Reading List

Authors Like Nathaniel Philbrick

On 20 November 1820, in the middle of the Pacific, a sperm whale rammed the Nantucket whaleship Essex and sank her. Her twenty crew took to three small boats and sailed for months towards South America; the few survivors were picked up in February 1821. That disaster, which inspired Moby-Dick, became Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Born in Boston in 1956, a former Sunfish North American champion and editor at Sailing World, Philbrick lives on Nantucket and has since written about the Pilgrims, Custer and George Washington. His newest book, The Rush (October 2026), follows the California gold rush towards the Civil War. The ten writers below share his method: one voyage, battle or decision, rebuilt from the sources and told through the people inside it.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Narrative history · The sea and early America · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Nathaniel Philbrick, start with David Grann, whose The Wager (2023) tells an eighteenth-century shipwreck and mutiny through the survivors’ rival accounts. For the Arctic, read Hampton Sides’s In the Kingdom of Ice; for the American Revolution, David McCullough’s 1776. Below are seven more, from Moby-Dick itself to an Ojibwe history that answers the frontier story.

10 authors like Nathaniel Philbrick

01
The novel the Essex inspired

Herman Melville

American · Typee (1846), Moby-Dick (1851), Billy Budd (1924)

Melville (1819–1891) sailed on the whaler Acushnet in 1841 and deserted in the Marquesas Islands, the basis of his first book, Typee. He read the first mate Owen Chase’s account of the Essex and drew on the sinking for the climax of Moby-Dick, which sold poorly in his lifetime. Billy Budd, the story of a sailor hanged at sea, was published more than thirty years after his death.

The book behind In the Heart of the Sea, and the subject of Philbrick’s own short book Why Read Moby-Dick?. Read it after the Essex story to see the same whale turned into myth: the whaling detail is exact, and the obsession belongs to Ahab rather than the sea.

— Lisanne

Every book by Herman Melville →

02
An expedition told by a survivor

Apsley Cherry-Garrard

British · The Worst Journey in the World (1922)

Cherry-Garrard (1886–1959) went south with Robert Falcon Scott’s last Antarctic expedition. In July 1911 he, Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers man-hauled a sledge about sixty miles in near-total darkness, in temperatures down to −60°C, to collect emperor penguin eggs at Cape Crozier. In November 1912 he was with the search party that found the tent holding the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers.

The classic that Philbrick’s kind of book descends from: an expedition told with exact detail and moral seriousness, in which endurance and error are hard to separate. Readers who liked Sea of Glory will find the same mix of science, ambition and loss, written by someone who was there.

— Lisanne
03
The Revolution, close up

David McCullough

American · The Johnstown Flood (1968), John Adams (2001), 1776 (2005)

McCullough (1933–2022) was born in Pittsburgh and won two Pulitzer Prizes, for Truman and John Adams, and two National Book Awards. 1776 follows Washington’s army through the year of the Declaration of Independence, from the siege of Boston to the crossing of the Delaware. Some historians criticised his last book, The Pioneers (2019), for giving little attention to the Native nations of the Ohio country.

The model for Philbrick’s Revolution books: Bunker Hill and Valiant Ambition share McCullough’s focus on character and on how close events came to going the other way. Suits readers who want the same years told with more warmth towards the founders.

— Lisanne

Every book by David McCullough →

04
Ice, ships and captains

Hampton Sides

American · Ghost Soldiers (2001), In the Kingdom of Ice (2014), The Wide Wide Sea (2024)

Sides was born in Memphis in 1962. In the Kingdom of Ice tells the story of the USS Jeannette, which sailed in 1879 under George De Long on the first official American attempt to reach the North Pole. Ghost Soldiers follows the rescue of survivors of the Bataan Death March, and The Wide Wide Sea covers Captain James Cook’s final voyage.

The closest contemporary match for In the Heart of the Sea and Sea of Glory: a ship, a captain and a crew far beyond help, rebuilt from journals and letters. The Wide Wide Sea also shares Philbrick’s later attention to the people the voyagers met.

— Lisanne

Every book by Hampton Sides →

05
Shipwreck and rival stories

David Grann

American · The Lost City of Z (2009), Killers of the Flower Moon (2017), The Wager (2023)

Grann was born in New York in 1967 and is a staff writer at The New Yorker. The Wager follows a British warship wrecked off the coast of Patagonia in 1741, the mutiny among the castaways, and the rival accounts the survivors gave when they reached England. Killers of the Flower Moon investigates the murders of Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma.

Grann shares Philbrick’s sea, archives and patience, and adds a reporter’s interest in who gets to tell the story. The Wager pairs naturally with In the Heart of the Sea: men pushed past endurance, and the reckoning afterwards.

— Lisanne

Every book by David Grann →

06
One journey, one famous life

Candice Millard

American · The River of Doubt (2005), Destiny of the Republic (2011), River of the Gods (2022)

Millard grew up in Ohio and wrote for National Geographic before her first book. The River of Doubt follows Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913–14 expedition down an uncharted river in the Amazon with the Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon. Destiny of the Republic, about the shooting of President James Garfield and the doctors who failed him, won the Edgar Award for best fact crime.

