Reading List

Authors Like Maria Semple

Maria Semple's father, Lorenzo Semple Jr., wrote the pilot for the Batman television series while the family was living in Spain, and she grew up in Los Angeles and Aspen, Colorado. Her first screenwriting job was on Beverly Hills, 90210 in 1992; she went on to write for Mad About You, Ellen and Arrested Development, then settled in Seattle. There she wrote Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012), in which an agoraphobic architect, wife and mother goes missing just before a family trip to Antarctica. It spent a year on the New York Times bestseller list, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, and Richard Linklater filmed it with Cate Blanchett in 2019. Her fourth novel, Go Gentle (2026), was an Oprah's Book Club pick. The ten writers below share her ground: a clever, difficult woman, a family watching her come apart, and comedy that lets the pain in.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Comic fiction · Difficult women · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Maria Semple, start with Gail Honeyman, whose Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017) follows a prickly Glasgow finance clerk who insists she is fine. For a clever woman's breakdown told as comedy, read Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss (2020); for a screenwriter's comic novel of a marriage, read Nora Ephron's Heartburn (1983). The list also goes back to Stella Gibbons and Shirley Jackson, and includes one writer who takes Bernadette's retreat from the world somewhere much darker.

10 authors like Maria Semple

01
The comic housewife, first

Shirley Jackson

American · Life Among the Savages (1953), We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)

Jackson (1916–1965) was born in San Francisco and is best known for horror: the story “The Lottery” (1948) and The Haunting of Hill House (1959). Life Among the Savages is a semi-autobiographical memoir in short-story form about raising her four children, written as funny-housewife stories, and Raising Demons (1957) continued it.

The ancestor of the clever mother whose household is always one step from chaos. Jackson wrote the comic version of family life and the frightening one side by side; Bernadette, a brilliant architect who can no longer manage ordinary life, sits between the two.

— Lisanne
02
The bossy heroine, 1932

Stella Gibbons

British · Cold Comfort Farm (1932)

Gibbons was born in London in 1902, worked as a journalist at the Evening Standard and The Lady, and died in 1989. Cold Comfort Farm, her first novel, sends the rational, bossy Flora Poste from London to bring order to her rustic relations, the Starkadders, on a run-down Sussex farm. It parodies the rural novels of the 1920s, especially those of Mary Webb.

The older model of a comic novel built on one strong-minded woman and the people she cannot stand. Gibbons, like Semple, writes satire that is also affectionate; she suits readers who enjoyed the Seattle school-mothers as much as Bernadette herself.

— Lisanne
03
The marriage, played for laughs

Nora Ephron

American · Heartburn (1983), I Feel Bad About My Neck (2006)

Ephron was born in New York City in 1941, the daughter of two screenwriters, and died in 2012. Heartburn is a semi-autobiographical novel about the end of her marriage to Carl Bernstein, which she adapted for the 1986 film. She also wrote When Harry Met Sally... (1989).

Like Semple, a screenwriter's daughter who moved between the screen and the novel and turned private humiliation into jokes. Heartburn suits readers who want the marriage comedy with the bruises left showing.

— Lisanne

Every book by Nora Ephron →

04
The eccentric family, gently

Anne Tyler

American · Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), Breathing Lessons (1988)

Tyler was born in Minneapolis in 1941 and has lived in Baltimore since the late 1960s; most of her novels are set in and around its Roland Park neighbourhood. The Accidental Tourist won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Breathing Lessons won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989. Her most recent novel is Three Days in June (2025).

Tyler wrote the eccentric family in one American city long before Semple's Seattle. She is slower and gentler, and her misfits are loved rather than exposed; she suits readers who stayed with Bernadette for the family rather than the satire.

— Lisanne

Every book by Anne Tyler →

05
The joke as defence

Lorrie Moore

American · Self-Help (1985), Birds of America (1998), I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home (2023)

Moore was born in Glens Falls, New York, in 1957. Self-Help was her first story collection; Birds of America became a New York Times bestseller and won the Irish Times International Fiction Prize in 1999. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Moore's women talk in jokes because the alternative is to say what is wrong, which is exactly how Bernadette writes her emails. Moore is sadder and works in shorter forms; she suits readers who want the wit without the happy ending.

— Lisanne
06
The crisis in documents

Helen Fielding

British · Cause Celeb (1994), Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)

Fielding was born in Morley, West Yorkshire, in 1958 and worked as a journalist. Bridget Jones's Diary began in 1995 as an unattributed column in The Independent, written after she declined to write one under her own name. Her debut, Cause Celeb, satirises celebrities and aid workers in a refugee camp in a fictional East African country.

