I have not been getting books from the library during the pandemic, not because I think it isn’t safe (they have curbside pick-up, and I have insider knowledge about our library’s quarantine policies that makes me feel pretty comfortable; it doesn’t seem at this point as if books are a likely way for the virus to spread anyway; and also I could quarantine a bag of books at home for a few days if I wanted to be SURE-sure), but because I feel sheepish about it. It feels weird to say “I don’t feel safe working there right now, so I am on extended leave, and please cover my hours for me—and oh, while you’re there in an environment I don’t consider safe enough for ME, could you get me some books?” And anyway it would probably be fine but I just don’t want to.
All of this is to say I have finished my To Read pile, which I’d thought would never happen. And I have been re-reading a lot of the books I’d thought many times were worth owning because they would be SOOOOO nice to have in an apocalyptic situation where we couldn’t get library books. But also I want fresh books. And what I was wondering is if you’d like to help me make a list of Books To Consider Buying. Library books are so easy: they’re free! take them on a whim! if you don’t like them, you’re out NOTHING! just stop reading them and bring them back! Books Worth Buying is a totally different thing, and can include the issue of re-readability.
Are you already feeling a little nervous? I would be, if I were you. Telling someone you think they would be wise to pay $10-30 for a book is very different than suggesting they try it from the library. But don’t be nervous! For one thing, this is low-stakes. I can check reviews/descriptions first, and if I see “lyrical prose” or “Kate White had it all: a successful career as a magazine editor, a handsome and successful husband, a beautiful home in the suburbs, and two great children….UNTIL!!!,” I already know not to buy it. And if I do take a suggestion, and it’s not to my tastes, it was still fun to try, and I have lots of people to pass the book on to, and also I know how books are: just because someone else loves it doesn’t mean I will; just because I love it doesn’t mean someone else will.
But I will start by telling you some of the books I love, and I will come back and add more as I think of more, or as books mentioned in the comments section remind me of books I should have included. If you did NOT love these books, you will know that you and I don’t happen to be compatible in this area (though definitely compatible in MANY OTHER areas!), and probably I won’t like the books you like and vice versa AND THAT IS FINE! If I list SEVERAL OF YOUR FAVORITES, then maybe you will be bolstered to recommend MANY of your own favorites! Also: it is fine to ask questions, such as “Did you like such-and-such a book, do you like such-and-such an author, do you like this kind of book, do you like that kind of book?” Everyone has their own measures for making recommendations.
Fiction:
• almost anything by Maeve Binchy; there are a couple of her books that I didn’t like, but I own all the rest and I re-read them (all the recommendation lists suggest Rosamunde Pilcher for people who like Maeve Binchy, but I don’t know why; Rosamunde Pilcher books are fine, and I’ve read a few, but to me they’re not like Maeve Binchy)
• Elizabeth Strout: both Olive Kitteridge books, both Lucy Barton books, but not Amy & Isabelle (I don’t remember why; I just remember being disappointed by it)
• pretty much NOTHING that Oprah ever chose or ever would choose for her book club (SO BLEAK)
• in fact, nothing that makes a point of being unrelentingly bleak, nothing where the book’s “importance” comes from “shining a light on a terrible, terrible plight none of us can do anything about”
• and nothing where a major plot point is the abuse and/or traumatic death of an animal or child—unless somehow the author pulls it off, and there ARE books where that happens
• long ago I loved The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan; I don’t know if I still would, but those are good examples of books that SEEM like they’d be unrelentingly bleak, and yet the author pulls it off
• the Practical Magic books by Alice Hoffman (I’ve added Magic Lessons to my list)
• NO Jodi Picoult, never again, she has betrayed me too many times
• Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman. In general I like the whole Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams kind of genre, except after awhile I get weary of it, and some of it is too much quirky/jokes and not enough plot. But overall I like it.
• Fredrik Backman: A Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie Was Here but NOT the Beartown books (I’m trying to remember why; I think I found them depressing and angering, and felt they lacked the human/character charm of the other books)
• Ann Patchett: The Dutch House, Bel Canto (but it BROKE me and I wouldn’t read it again right now even though I loved it), State of Wonder
• Elizabeth Berg: the early stuff (Talk Before Sleep, Open House, What We Keep, Joy School, The Pull of the Moon), but not the later stuff (The Handmaid and the Carpenter, The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, Dream When You’re Feeling Blue)
• SOME Anne Tyler (I have trouble remembering which titles go with which of her books, but I remember I liked A Patchwork Planet, and that there was one about a poorly-suited WWII couple that I found good but too depressing); I’ve added Redhead by the Side of the Road to my list
• despite flaws, I loved The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
• Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson—a recent purchased-because-of-seeing-recommendations success
• nothing set in WWII, I just can’t, I have reached and then FAR EXCEEDED my capacity for books set in WWII, I read The Book Thief because I had to, and I was glad I did, but NO MORE, I BEG YOU, NO MORE WWII BOOKS, LET’S SET BOOKS IN LITERALLY ANY OTHER TIME PERIOD
• I generally like apocalyptic fiction (The Girl with All the Gifts, Station Eleven, The Stand, the Oryx and Crake trilogy, Girlfriend in a Coma), but perhaps not right this minute
• I enjoy a certain level of magic or time travel or whatever, but I like them pretty realistic/contemporary (like the Alice Hoffman Practical Magic books, or like Magic for Liars, or like The Rook or Nothing to See Here; I don’t usually like the kind where everyone has Futuristic Names and there are undefined made-up words you’re supposed to figure out from context (“hulaphone” or whatever)
• Some Stephen King in the past, but I may be done with it.
• I have liked a couple of Samantha Hunt books: The Invention of Everything Else and Mr. Splitfoot (I spent the whole book thinking she would HAVE to stick the landing—and she stuck the landing, and I started reading it again right away from the beginning as soon as I’d finished it)
• The Power, by Naomi Alderman, was the perfect book for 2016, but I don’t know if I want to feel that way right now
• Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill
• Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre
• This is How You Die and Machine of Death
• Sarah Waters: Affinity YES, The Little Stranger NO (I don’t like “Who even knows what really happened?? Certainly not me, the omniscient author!” endings)
• I don’t like YA fiction. I know lots and lots of adults LOVE it, for MANY good reasons; I know YA fiction varies so much that it ought to be impossible to make a sweeping statement about not liking it; I have many times WISHED I liked YA fiction because those are the kinds of plots I want to read; I have many times TRIED a YA fiction book that was highly recommended and that many people mentioned they liked even though they don’t normally like YA fiction—and I never, never, never like it. It is similar with romance novels: I WANT to like them, I WANT to read about romance, I have tried MANY authors and MANY types of niche and mainstream romance novels, and I never, never, never like them. This is one of those areas where normally I would not volunteer that I don’t like YA/romance, because why volunteer that kind of information, especially when SO MANY PEOPLE already volunteer that exact information about those EXACT particular categories? Whose life is enriched by hearing someone else declare irrelevantly that they dislike something you love? But in this case it is relevant to the question I’m asking, and so I mention it, and I go into some detail so that you will know I am not being casually/scornfully dismissive on misguided/uninformed principle, and I hope it will not lead to the natural/understandable but nevertheless futile path of “Oh but have you tried…??”
