Survival Stories: Fiction

Get lost and found with these novels.

Updated June 4, 2023
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The stranger in the lifeboat : a novel
Albom, Mitch
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller What would happen if we called on God for help and God actually appeared? In Mitch Albom's profound new novel of hope and faith, a group of shipwrecked passengers pull a strange man from the sea. He claims to be "the Lord." And he says he can only save them if...
Don't turn around : a novel
Barry, Jessica (Novelist)
Paper Book
A New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year "Barry's adrenaline-fueled adventure explores the Me Too movement, cancel culture, reproductive rights and white male extremism.  Buckle up for a heart-stopping ride."--People Magazine  The riveting follow up to Jessica Barry's...
Small game : a novel
Braverman, Blair
Paper Book
A gripping debut novel about a survival reality show gone wrong that leaves a group of strangers stranded in the northern wilds  Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday. She was surprised when reality TV producers came...
Devolution : a firsthand account of the Rainier Sasquatch massacre
Brooks, Max.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The #1 New York Times bestselling author of World War Z is back with "the Bigfoot thriller you didn't know you needed in your life, and one of the greatest horror novels I've ever read" (Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter and ...
World War Z : an oral history of the zombie war
Brooks, Max.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies."--Entertainment Weekly   We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by...
A beginning at the end
Chen, Mike
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood Four survivors come together as the country rebuilds in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic. A character-driven postapocalyptic suspense with an intimate, hopeful look at how people can move...
The new wilderness : a novel
Cook, Diane
Paper Book
A Washington Post, NPR, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year * Shortlisted for the Booker Prize "More than timely, the novel feels timeless, solid, like a forgotten classic recently resurfaced -- a brutal, beguiling fairy tale about humanity. But at its core, The New Wilderness is really...
Robinson Crusoe
Defoe, Daniel
Paper Book
Daniel Defoe relates the tale of an English sailor marooned on a desert island for nearly three decades. An ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances, Robinson Crusoe wrestles with fate and the nature of God. This edition features maps.
Manhunt
Felker-Martin, Gretchen
Paper Book
"By far the best book I've read this year." --Roxane Gay #1 Best Book of 2022 (Vulture) * A Best Horror Novel of All Time (Cosmopolitan) * One of the Best Horror Novels of 2022 (Esquire, Library Journal, Paste, and CrimeReads...
Into the jungle
Ferencik, Erica
Paper Book
Featured in the New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Guide * A Crime by the Book "Most Anticipated" Novel * Featured in the New York Post Summer Round Up * Starred Publishers Weekly Review * A Publishers Weekly "Big Summer Books" * A Kirkus Reviews...
Lord of the flies
Golding, William
Paper Book
Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among...
Comfort & joy : a novel
Hannah, Kristin.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Kristin Hannah is beloved by readers around the world for her unique blend of powerful emotion and exquisite storytelling. In Comfort & Joy, she offers a modern-day fairy tale--the story of a woman who gets a miraculous chance at happiness. ...
Composite creatures
Hardaker, Caroline
Paper Book
How close would you hold those you love, when the end comes? In a society where self-preservation is as much an art as a science, Norah and Arthur are learning how to co-exist in their new little world. Though they hardly know each other, everything seems to be going perfectly -...
Uncharted
Hunt, Angela Elwell
Paper Book
"I'm beginning to think the island wants to keep us here." It was supposed to be an adventure. A little time off to honor the memory of a friend and complete a service project in the tropics. Do good deeds while getting a tan. But when a storm rocks their plans, five long-time friends from...
The stand : the complete & uncut edition
King, Stephen
Paper Book
#1 BESTSELLER * NOW A PARAMOUNT+ LIMITED SERIES * Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting--and eerily plausible--as when it was first published. One of The...
One more river to cross
Kirkpatrick, Jane
Paper Book
In 1844, two years before the Donner Party, the Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land and enjoyed a safe journey--until...
The road
McCarthy, Cormac
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive that "only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle)....
Dear Edward : a novel
Napolitano, Ann
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY * "Make sure you have tissues handy when you read [this] sure-footed tearjerker" (NPR) about a young boy who must learn to go on after surviving tragedy, from the author of the Oprah's...
36 streets
Napper, Tim
Paper Book
Altered Carbon and The Wind-Up Girl meet Apocalypse Now in this Ditmar and Aurealis award-winning, fast-paced, intelligent, action-driven cyberpunk, probing questions of memory, identity and the power of narratives. Lin 'The Silent One' Vu is a gangster in Chinese-occupied Hanoi,...
The wind is not a river
Payton, Brian
Paper Book
The Wind Is Not a River is Brian Payton's gripping tale of survival and an epic love story in which a husband and wife--separated by the only battle of World War II to take place on American soil--fight to reunite in Alaska's starkly beautiful Aleutian Islands. Following the...
Fierce Kingdom: A Novel
Phillips, Gin
Paper Book
One of the New York Times Book Review's Best Crime Novels of 2017 "Warning: you'll finish this in one sitting." --TheSkimm   "Expertly made thriller . . . clever and irresistible." --The New York Times An electrifying novel about the primal and...
Year one
Roberts, Nora
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER (December 2017) A stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts--Year One is an epic of hope and horror, chaos and magick, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the...
The lifeboat : a novel
Rogan, Charlotte.
Paper Book
The sinking of an ocean liner leaves a newly married woman battling for survival in this powerful debut novel. Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life. In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and...
On the beach
Shute, Nevil
Paper Book
Following a nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere, the inhabitants of a small Australian community await the inevitable after-effects of the bombs to reach them.
The terror : a novel
Simmons, Dan.
Paper Book
The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in...
Sorrowland
Solomon, Rivers
Paper Book
A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2021 A New York Times Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2021 The Stonewall Book Award winner of 2022 Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR, The New York Public Library, Publishers Weekly<...
The mysterious island
Verne, Jules
Paper Book
Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile, The Mysterious Island is considered by many to be Jules Verne’s masterpiece. “Wide-eyed mid-nineteenth-century humanistic optimism in a breezy,...
The Martian
Weir, Andy.
Paper Book
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way...
The war of the worlds
Wells, H. G.
Paper Book
The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag - only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders...
The shepherd's hut
Winton, Tim
Paper Book
From Tim Winton, Australia's most decorated and beloved novelist and the author of Cloudstreet, comes The Shepherd's Hut, the story of a young man on a thrilling journey of self-discovery in one of the harshest, near-uninhabitable climates on Earth. Tim Winton is...
The end of October
Wright, Lawrence
Paper Book
"An eerily prescient novel about a devastating virus that begins in Asia before going global . . . A page-turner that has the earmarks of an instant bestseller." --New York Post   "Featuring accounts of past plagues and pandemics, descriptions of pathogens and...

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