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Books like The invention of wings
24 connected reads, with a reason for every recommendation.
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8 reading possibilities- 01
Like Kidd’s novel, this story follows women whose lives are shaped by slavery and unequal power on a Southern plantation.
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Its interwoven stories connect an enslaved woman’s experience with a modern lawyer’s search for justice and historical truth.
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This novel portrays a young woman asserting authority in colonial South Carolina, with slavery and plantation life central to its setting.
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An unexpected connectionThis biography of Alexander von Humboldt offers a fresh bridge through its vivid historical portrait and attention to the natural world.
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A Quaker immigrant becomes involved in the Underground Railroad, linking women’s independence with the antislavery struggle.
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A woman’s first-person account traces enslavement, escape, and survival across the Atlantic world.
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Morrison’s spare, layered novel examines the bonds and vulnerabilities of women in an early American world shaped by slavery.
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An unexpected connectionA scientifically curious woman pursues knowledge and independence across a sweeping historical landscape.
Explore 16 more recommendations
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This landmark novel gives powerful, intimate form to the lasting trauma of slavery and a mother’s fierce struggle for her family.
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Through a young enslaved woman’s flight, Whitehead combines historical brutality with an imaginative reworking of the Underground Railroad.
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This lyrical story blends the realities of enslavement and escape with speculative elements and the work of abolitionists.
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An unexpected connectionIts two sisters face sharply different choices under occupation, making female agency and family bonds the bridge to Kidd’s novel.
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A young person caught up in John Brown’s abolitionist campaign offers a lively, unconventional view of the struggle against slavery.
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Like Kidd’s novel, Walker’s story centers women’s relationships, self-determination, and the endurance of oppression in the American South.
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This intricate novel examines the moral and social reach of slavery through a Virginia community and its many intertwined lives.
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An unexpected connectionA young woman enters a tightly controlled household and begins to uncover the power structures governing its inhabitants.
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Doctorow’s Civil War novel follows an ensemble of characters, including women and formerly enslaved people, through a society in upheaval.
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A grieving Southern woman’s changing convictions bring questions of loyalty, war, and human dignity into focus.
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Set in 1960s Mississippi, it shares Kidd’s interest in women’s voices and the cost of challenging entrenched racial injustice.
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An unexpected connectionIts independent-minded heroine pursues scientific ideas and personal freedom amid Victorian social expectations.
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This family-centered novel explores the legacies of hardship and the bonds among women across generations.
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A journey with a young dancer prompts a married woman to reconsider the limits placed on her own life.
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Women form an unconventional library service in Depression-era Kentucky, finding purpose and solidarity against social constraints.
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An unexpected connectionA pair of sisters’ diverging lives connect through questions of identity, kinship, and the long effects of racial injustice.
About the book
A 2014 historical novel by Sue Monk Kidd, The Invention of Wings explores women’s lives, slavery, and the struggle for equality in the American South.
About the author
Sue Monk Kidd is an American novelist whose work often explores spirituality, women’s lives, and personal transformation.