Memoir/graphic:
• Suzanne Finnamore
• 80% of Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris
• Roz Chast
• 80% of Lynda Barry
• Alison Bechdel
• NONE of the “I grew up in an APPALLING/SHOCKING/TRAUMATIC family situation, it was RELENTLESSLY GRIM!!” memoirs; no really, not even the one where the mom dies; no, not the one where their parents are manic and the kids were constantly in danger; no, I don’t want the one where they made sweet little pets of the city rats
• The Mental Load, by Emma (I have The Emotional Load on my list)
• Allie Brosh!! (I have Solutions and Other Problems on my list already, and have had it there for YEARS awaiting publication)
Update: Here’s the list that resulted from comments on this post: Books to Buy and/or Put on My Wish List
Ok, I read a lot of YA but I won’t suggest anything like that for you.
However, your like of a Man called Ove reminded me of Where’d you go Bernadette and two other books that I couldn’t remember the titles of and so I went to good reads and I found another book— not the one I was looking for but you also might like it: Sleepwalkers Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob.
I’m going to go look more deeply at My goodreads… so I may have more suggestions.
Honestly this is my favorite part of my job as a librarian and I’m furloughed right now so I’m missing it greatly.
Oh, I have Good Talk by Mira Jacob on my list! So I’m adding the Sleepwalker’s Guide, too.
A Gentleman In Moscow. Well written, lyrical and likeable characters. Sometimes, I like the characters so much it makes me sad when the book ends and they are gone. This was one of those.
Seconding A Gentleman in Moscow! Ampr Towles’ other book was good, but maybe not worth buying. A Gentleman is worth owning.
I did not like Redhead by the Side of the Road. It felt pointless and the characters’ inner thoughts felt flat.
Librarian here, and I have almost completely ceased buying books because I work at a library, if I want to read a book, they will have it. BUT, I will recommend my favorite book, the rare one I actually purchased and have an extra copy of to lend so that MY copy won’t get lost–Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. As for things I’ve read recently: you’d probably enjoy City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, and Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes but I don’t know that they’re really worth buying.
Oh I second giver of stars. That book is wonderful!
I LOVE Peace Like a River so SO much, and I don’t think it gets talked about enough.
It makes me think of one of my favorite books, One Came Home by Amy Timberlake. It’s nominally YA, so probably not for Swistle (sorry!), but I thought I’d mention it in case anyone else might be interested.
Oh my gosh, Peace Like a River is gorgeous.
I just thought of another— Time travelers wife. It was an Oprah book maybe but it wasn’t dreary (and I’ve read a lot of those and I get what you mean). Although the Poisonwood Bible by Barbra Kingsolver was an incredibly good book, I can’t remember if it has that redemption arc that your other likes would indicate that you need in a depressing book.
Time Traveller’s Wife is my all time favorite book. Romance, but different.
I own and have re-read both of those. I get most of my books from the library and try not to hoard books, but those two are keepers!
I was thinking of recommending the other novels by Barbara Kingsolver. There is definitely some trauma in PWB that Swistle may not like. I think the ones by her that are set in Arizona have a nicer resolution.
Ha, well-spotted! It was The Poisonwood Bible that made me never read another Kingsolver book. Like, her writing is extremely my thing, and her topics are extremely my thing, and I will never read another book of hers, because I still periodically feel sick and cold remembering one part of The Poisonwood Bible.
I am so, so pleased so find someone else who agrees with me about Barbara Kingsolver. I just hated The Poisonwood Bible, and I keep trying her other books, and they are awful. HOWEVER – I must recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. As much as I loathed every other word she has written, I loved this book. I did listen on audio which I wonder if that made a big difference? Or the fact that it’s a memoir? Regardless it is the ONE Kingsolver book that I unreservedly recommend to everyone.
I loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. LOVED. Best book I’ve read this year. I truly think you’d like it. Her internal dialogue is…quite familiar. If you’re in the mood for Light and Fluffy, The Royal We and its new sequel The Heir Affair are lovely reads. This is Where I Leave You is hilarious and, despite a death in the family, also Light and Fluffy. If you’ve not read Molokai, I highly recommend it as well. I’ve not yet picked up its sequel.
And your comment regarding WWII made me guffaw. My book club selects books a year in advance – you basically bring a book to the Christmas party that you’d want to read in the next calendar year. And we somehow all went home with WWII books. It was a long, sad year.
Ooh similar reading tastes! Totally loved Eleanor Oliphant, and Molokai is an all time favorite of mine, highly recommend both. I just devoured Normal People by Sally Rooney and had a great conversation with my daughter comparing the book to the Hulu series. Just Kids by Patti Smith is a favorite memoir, offbeat and interesting just like the author, it’s a love letter to NYC and friendship. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s suggestions!
I had nightmares about the dramatic twist in Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Skip it. If you don’t like tense novels or things happening to kids, it’s not for you. it’s just that one traumatic plot twist and it was way too much for me.
I am so excited about this post – I’ve loved everything you’ve recommended in the past, so I am eager to add some new titles to my library hold list. Thank you for being my favorite blog – your writing is sublime!
Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s seem right up your alley. They are about time traveling historians. It’s funny in a very Doctor Who/British kind of way, and I love that they are academics—they aren’t trying to change history, just observe it (although there are constant problems). I find them a little repetitive (especially when describing their machinery—she uses the same words every time), but I also find that a little comforting. There are 11 of them (several are Christmas Specials!). Give them a try!
4:50 From Paddington- the greatest Agatha Christie book ever written.
Cocaine Blues- the first book in the Phryne Fisher series. I read them last year and liked them so much that I have now read all twenty books three times over. Phryne always wins and she always wins in a satisfying way and that is what we need right now.
Along the lines of time-traveling librarians, I’ve heard quite a few people rave about the Genevieve Cogman Invisible Library series. I can’t vouch for them as I haven’t read them myself, but you might want to take a look.
I second the recommendation for Jodi Taylor. Hilarious and yet still heartfelt, with complicated relationships shown surviving funny and perilous adventures. Plus the time-traveling episodes sent me down endless fascinating history rabbitholes. I also enjoyed her White Silence and its sequel.
