Recommendations

Books Like Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours by Jules Verne

Books for readers who love the clockwork adventure and the novel of a race against time

Around the World in 80 Days (1872) is Verne's most perfectly constructed novel — Fogg's wager against the globe runs like a clock, with every delay increasing the suspense. These 8 books share its racing structure, its comic interplay of characters, and its pleasure in the mechanism of arrival and departure.

  1. Vingt mille lieues sous les mers cover
    1

    Vingt mille lieues sous les mers

    by Jules Verne

    The philosophical contrast — Nemo withdrawn beneath the ocean while Fogg races across its surface; together they represent the two poles of the Vernian imagination: social engagement and complete renunciation

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  2. Michel Strogoff cover
    2

    Michel Strogoff

    by Jules Verne

    The companion high-adventure novel — the Tsar's courier racing across Siberia with pursuers behind him; the same racing structure as Fogg's journey but with mortal stakes

    Buy on Amazon
  3. The Thirty-Nine Steps cover
    3

    The Thirty-Nine Steps

    by John Buchan

    The twentieth-century adventure thriller that inherits Verne's clock-ticking chase — Richard Hannay pursued across Britain on a precise schedule, with exactly the same structure of the protagonist always just ahead

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  4. Around the World in Eighty Days cover
    4

    Around the World in Eighty Days

    by Jules Verne

    The source itself — Fogg, Passepartout, Detective Fix, and Aouda; the novel that defined the globe-trotting adventure for modern fiction

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  5. North by Northwest cover
    5

    North by Northwest

    by Ernest Lehman

    Hitchcock's screenplay (in its novelization) — Roger Thornhill pursued across America in exactly the same structure as Fogg and Fix; the mid-century thriller as direct heir to Verne's chase

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  6. Tintin in Tibet cover
    6

    Tintin in Tibet

    by Hergé

    Hergé's most sustained Vernian adventure — Tintin's race to find Chang in the Himalayas has the same precision, the same globe-spanning ambition, and the same comic sidekick structure as Fogg and Passepartout

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  7. The Great Railway Bazaar cover
    7

    The Great Railway Bazaar

    by Paul Theroux

    The modern travel narrative that inherits Verne's railway obsession — Theroux riding the trains of Asia as Fogg rides the trains of India; both are accounts of what the world looks like from a moving window

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  8. In a Sunburned Country cover
    8

    In a Sunburned Country

    by Bill Bryson

    The comic travel narrative in the Vernian spirit — Bryson touring Australia with the same mixture of wonder and dry observation that makes Passepartout's global misadventures so appealing

    Buy on Amazon

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