Fielding and Semple both tell a woman's comic crisis through documents, a diary in one case and emails and memos in the other. Fielding is lighter and more romantic; Cause Celeb is the closer match for readers of Semple's Hollywood satire This One Is Mine.

— Lisanne
07
The marriage in fragments

Jenny Offill

American · Dept. of Speculation (2014), Weather (2020)

Offill was born in Massachusetts in 1968. Dept. of Speculation, her second novel, is written in short, compressed fragments; it was shortlisted for the Folio Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Weather was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020.

Offill writes the wife, mother and stalled artist that Bernadette also is, in fragments that are often very funny. She is more interior and less plotted than Semple; she suits readers who wanted more of Bernadette's own voice.

— Lisanne

Every book by Jenny Offill →

08
The retreat, without rescue

Ottessa Moshfegh

American · Eileen (2015), My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

Moshfegh was born in Boston in 1981. Eileen was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and won the PEN/Hemingway Award. In My Year of Rest and Relaxation, a recent art-history graduate in New York quits her gallery job in 2000 and tries to sleep for a year on pills from a dubious psychiatrist.

The writer on this list who argues with Semple. Bernadette withdraws from the world and the novel wants her back; Moshfegh's narrator withdraws too, but the book offers no family to come looking for her and little warmth. Read her for the dark side of the same idea.

— Lisanne

Every book by Ottessa Moshfegh →

09
The misfit who is fine

Gail Honeyman

Scottish · Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017)

Honeyman was born in Stirling in 1972 and worked as an administrator at the University of Glasgow. Her debut follows Eleanor, a 29-year-old finance clerk in Glasgow who has no friends, drinks two bottles of vodka every weekend and insists she is fine, until a new colleague, Raymond, begins to break through. It won the Costa First Novel Award in 2017.

The closest match on this list: a clever, rude, isolated woman whose comedy hides an old wound, and a novel that slowly lets the reader see it. Honeyman tells it in one voice where Semple uses many documents.

— Lisanne

Every book by Gail Honeyman →

10
The breakdown, told as comedy

Meg Mason

New Zealand-born · Sorrow and Bliss (2020), Sophie, Standing There (2026)

Mason was born in New Zealand, has lived in Sydney since she was sixteen and has worked as a journalist; her first novel was You Be Mother (2017). Sorrow and Bliss is narrated by a woman whose marriage is breaking down. Her new novel, Sophie, Standing There (2026), follows a woman who works for a literary festival and becomes obsessed with a famous writer.

Mason writes a clever woman coming apart inside her family with jokes on nearly every page, the same balance Semple strikes in Bernadette. She is less interested in satire and stays inside one woman's head.

— Lisanne

Every book by Meg Mason →

Where to start if you loved Maria Semple

If you loved Bernadette herself, read Gail Honeyman.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: a prickly, isolated woman, very funny, with a past she has not told.

If you want the marriage comedy, read Nora Ephron.

Heartburn (1983): a screenwriter's novel of a marriage ending, with the jokes and the hurt together.

If you want a novel in fragments, read Jenny Offill.

Dept. of Speculation: a wife, mother and stalled writer, in short, sharp pieces.

If you want the classic behind her, read Stella Gibbons.

Cold Comfort Farm (1932): a bossy heroine, a family of eccentrics and a satire that is also affectionate.

If you want more Maria Semple, start with Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012) first, then Today Will Be Different (2016), set over a single day in Seattle, and Go Gentle (2026).

Frequently asked questions about authors like Maria Semple

Who writes like Maria Semple?

Gail Honeyman and Meg Mason for clever, difficult heroines told with comedy, Nora Ephron and Helen Fielding for the comic crisis in a woman's own voice, and Jenny Offill for marriage and motherhood in fragments.

What should I read after Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017) and Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss (2020).

Does Maria Semple have a new book?

Yes. Go Gentle, her fourth novel, was published in April 2026 by G. P. Putnam's Sons; it follows a Stoic philosopher in New York City and was chosen for Oprah's Book Club.

Which Maria Semple book should I read first?

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2012), her best-known novel. Then Today Will Be Different (2016).

Was Where'd You Go, Bernadette made into a film?

Yes. Richard Linklater directed the film, with Cate Blanchett as Bernadette, and it was released in August 2019.

Is Maria Semple like Gail Honeyman?

Both write a clever, isolated woman whose comedy hides an old wound. Honeyman tells it in one voice; Semple tells it through emails, memos and other documents.

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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