Agree, this is a wonderful prompt for suggestions and everyone else can see books they can think of too!
For the Fiction category, I would recommend “What is the What” by Dave Eggers. It is barely fiction, about a real situation that was genuinely, genocidally horrific, and parts are very hard to read, but somehow, Eggers manages to make it very readable and even funny in some parts. I read this at a stage of my life that I couldn’t bear to hear anything bad happening to children and I still really enjoyed this book. (It’s weird to say that I enjoyed a book about genocide but it was true. He makes the characters — also based heavily on real people — incredibly relatable.) I found myself feeling more connected to the world around me as opposed to just overwhelmed and turning things off. I do think you should read the reviews though. You would be well within your rights to decide now’s not a good time for this kind of reading, but it doesn’t read in the grim way of some apocalyptic fiction. The other thing is, I don’t know if it’s one to read over and over, so this might be one to get out of the library rather than buy.
Re memoirs, I also enjoyed Educated by Tara Westover. Again, parts are hard to read because she does endure some horrible things, but the way she writes about everything is so fascinating and matter-of-fact that it’s not sensationalized at all. And I just marveled at her account of her paranoid father and the complete lack of access to anything related to the US government. She doesn’t even know her true birthday! And she got out and ended up with a PhD from Oxford! I bought this for my mother after getting it from the library and would certainly read over and over.
That book is not about education, it’s about abuse and that is my hill to die on. (I did like it) I also found some familiar things from my fundamentalist background, so if Swistle picks it I’d be interested if those things dinged for her as well.
Ooh! I have one! Right this minute I am reading The Other Bennet Sister, by Janice Hadlow. It’s about Mary Bennet, the plain sister of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet, and how a shy and bookish woman copes in a world where the only job opportunities for a gentleman’s daughter are marriage and becoming a governess. It’s also about how she copes as the unloved child and it made me see how cruel the whole family was to her–even Liz and Jane kind of ignored her or rolled their eyes at her attempts to join in conversation. The book is also, on a deeper level, about how to make a happy and contented life for yourself (one of the things I love about your blog!)
I know: there are people who like fanfic, and people who don’t. I generally classify myself as one who doesn’t, except that I will pretty much read every Jane Austen fanfic I come across, especially ones like this, that delve into the lives of the other characters in the books. And this one is especially well done–a little plodding at first, when I kept comparing the prose to Jane Austen’s, but then the book pays such close attention to Mary’s emotional life (and has that deeper intent–it’s not all Austen candy) that I was soon able to move past that and even see it as a virtue. I am actually rooting for Mary to find a third path, not marriage or governessing, but I’m two-thirds of the way in and I can’t tell if that’s going to happen or not.
Related: Longbourn, by Jo Baker, about the servants at the Bennet family estate (also appeals to the part of me that liked Downton Abbey). Mansfield Revisited, by Joan Aiken, about one of Fanny Price’s sisters (this one is a little silly).
Another Jane Austen fanfic choice (though the books are so good, calling it that seems wrong), is the Jane Austen mystery series by Stephanie Barron. Jane Austen as a sleuth! 100% delightful. If you’re not into those, Barron is a solid author who has several stand alone books of historical fiction that I loved. The Flaw in the Blood (Queen Victoria’s court/family), and The White Garden (Virginia Woolf-“In the shadow of one of England’s most famous castles, Jo makes a shocking find: Woolf’s last diary, its first entry dated the day after she allegedly killed herself”).
This post and the comment sections are GOLD. Thank you for this, Swistle!
Oooh, yes—I was also coming here to recommend Longbourn! Another P&P adaptation that I really enjoyed but is completely different is Unmarriageable, by Soniah Kamal (set in Pakistan in the 1990’s).
I’ve also started no-contact book swaps with some local friends and family with similar taste, to help me feel better about buying books that I might not actually want to keep.
I recently read “Dear Mr Darcy” and it showed a side of Mary that the original book didn’t. I quite enjoyed it!
Yes, that one is great, as is one called Longbourn by Jo Baker, which tells P&P from the servants’ point of view — it’s excellent!
I’ve added that one to my reading list! I’m so excited for more P&P books!
I made a discovery/rule in late 2016 that I wanted to only/mostly read books by women or non-cis-het-white men—as a former English major/English teacher and still-avid reader, I have hit my lifetime quota for the white straight male perspective and even moreso for the male IDEA of the female perspective. (My conclusion is that because white cis-het men are never in their lives asked to consider the world through other lenses—it may be suggested, but it isn’t mandatory for work or socializing or participating in mainstream culture—their writing is less imaginative at best and cringily inaccurate at worst.) I just read Mexican Gothic and was happy afterward that I’d bought the hardcover instead of waiting months for the paperback. Chimamanda Adichie is one of my favorite authors and her Americanah is one of my favorite all-time books; I also liked Purple Hibiscus; Half of a Yellow Sun is great but denser than the others, with more political history than you might like at this moment. Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter was a fun personalized-sci-fi novel—I read it for book club and was fine to have broken my rule for it afterward. I liked some of Laura Lippman’s novels early in quarantine: Lady in the Lake and Wilde Lake were good (and unrelated). About to start The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
Oooooh! Book talk is my favorite. Okay, deep breath.
— Because of your love of Anne Patchett, I’m recommending A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. It is a little bit quieter, but from your list it seems like you can handle that. It’s pandemic-adjacent, because the main character is placed under house arrest at this very posh hotel in 1922. It’s a little slow at the start but it is such an immersive, incredible book. LOVE. Another in this vein is The Dearly Beloved. This book follows two young couples who end up in each others’ lives because the husbands are chosen to co-pastor a large parish in NYC in the 1960s. I believe your relationship with religion is a little fraught, but I am an atheist and still enjoyed this book SO much. The author examines a life of faith from many different angles.
— Becoming by Michelle Obama. This was SUCH a delight. I did not know much about her early history, and reading about Barack courting her, and then his rise in politics from her point of view, and moving the family into the White House. Happy sigh.
— Some non WW2 historical fiction. If You Want to Make God Laugh — set in South Africa right after apartheid, when the AIDS crisis was emerging. Fantastic characters and a fantastic story that had me turning the pages.
— And a book that mixes Greek myth with magic and feminism: Circe by Madeline Miller. I know, I know, I was not completely sold on the premise, because I was never super into mythology. BUT. Holy cow. This novel is mesmerizing perfection. I knew nothing about Circe’s story before this and it didn’t matter. She is a total badass on her island!!
Okay, I’ll stop here. For the record, I completely understand your issue with checking books out of your library. Have you ever tried a Kindle? It’s so easy to check out ebooks, and reading on a Kindle is nothing like reading on a phone or tablet. I enjoy how light and easy to hold it is. Not to mention the instant gratification of acquiring books! I hope you find just the right books for you. Happy reading!
