Books like Alive!

Alive! by Piers Paul Read reads as harrowing, stark. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.

In the land of white death

Valerian Ivanovich Alʹbanov · 2000

Both explore survival & human endurance

79% genome match

The indifferent stars above

Daniel James Brown · 2009

Both explore survival & human endurance

73% genome match

Endurance

Alfred Lansing · 1959

Both explore survival

55% genome match

Missoula

Jon Krakauer · 2015

Same nonfiction feel

56% genome match

Above the clouds

Anatoli Boukreev · 2001

Both explore survival & human endurance

70% genome match

The Worst Journey in the World

Apsley Cherry-Garrard · 1922

Both explore survival

67% genome match

Touching the void

Joe Simpson · 1988

Both explore survival & human endurance

66% genome match

Island of the Lost

Joan Druett · 2007

Both explore survival & cannibalism

67% genome match

The Endurance

Caroline Alexander · 1998

Both explore survival & human endurance

67% genome match

South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 expedition

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton · 1919

Both explore survival

65% genome match

Weisse Spinne

Heinrich Harrer · 1959

Both explore survival & human endurance

64% genome match

Annapurna-conquest of the first 8000 metre peak

Maurice Herzog · 1951

Both explore survival & human endurance

67% genome match