Millard writes Philbrick’s kind of book: a famous person tested by one journey or crisis, told with a novelist’s pace. The River of Doubt suits readers who liked Travels with George for its portrait of a president away from the monuments.

— Lisanne

Every book by Candice Millard →

07
History built like a thriller

Erik Larson

American · The Devil in the White City (2003), Dead Wake (2015), The Demon of Unrest (2024)

Larson, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, braids several real lives into one narrative. Dead Wake follows the last voyage of the Lusitania, torpedoed in 1915. The Demon of Unrest covers the five months between Abraham Lincoln’s election and the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861.

Larson and Philbrick both build suspense out of events whose ending the reader already knows. The Demon of Unrest is the obvious companion to The Rush, which also follows the road to the Civil War from an unexpected angle.

— Lisanne

Every book by Erik Larson →

08
One operation, close to the action

Ben Macintyre

British · Operation Mincemeat (2010), The Spy and the Traitor (2018), Prisoners of the Castle (2022)

Macintyre, born in 1963, is a columnist for The Times. Operation Mincemeat tells how British intelligence floated a dead man carrying fake invasion plans off the coast of Spain in 1943. The Spy and the Traitor follows Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who spied for Britain, and his escape from Moscow in 1985.

Macintyre brings Philbrick’s method to the twentieth century: a small cast, a single operation, and archives that show what people did under pressure. Readers who were gripped by Benedict Arnold in Valiant Ambition will find loyalty and betrayal tested in the same way.

— Lisanne

Every book by Ben Macintyre →

09
The founders as gardeners

Andrea Wulf

German-British · Founding Gardeners (2011), The Invention of Nature (2015), Magnificent Rebels (2022)

Wulf was born in New Delhi in 1967, grew up in Germany and lives in Britain. Founding Gardeners looks at Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison through their gardens and farms. The Invention of Nature, a life of the Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt, won the Costa Biography Award and the Royal Society Science Book Prize.

Wulf offers a different way into Philbrick’s Washington: the founders seen through land, plants and science rather than battles. A good choice after Travels with George for readers who want early America without the war.

— Lisanne
10
The other side of the frontier

David Treuer

Ojibwe American · Rez Life (2012), The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (2019)

Treuer was born in 1970 and grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota; his mother was an Ojibwe tribal court judge and his father an Austrian Jewish Holocaust survivor. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, a history of Native America from the 1890 massacre to the present, was written partly as an answer to Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970) and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Treuer complicates Philbrick. Mayflower and The Last Stand give real weight to Wampanoag and Lakota leaders, but they end where the American story usually ends; Treuer starts there and asks what came after. Read him after The Last Stand.

— Lisanne

Where to start if you loved Nathaniel Philbrick

If you loved In the Heart of the Sea, read David Grann.

The Wager: a wrecked warship, a mutiny, and survivors who told different stories.

If you loved Sea of Glory, read Hampton Sides.

In the Kingdom of Ice: an American ship trapped in Arctic ice on the way to the North Pole.

If you loved Bunker Hill, read David McCullough.

1776: Washington’s army through the year of independence, from Boston to the Delaware.

If you want the Native side of the story, read David Treuer.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the present, told by an Ojibwe writer.

If you want more Nathaniel Philbrick, go back to the start.

Begin with In the Heart of the Sea (2000) and Mayflower (2006), then the Revolution books from Bunker Hill (2013), and finally his newest, The Rush (2026).

Frequently asked questions about authors like Nathaniel Philbrick

Who writes like Nathaniel Philbrick?

David Grann and Hampton Sides are the closest for sea and expedition stories, David McCullough for the American Revolution, and Erik Larson for history told at a thriller’s pace.

Does Nathaniel Philbrick have a new book?

Yes. The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World was published by Viking on 6 October 2026. It follows the gold rush that began in 1848 and argues that it helped push the country towards the Civil War.

Which Nathaniel Philbrick book should I read first?

In the Heart of the Sea (2000), his account of the whaleship Essex, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. If you prefer early America, start with Mayflower (2006).

Is In the Heart of the Sea a true story?

Yes. The Essex, a Nantucket whaleship, was sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific in November 1820, and the disaster inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Ron Howard’s film of Philbrick’s book was released in 2015.

What should I read after In the Heart of the Sea?

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), the novel the Essex inspired, and David Grann’s The Wager (2023), another shipwreck told through the survivors’ conflicting accounts.

Is Nathaniel Philbrick like Erik Larson?

Both write narrative history that reads like a novel, built from letters and diaries. Philbrick stays closer to the sea and early America; Larson braids several lives together, and his The Demon of Unrest covers the eve of the same war that The Rush leads up to.

Sources

List last reviewed 31 October 2026.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. Every comparison here is a judgement about method and subject, not an algorithmic match. See more on her personal bookshelf.

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