I loved Circe! I would NOT have thought I’d like it, and I read it only on the strong recommendation of someone else, and then I loved it! (I next tried Song of Achilles but gave up partway through.)
Oh, totally agree with this! Circe was fantastic and Song of Achilles was disappointing!
If you liked Pride and Prejudice you may know that there are a number of sequels/variations written not by Jane Austen. Some of these sound dumb to me (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…) but there is one series that is not a sequel so much as an accompaniment to the original- telling the story from Mr. Darcy’s perspective. The series is called FItzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman (link to the first book of three) and it’s so good, really great, I’ve read them all at least twice. Now, slight spoiler for your protection, there is what appears to be a Bad Situation with a baby in one of the books, but it turns out to be a trick and no baby was harmed. There. Now go and enjoy reading about Darcy and his valet and Georgiana and his London gentleman’s club and how to tie a cravat.
Joan Aiken wrote a number of alternate-character-view takes on Jane Austen. “Jane Fairfax” is, I think, my favorite.
Oh! I remembered more! I can’t believe I forgot the other book I actually purchased and have read multiple times—Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. Also, I recommend People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. You’d probably like most of her books, but that one’s my favorite.
YES this is the very kind of spoiler I like to hear.
Geraldine Brooks!! She’s great. People of the Book is my favorite, too. Followed by Secret Chord. She gets a lot of acclaim for March, but it isn’t one of my favorites.
I was going to recommend Geraldine Brooks
Was it you, Swistle, who recommended Kathleen Flynn’s _The Jane Austen Project_ ? If it wasn’t and you haven’t read it, make haste. For anybody else who likes a good time travel conceit, make haste (even if you are tired to death of Austen pastiches) I own this and it meets the reread test.
I have also recently enjoyed Louis Bayard’s _Courting Mr. Lincoln, which is a great historical novel about the triangle between Lincoln, his future wife Mary Todd, and his friend Joshua Speed. I live in Mary Todd’s hometown, and so Lincoln is sort of on as the historical equivalent of background noise TV a lot of the time but this novel made me see both of them in a new light. (and Joshua Speed is an underrated historical figure) The novel takes place when they are all young and lovely in Springfield, Illinois before the Lincolns were married.
I don’t remember if I recommended The Jane Austen Project, but I have read it and I really liked it!
I really enjoyed The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout, and like you I’ve liked all her books except Amy and Isabelle.
-Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.
-Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner (she’s very hit or miss for me but this one was a BIG hit)
-Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (same feeling about her as Jennifer Weiner)
-Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
-have you ever read anything by Julia Glass? I think you’d like her books a lot. Three Junes, The Whole World Over, I See you Everywhere and A House Among the Trees.
I read some Julia Glass books long ago and I remember loving them; I recognize Three Junes and The Whole World Over, but I don’t recognize A House Among the Trees and have added it to my list.
I loved Tell the Wolves I’m Home!
Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series are a delightful series of books set in Quebec. They are mysteries and usually involve horrible murder, but the descriptions of the food and the seasons and the wonderful small community where it’s set make it a lovely escape.
The Eyre Affair and similar books by Jasper Fforde. They are intellectual silliness – set in an England where writers are akin to famous sports personalities. They’re really clever and fun.
Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series are similar to Louise Penny above, except for North Carolina. Knott is a lawyer in the first book and becomes a district court judge for the rest, solving murders all over the state. I used to live in NC so really enjoyed the deep dives into micro cultures there – the furniture manufacturing in High Point, the pottery throwers of Western NC, etc.
I adore Geraldine Brooks, although she may be a bit heavy. Your liking for Ann Patchett made me think of her.
Julia Glass. Three Junes. It’s just impossibly, wonderfully good.
Last, I’ve been loving another mystery series (I read a lot of mysteries) by Anne Perry, who famously killed her best friend’s mother as a child. The Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series are written something like Jane Austen, set in Victorian England.
I loved at least the first couple of the Jasper Fforde books. I think I got tired of the humor after awhile, but liked the first one or two enough to buy them for other people.
I loved Three Junes!
I had not heard that about Anne Perry so THAT was a wild few minutes with Wikipedia!
The moment I saw this topic I thought “The Eyre Affair” for Swistle! It was so perfectly, absolutely, wonderfully, ridiculous and clever–I believe I need to read it again.
I second Louise Penny. They’re detective books but they are also about a quirky cast of characters and French Canada.
I think you might enjoy “My Real Children” by Jo Walton. It is a story about a woman with dementia who is remembering her life, but she’s remembering two different lives. So it is one of those “what if I’d made a totally different decision at this really important point” which is just fun, but what makes me love it is that both lives have amazing bits and awful bits. It reminds me a bit of Maeve Binchy in a lot of ways.
Jo Walton has written a lot of other books which I love – her Small Change series is a post WWII alternate history where England made peace with the Nazis – which I think you might enjoy if you’re ok with alternate history. The first book has a definite Agatha Christie cozy murder mystery vibe. Then there’s Tooth & Claw which is a Jane Austen type story except that all the main characters are dragons – which probably sounds terrible, but was really fun to read.
Sine you mention The Joy Luck Club, I wonder of you would like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan?
My two favorite authors are Joshilyn Jackson and Dorothy Koomson. They are the only two authors I buy actual hard copies of their books. They’re both a little dark and twisty.
I may be off base a confusing I like about equal part things off your hate and love list but here it goes:
Writer and lovers by lily king
The hearts invisible furies by John boyne
Garden spells by
I liked Garden Spells! I didn’t like the sequel, but I can’t put a finger on why.
I loved Writers & Lovers – didn’t think I would but so glad I picked it up.
If you liked Affinity, definitely read more Sarah Waters! I loved them all EXCEPT The Little Stranger, so I think you and me are on the same vibe here. Tipping The Velvet is my favourite but, honestly, I think they’re all great.
YESSSS! I came down here to suggest Tipping the Velvet. It might be my favorite book ever (I also hated The Little Stranger. And The Paying Guests). Also the three-part BBC adaption of Tipping the Velvet is so fun and has a TEENY-TINY Benedict Cumberbatch cameo. Actually, I don’t think it was technically a cameo because he wasn’t famous then, but it was one of those things where I re-watched it years after it came out and I was like, “WAIT. Is that Benedict Cumberbatch as the jilted boyfriend?!”
Fingersmith is pretty good too.
What an excellent book discussion! I LOVE Maeve Binchy, and agree with you that Rosamund Pilcher is not similar enough, I was quite disappointed after hearing I should love her if I love Maeve, and then just didn’t. An author that DOES remind me of Maeve Binchy is Roisin Meaney. Most of her books have been big hits with me. Definitely check out her book One Summer, then there are two more that follow the same people/location – After the Wedding and I’ll be Home For Christmas. I also really liked Life Drawing for Beginners by the same author. I didn’t like her book Something in Common, it just left me feeling very sad and uncomfortable afterward.
