Survival Stories: Fiction

Get lost and found with these novels.

Updated June 7, 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...
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
For nearly a century, Scribner has exemplified the very best in publishing by pairing classic texts with the illustrative giants of the time, such as N. C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish. With the same commitment to the high standards established by the series' founders, Atheneum Books for Young Readers...
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...
Lord of the flies : a novel
Golding, William
Paper Book
NOW A NETFLIX SERIES William Golding's profound tale of stranded youth, survival, and the shadowy depths of human nature, with an afterword by Lois Lowry "Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite books. I still read it every couple of years."--Suzanne Collins,...
Comfort & joy
Hannah, Kristin
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author 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. ...
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...
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). One of...
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...
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
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...
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
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A mission to Mars. A freak accident. One man's struggle to survive. From the author of Project Hail Mary comes "a hugely entertaining novel that reads like a rocket ship afire" (Chicago Tribune).<...
The war of the worlds
Wells, H. G.
Paper Book
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own." Thus begins one of the most terrifying and morally prescient science fiction novels ever penned. Beginning...
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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