6 books like Soul
- The Measure by Nikki Erlick — Soul turns the fear of wasted time into a story about presence, and The Measure does the same with m…
- Exhalation by Ted Chiang — Soul finds transcendence in a barber shop and a subway platform, and Chiang's stories do the same wi…
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders — Soul spends much of its runtime in a liminal space between life and death, and Saunders builds an en…
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro — Soul gives us a mentor who has forgotten why life matters, and Klara and the Sun gives us a narrator…
- The Humans by Matt Haig — Soul asks what makes existence meaningful through a musician who has stopped noticing his own life, …
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi — Soul confronts mortality without offering false comfort, and Kalanithi's memoir does the same from i…
Picked for the feeling of Soul, not its genre. Each one is explained below. One movie isn’t much to go on: rate four more and the books are picked for you.
Why these books
Soul asks what makes a life worth living and refuses to answer with a speech. It moves between existential comedy and genuine tenderness, building a story about purpose that never tilts into sentimentality. The film trusts you to sit with uncertainty, to find meaning in small moments rather than grand revelations. These books share that same patience with big questions, that willingness to locate wonder in the ordinary, and that refusal to flatten the messy business of being alive into a single lesson.
The Measure
Soul turns the fear of wasted time into a story about presence, and The Measure does the same with mortality made literal. When boxes appear offering everyone the length of their remaining life, Erlick follows eight characters navigating love, ambition, and purpose under the shadow of certainty. The novel asks Soul's central question from a different angle: if you knew your time, would you live differently, or would you finally start living at all? It earns its emotional weight through specificity, not manipulation.
Exhalation
Soul finds transcendence in a barber shop and a subway platform, and Chiang's stories do the same with entropy and mechanics. These nine tales use science fiction premises to ask what consciousness means, what we owe each other, and whether purpose is something we find or something we make. Like the film, Chiang writes with clarity that never simplifies, building philosophical questions into narratives that feel both intimate and vast. The title story shares Soul's wonder at existence itself.
Lincoln in the Bardo
Soul spends much of its runtime in a liminal space between life and death, and Saunders builds an entire novel in that same threshold. Set in a graveyard where ghosts refuse to move on, the book follows Abraham Lincoln grieving his son while spirits argue about what they've left behind. It shares the film's interest in the moment before letting go, the stubborn human insistence on meaning, and the comedy that emerges when metaphysical stakes meet ordinary confusion. Both trust structure to carry emotion.
Klara and the Sun
Soul gives us a mentor who has forgotten why life matters, and Klara and the Sun gives us a narrator who has never lived but studies it with desperate attention. Klara, an Artificial Friend, observes the world with the precision of someone who knows she is temporary. Ishiguro writes her love and purpose with the same gentle refusal to explain that Soul brings to Joe's journey. Both works locate meaning in witnessing, in the small gestures that accumulate into a life.
The Humans
Soul asks what makes existence meaningful through a musician who has stopped noticing his own life, and The Humans asks it through an alien sent to destroy a mathematician's family. The alien, posing as the man he killed, slowly discovers what makes human life worth preserving: terrible food, absurd rituals, the ache of connection. Haig shares the film's comedic approach to existential questions and its ultimate tenderness toward the ordinary. Both stories argue that meaning is found in participation, not observation.
When Breath Becomes Air
Soul confronts mortality without offering false comfort, and Kalanithi's memoir does the same from inside the experience. A neurosurgeon facing terminal cancer, he writes about meaning and purpose with the clarity of someone who no longer has time for evasion. The book shares the film's refusal to resolve its questions neatly, its insistence that a life's value is not measured in achievements but in presence. Both works sit with uncertainty rather than flinching from it.
Is Soul based on a book?
Soul isn’t based on a book — it’s an original screenplay by Pete Docter, Mike Jones, and Kemp Powers.
What should I read if I loved Soul?
Start with The Measure, Exhalation and Lincoln in the Bardo. 6 books on this page were picked for the feeling of Soul, not its genre, with a reason for each.
Which book is most like Soul?
The Measure by Nikki Erlick. Soul turns the fear of wasted time into a story about presence, and The Measure does the same with mortality made literal.
These are for everyone who loved Soul. Want books picked for you?
Someone who loved Soul and Mad Max: Fury Road reads different books from someone who loved Soul and Aliens. One movie isn’t much to go on. Rate four more — Soul already counts — and the books are picked for you.
Rate four more moviesOr read one book with friends — three of you rate movies, one book you’ll all like.