I love Maeve Binchy (and Rosamund Pilcher, although they are very different). I’ve read all of them! Now I am reading Maeve’s Time in her own Words (articles she wrote for the Irish Times). It is a collection of over 5 decades of her writing, basically short essays. I wasn’t sure I would like it, but for the most part I do
Oops hit send too soon,
Save me the plums by Ruth Reichl
The lager queen of Minnesota
(If it helps your confidence Nothing to See Here is one of my favourite books I’ve read this year)
Also- how did I not know Allie Brosch’s new book was
Coming out? Highly exciting.
I liked The Lager Queen of Minnesota!
I would recommend his first book
Which I preferred. Kitchens of the great Midwest
You mentioned Kevin Wilson and I have loved his novel The Family Fang for years and recently I read Perfect Little World which was so lovely and beautiful and I loved even more than The Family Fang. It is about people working out the right way to raise children and it is very family oriented and I didn’t find it at all bleak. I loved it so much I had a copy shipped to my sibling and they also loved it.
Ooh, also Liane Moriarty. Her books can be a bit bleak but always seem to tie everything together by the end in a way that I find very satisfying. I didn’t like 9 Perfect Strangers but I’ve enjoyed all of her others. I’d recommend What Alice Forgot.
May I also suggest an online library card for books downloaded to your phone or tablet? I have Brooklyn Public Library and it’s $50 for basically unlimited books. I’ve heard good things about the other New York libraries too.
I really liked Perfect Little World, and hadn’t made the connection that it was the same author! So now I’ve added The Family Fang to my list.
I think in general you and I are not book compatible, but I have three tentative recommendations. I think they fit in your requirements but also they were just enjoyable books. (And two of them I have read during the pandemic and found them SO soothing.)
1. Echoing another reader, The Royal We. I don’t typically like romance and I don’t care overmuch about the English monarchy but it was SO GOOD.
2. The Lager Queen of Minnesota. I wasn’t a huge fan of the author’s novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest, although it was an easy diverting read. And I like to drink beer but care absolutely zero about how it’s made, so the premise of Lager Queen seemed sort of unappealing. BUT Lager Queen was just excellent and it has older characters and women succeeding in male dominated fields and a coming of age story that felt very satisfying.
3. I know you said “not right now” with the apocalyptic fiction, but I also love it and ALSO think “not right now” and yet STILL very much want to recommend Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines trilogy. It’s not my favorite writing style but it was very fast paced and the plot was interesting and the whole thing felt more breathless and exciting than dark and despairing. (I would also recommend Crouch’s Dark Matter as another reader did.)
I liked The Lager Queen of Minnesota! I also liked another book you mentioned on your blog, the one with the dog. The Friend?
Oh I loved The Friend so much! I thought about recommending it here but it does have some upsetting situations. So glad you DID read it and that you enjoyed it!
I have two memoir-ish books I’d like to recommend, and based on your Sedaris percentage and the wish for non-bleak ones, I think we like similar things there. For example, while Angela’s Ashes is a wonderful book, it also was bleak and painful and I’d rather not.
Recommendations:
The Tender Bar: A Memoir (J.R. Moehringer)
The Liar’s Club (Mary Carr)
Both describe lives that are somewhat unusual and with some issues, yet hit a conciliatory and warm tone that leaves you very satisfied and positive. Both are really entertaining and made it difficult to put them down.
Other recommendation, totally different thing: the “Glamourist Histories” series by Mary Robinette Kowal. Set in an Austen-ish world, but with some people being able to produce intricate illusions called “glamour”. Which, in that society, is foremost used for entertainment or for well-off people to have whole-room illusions made, but of course offers other options, which leads to quite an interesting life for our heroine, who happens to be one of the gifted glamour-artists (including romance, murder, betrayal and international espionage, depending on the book). I love the series and how it’s written, but maybe this is still something where trying out the first book before buying the rest is the best option.
I’m totally with you on Bel Canto, btw. Utterly beautiful, an exquisite exploration of how deeply art and music can reach and connect us, yet so very heart breaking. I am glad I have read it, but would have to be in a very specific frame of mind to want to do so again.
I read The Tender Bar years ago and it was wonderful. So well done. I wish the author had written more under his own name as I know he’s a ghost writer. or at least he was at one point in time.
I don’t have a book recommendation, but just wanted to chime in that I love the Backman books, but not the beartown books and for me that’s because RAPE. Can’t do it.
I just read Andre Agassi’s autobiography “Open”, which was very engrossing. I don’t follow men’s tennis, I knew next to nothing about him but I was looking for something different and took a chance because of the reviews and was very pleasantly surprised.
I second the recommendation for Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman. We read it for our book club and everyone enjoyed it. I then read The Garden of Small Beginnings, also by Abbi Waxman, and i really liked that too. It takes place before Nina Hill, but the two are only barely related, and I think I might recommend Nina Hill first?
Two books that I read a long time ago and loved, but I don’t remember for sure if they are absolutely-not-depressing-at-all are Run by Ann Patchett and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.
Also, the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.
I liked Run! I also liked Cutting for Stone, though I remember it being a little rough-going in terms of medical explicitness.
There is a new Abbi Waxman! Out in June
I LOVE the audiobook of the Bookish Life of Nina Hill! On the strength of that I listened to all the other Abbi Waxman books I could get my hands on, but Nina Hill is my favourite!
I LOVED The Bookish Life of Nina Hill!! I then read every book she had written, and they were all very enjoyable.
I am going to be no help but I’m leaving a comment anyway – when I read that Swistle needs book recs, I immediately thought, having not yet scrolled down, well, I will tell her to read A Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie Was Here because I JUST KNOW Swistle is going to like those, I know it. AND WELL.
I do have My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry by the same author on my kindle for reading soon. I did like the Beartown books, too. I don’t think Fredrik Backman can do me wrong at this point.
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is one of my all time favories.
I love this post so much. I love books and book recommendations and I almost never buy books anymore now that I live two blocks from a library, and don’t have a good used bookstore close by. So I am taking this quest very seriously!
-Because of Austen & Bronte: Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I have no idea why this book isn’t more well known, but it is SO charming and fun and suspenseful and just GOOD. (Note: her other books are not as good.) Bonus: I bet you can get a cheap used copy.
-I am breaking one of your rules with this one, because it is partly set during WWII, but it is really much more about an individual family than the war and it’s SO GOOD: Ian McEwan’s Atonement (though the ending makes some people mad. So this may have two strikes against it for your particular reading preferences.)
