Kenan's only crime: he was Muslim. This poignant, searing memoir chronicles Kenan's miraculous escape from the brutal ethnic cleansing campaign that swept the former Yugoslavia. After two decades in the United States, Kenan honors his father's wish to visit their homeland, making a list of what he wants to do there. Kenan decides to confront the former next door neighbor who stole from his mother, see the concentration camp where his Dad and brother were imprisoned and stand on the grave of his first betrayer to make sure he's really dead. Back in the land of his birth, Kenan finds something more powerful-and shocking-than revenge"--