-Any Place I Hang My Hat by Susan Isaacs. (Her other books are good too, but some fit the “Kate Williams had it all….UNTIL” format.) This one is just sweet and fun.
-Domestic Pleasures by Beth Gutcheon. Just a really comforting book about nice people.
-Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. Another longer and more demanding one, about a man researching the story of his frontier grandmother. Really beautiful writing.
-White Teeth and On Beauty by Zadie Smith. She has a number of books but these are by far my favorites.
-Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes. This one is a longer and more demanding read than the others, but so worth it. It takes a minor incident in Arthur Conan Doyle’s life and fictionalizes it, and the summaries will all sound weird and uninviting, but, well, I guess you just have to trust me that it’s good.
And, to echo comments I saw above:
– Yes, you should read more Sarah Waters; The Little Stranger is an outlier (though I did like it). I think you’d love The Paying Guests. The first part is very, very slow (but I liked it anyway), but then it takes a VERY DRAMATIC TURN.
-The Time Traveler’s Wife, yes! I don’t like time travel, or confusing timelines, and this book has both and yet it is still one of my favorite books ever.
-I would recommend Liane Moriarty, especially What Alice Forgot and The Hypnotist’s Love Story, but I know you’ve read The Husband’s Secret because you’re where I first heard about it, so you’ve probably thought of her already. I do like her earlier books better than the later ones. The later ones feel more gimmicky.
Finally, a few I’ve read recently that might not really be worth buying, but good if you just want something fun:
-The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, especially good if you’re fantasizing about running away for a solo vacation
-The Flatshare, just fluffy and fun, kind of like a more thoughtful Sophie Kinsella
-The Mother-in-Law, Sally Hepworth. (She’s not as bad as your MIL! But it’s a fun, suspenseful read.)
Okay, I’m going back through the comments to add books to my library list, even though I really need to be reading the books I’m teaching this year instead. (Did I mention I’m an English teacher? That is maybe obvious at this point.)
Angle of Repose is one of my top reads from the last 10 years! So wonderful. I didn’t like Crossing to Safety nearly as much.
We have very similar reading styles-I was JUST about to comment on Elizabeth Gaskell-but I would recommend North and South first. The end is a bit rushed, but such a great novel.
I LOVED What Alice Forgot-I listened to the audio book taking my daughter to school (back when students got to actually go to classes on campus). There was tons of road construction, and I welcomed it! I loved the audio book so much!
Also wanted to mention-Swistle-if you like Jane Austen, have you read Persuasion? That is my favorite Austen novel.
I love talking about books! I am excited to try and share my amazing copy and paste skills to link:
Check out this book on Goodreads: Harry’s Trees https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36540759-harry-s-trees
Oooh, yeah I think it worked. It is a little magical, a little real, happy and sad/touching all at once.
I hope you love it.
So many wonderful recommendations! The one I’ve seen mentioned that I have purchased for my bookshelf to read again and again:
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Also: my mom gifted me a Nook reader waaay back in, oh gosh, maybe 2008? I never much enjoyed screen reading, so the device languished in a drawer. But it has been a godsend during the lockdown (thanks Mom!). So many books, especially new publications! Highly recommend.
I enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch series immensely. The only caveat is that the series is not done, and he is a slow and anguished writer so it may be some time.. 2 of 3 books are available however, and they are both clever and witty and adventurous and cunning.
I read and loved Here For It and We are Never Meeting in Real Life (both memoirs/essay collections) and while there is a fair amount of ‘overcoming a terrible childhood’ in the latter, it’s really a lovely hilarious raunchy read). I also The Library Book by Susan Orlean (SO GOOD). Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto is a delight. I saw someone recommended Commonwealth and I think you might love or hate it. I loved it.
Okay, I was also a big Stephen King fan in the past. Most of his older works, I LOVED, but I was not a fan of anything in more recent years. Looking back the last of his books that I remembered really enjoying were pre-2000. BUT! I just got Revival out of the library and am almost done with it, and I LOVE it. Can barely put it down. It’s very old-school Stephen King and I highly recommend it.
Also, the Outlander series. Forever.
They are a little hard to find, but Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson are excellent. They’re based on her actual life raising a bunch of kids and the weird, hilarious things that happen to them. She spends a lot of time dealing with stress by smoking and reading mystery novels, which I very much approve of.
I don’t know if you like urban fantasy at all, but I really love The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. A wizard works as a private detective in Chicago. Very fun.
I also really like The Spellman Files series by Lisa Lutz about a family of private detectives.
I love the Shirley Jackson books, and own a copy of Raising Demons!
I am looking forward to reading through these comments!
My tastes tend to run mostly fantasy/young adult, but not exclusively so I’m hoping we have some overlap – in fact, I know we do, as I, too, loved The Rook, and The Power, and State of Wonder, and the Dept. of Speculation, and A Man Called Ove, and have enjoyed many an Ann Tyler book.
Some recommendations:
I have loved everything Rainbow Rowell writes. She mainly does young adult, but Landline is not, and I think also Attachments would be considered regular fiction.
The Storied Life of AJ Fikry is similar in tone to a Fredrik Backman novel.
Circe (and Son of Achilles) is wonderful.
For a dabble in magic, I really liked The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic, and I would love a sequel but am losing hope.
The Animators stayed with me for some time after finishing.
I recently read Such a Fun Age – not sure I would re-read it, but I liked it quite a lot.
I don’t typically love memoirs, but Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime is wonderful.
I liked the Storied Life of A. J. Fikry!
I liked Circe, too!
I enjoyed Sourdough by Robin Sloane. A little shark-jumpy but it made me crave bread and spicy soup.
Little Women. A classic.
Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese O’Neill. Entertaining, casual history.
New Erotica for Feminists by Kunkel et al. Bite sized for moments when the patriarchy is getting you down.
Love this post! I don’t purchase books for myself anymore because 1) I just quit my job to stay home and it’s not in the budget 2) I am satisfied with the way our rainbow organized bookshelf looks 3) I now have a kindle onto which I can download books from the library. Might I suggest this option in addition to your paper books? I was a holdout for a really long time, heck we don’t even have Internet at my house, but I really enjoy it as a supplement to paper books. Plus it would solve the problem of you having to interact with the people at your library!
My ideas for you:
Both Mindy Kaling’s books
Padma Lakshmi’s memoir
Liane Moriarty – anything really
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Martian by Andy Weir
This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel
All the Crazy Rich Asians books by Kevin Kwan
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Golem and the Jinni
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
Do you like historical mysteries with plucky female heroines? IF SO:
Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn
Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas
I also don’t like books that are scary/violent/bad stuff with kids, or romance, or YA. Now I can’t wait to read the comments!!
I want to echo both the historical mystery recommendations Anna made. They are some of the few books I buy as soon as they come out.
I recommend the Spellman Files series by Lisa Lutz. I return to them every few years and find them highly enjoyable.
I think we maybe have tastes that don’t overlap a lot but definitely a little, so maybe some of these will hit the sweet spot:
Hard agree with everyone else on The Time Traveler’s Wife. Apparently the movie is trash but the book is great.
Assuming you’ve read loads of Margaret Atwood but if you’ve never read The Robber Bride, it’s a top ten favorite.
The Magician’s Trilogy by Lev Grossman has been called “Harry Potter for grownups” and I love it. There are magical lands and creatures, etc., but it never felt too Made Up or unnecessarily wacky. It’s about young people but it is not YA at all. It was made into a TV show that departed wildly from the books, so don’t judge the books by the show.
It takes a rather weird turn at the end which is not for everyone, but The Fold by Peter Clines is some really great sci fi that takes place in a realistic setting. If you read it and like it, there is a sort of prequel called 14 which I also loved.
The Library At Mount Char is truly weird and indescribable but so, so good and like nothing else I’ve ever read. It’s sci fi but also has an all-time great slow burn of a plot that you don’t see coming and then you are left mouth agape at the end.
I also loved Cloud Atlas for its clever plot structure. The sci fi parts never felt too weird to me. It does lean a little dystopian but I don’t think it goes as far as Oryx and Crake does.
Have you read any of the Outlander series? Very bodice-ripping and the series goes on too long but the first few are really fun and plot-heavy, but not fluffy.
The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies is also wonderfully light and yet deeply satisfying. (It might be a little outdated in some respects but not offensively so.)
I’ve read every single one of these books at least twice if not thrice; I hope you find one or two that you love as much as I did!
I really enjoyed The Library at Mount Char (it is everything Jackie says it is) but will just note it is not for the squeamish.
This is true! This book did not hit any of my (many) trigger points, but certainly anyone else’s mileage may vary.
CW: violence towards children, gore
There is certainly a fair amount of violence and gore, and violent abuse of children by both children and adults. It is expertly written but if this material is personally intolerable to you, then I might skip it. I would not say it is too much for most readers – it hurts but there is IMO a satisfying ending to it all. I will gladly break it down for anyone interested in the book but hesitant about the content, reach out anytime. Yes, I feel that strongly about this book :)
I’m normally 100% on top of book recommendations, but I’ve read almost nothing out of your list. And then the top thing I was thinking about recommending (“In This House of Brede” by Rumer Godden – the most Bechdel-test-passing book ever [it is mostly about nuns; the male characters are in the minority both numerically and in terms of perceived importance] and with fascinating writing choices and with so many “live” female characters, and it’s also an enormous book, which to me is a Pandemic Advantage, and also rewards re-reading) …has its main character dealing with substantial trauma related to her child’s tragic death years earlier.
So. Instead I’ll echo those who are suggesting borrowing digitally (I use my laptop; it is clunkier than an ebook reader device, but it works) for maybe-junk books. Good luck!
I read In This House of Brede just last month, and it was SO good. So satisfyingly practical.
Hooray for another person who enjoyed it! I keep loaning it out and *everyone* has been a fan so far! (if you read children’s books, you may also enjoy her book “Miss Happiness and Miss Flower” – which is an exploration of 1. becoming at home and 2. dollhouse-building, basically. But it’s children’s chapter book length, and very much not a Tome like “In This House of Brede” delightfully is.)
I worked in libraries for the last few years (not now thank goodness) and Readers Advisory was my absolute favorite thing to do! I think you’d like Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore and Sourdough both by Robin Sloan and The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow. Have you ever read any Bill Bryson memoirs? A Walk in the Woods is my favorite.
I read Bill Bryson’s memoir about Australia, and really enjoyed it, and read many parts aloud to Paul, although I am still cringing from a very upsetting story he told about something someone ate.
I was coming her to recommend The Ten Thousand Doors of January as well. I read it earlier this year and found it to be a DELIGHT. I’ve been considering re-reading it already, even though not much time has passed since I finished it.
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver is one of my alltime favorites. It feels timely (post-Trump) but not overwhelmingly so (pre-pandemic). By telling the story of 2 families dealing with the same poorly built house in 1870ish and 2017ish, it looks at the unreliability of the things we have been asked to build our lives on. I cannot summarize it without making it sound dreary but it is actually wonderful.
I also love pretty much everything by Erica Bauermeister, especially Joy for Beginners. Group of friends commit to doing 1 specific thing that scares them that year.
And Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs Pollifax series is a matter-of-fact granny having some oldschool CIA fun.
I really like reading about middle-aged and older women leading interesting lives.
I have been reading a lot of contemporary Black fiction but it has been mostly romance and YA.
It’s been a long time, but I LOVED the Mrs. Pollifax books!
Oh, oh, Mrs Pollifax, yes. My all time favorites, I reread them a lot!
This memoir by Sally Mann was unexpected and good: https://www.amazon.com/Hold-Still-Photographs-Sally-Mann-ebook/dp/B00NERQRWQ
And Kate Chopin’s The Awakening is always a good one to re-read. Very timely.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
In our book club we read Sally Mann’s book and a few people mentioned how it really stayed with them long after they’d read it! Plus it’s great for if you’re interested in photography :)
Have you tried Joanne Harris? I particularly recommend the series starting with Chocolat. All of them are really good. A bit of romance, a smidge of magic, lots of delicious food, captivating characters and intriguing plots. Themes include religion vs folklore, migration & the idea of home, family and of course, food!
I was so happy when I saw you list Oryx and Crake. A fave of mine that is generally overlooked. Love all these suggestions! Adding many to my Good Reads!!
Only available on Kindle/as an ebook, but one of the best books/series I’ve ever read – the Wool series by Hugh Howey. Read it before the movie comes out so the twist doesn’t get spoiled! Truly one of the most unique and imaginative books/series I have ever read. (And amazing fan fiction that came out of it that is endorsed by Hugh Howey.)
A Trip to the Stars by Nicholas Christopher – infinitely re-readable. I catch something new every time.
Have you ever read any Rita Mae Brown? Or Fannie Flagg? I feel like they might be simple and comforting right now.
Wool is SO GOOD! I forgot that one! I originally downloaded it as a serial and never had it all in over place at one time…gotta take care if that!
It’s a game changer. I have never had a book totally take me by surprise like it did.
Oh oh oh!! One more. “I will always write back” so amazing!! Nonfiction sorry of two penpals. Like “Wonder”, a book every human should read!!
Yay books! So many great recommendations here! I would add Marisa de los Santos. I’d put her in the same area as Fredrik Backman. Some of the books have recurring characters, which is something I enjoy.
I think Joshilyn Jackson is in that same realm except for the recent one that’s a mystery/thriller that I didn’t like.
Loved The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary.
I just got a Jenny Colgan book so I was happy to see someone else recommend her.
If you haven’t read Evvie Drake Starts Over, I also liked it. Does have a little romance. And I don’t care a bit about baseball but that was ok.
I recently read The Rent Collector and enjoyed it very much.
I think you would really like The Humans by Matt Haig. It seems like a Swistle kind of book. It was the first book by Matt Haig that I read and I liked it so much that I set out to read every book of his, even his novel about vampires, called The Radleys. I am no way, no how a vampire book reader, but this one was different. If you don’t draw the line at vampires, I would recommend that, too.
So many great recommendations on this list. I will throw in my favorite palate cleanser (you know, the kind of book you read after you read a heavier/harder book and maybe want to read ANOTHER book that’s very literary or a little more difficult but you need a breather book in between) and that is anything – ANYTHING – by Jenny Colgan. She’s British and she sets all her books in dreamy UK landscapes and because she’s British, everything she writes sounds so much more CHARMING. I love everything she’s written but my favorite would probably be The Cafe by the Sea or The Bookshop on the Corner. CHARMING. I can’t say it enough. CHAR. MING.
I see someone else has recommended Bookshop on the Corner but I will second it!
In a similar vein, Summer Hours at the Robbers Library and Beach Read are both bookish and romantic. I also loved Garden Spells and didn’t like the sequel as much, so we might have similar tastes!
I would also recommend Kindred by Octavia Butler! It deals with some heavy subject matter but is EXPERTLY handled – it’s a fast read and compelling, and there’s some deep stuff to think about if you want, but if you just want a fast intriguing read, it’s good for that too!
I love the term palate cleanser for those books-in-between!
A few people have mentioned Eleanor O and I wholeheartedly agree. It is one of only two books my book club members have all enjoyed. Most other books are met with mixed reviews. The second we all agreed on was A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki and it’s about a journal found washed ashore after the Japanese tsunami. It was fantastic. Another book we read was The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Not everyone liked it and even I admit near the end it gets a little winding but I actually LOVED it, far better than her other book The Night Circus. A bit mysterious, very likeable characters and beautiful imagery. Totally buying that one and I rarely buy books.
In terms of sci-fi I really liked the Southetn Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. There was a movie made about the first book – Annihilation, but I find it a very difficult book to translate to screen.
Stephen King – I own The Dark Tower series. The third and fourth books are particularly good and the end is amazing in my opinion.
Absolutely love this thread!
Oh, I liked the Night Circus, so I should try The Starless Sea!
I would have to suggest Kate Morton to you. I can’t get enough of her, myself. Also, The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert would be a good read, too.
Also, can I suggest the podcast What Should I Read Next with Anne Bogel? I have gotten more than my fair share of book recommendations from her.
I’d like to highly recommend Alexandra Fuller to anyone here who loves memoir and gorgeous writing. She grew up in sub-Saharan Africa and relates her unusual childhood (it is not one of those abusive family memoirs that Swistle dislikes, but her family is certainly odd and also racist/colonial).
Start with “Don’t Let’s go to the Dogs Tonight.”
Would a very readable, hilarious review of the hidden rules of English behaviour appeal to anyone? Kate Fox is a cultural anthropologist who decided to take an in-depth look at her own people. Extremely well-written and entertaining non-fiction and a nice escape from all things American and pandemic.
Totally second the Alexander Fuller books – so interesting, so crazy & so we’ll written. She knows how to tell a story!
Oh…I love book recommendations! *happy sigh*
I’m a big time-traveling fan, so of course Time Traveler’s Wife is near the top of my list!
Also the Outlander series which I have read more times than I care to count. I know people either LOVE it or HAAAATE it so I always make this rec gently and with reservations. Yes, it is technically a historical romance story, but it’s so far removed from the Harlequin Romance types of old. To me it’s mainly a love story in all it’s forms; good and bad. The time travel is a pretty minor aspect of the whole series. Yes, it does have some situations that can be triggery, but the author handles it WAY better than the show. [Note: The show is NOT the book series! If you love the show, that’s fantastic! It wasn’t for me. I stopped watching after they ruined (IMO) the third season (which corresponded to my favorite book in the existing series) and because subsequent seasons departed wildly from the books.]
Lastly, Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montemore was a terrific read! Not at all what I was expecting, but very enjoyable! It does have a confusing timeline, but stick with it…it all works out in the end!
Oh, totally agree with e-readers. I was a die-hard hardback/physical book lover…until my eyeballs got old and I started getting headaches that glasses didn’t alleviate. I now use the Kindle app on my tablet/phone and am able to enlarge the font enough that reading no longer gives me a headache. It also has the added benefit of allowing me to carry my entire library of books around with me wherever I go!
Now, off to check out all these neat books! Thanks everyone!
I remember I really liked the Outlander series and read a number of the books, and then suddenly was just DONE and never wanted to read the word Sassenach again! But I liked them for awhile! And I liked some of the other Diana Gabaldon books, too, but it’s been awhile and I don’t remember which ones.
I have so many suggestions, I had to get the laptop, my phone is too small to do this much typing! (Also, thank you for reminding me about Maeve Binchy – I read lots of her stuff in college and just…haven’t for quite a while.)
FICTION
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Not dystopian like Station Eleven. More realism, with a touch of fantasy sprinkled in.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert had a nice, multi-generational, coming-of-age story arc. Also, The Signature of All Things was exceptional.
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach was a comforting read about college and baseball and the Midwest and let me completely forget about the sh*tshow that is 2020. Was well-received among my friends who were looking for a similar escape.
More Midwestern flair: The School of Essential Ingredients (Erica Bauermeister) and The Lager Queen of Minnesota (J. Ryan Stradal). I found the latter to be fuller and more satisfying than the former, but there are more romantic throughlines in the former, if you like that sort of stuff.
Last Night at the Lobster (Stewart O’Nan) and Convenience Store Woman (Sayaka Murata) are novellas about regular life, with insights into the human condition. Twinges of sadness, yes, but not bleak, bleak, bleak, everyone dies/goes to jail.
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
The Nest (Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney)
Unsheltered (Barbara Kingsolver) – I mean, I read everything she writes, but this one was particularly interesting about our search for home or rootedness during a time of upheaval.
A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Toles) was my best book of 2018 and will continue to be a favorite for a long time.
Finally, I hear you on the total-saturation-of-books-set-in-WWII, but if you can make an exception, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr was simply breathtaking.
NON-FICTION
I read Amy Tan’s memoir, Where the Past Begins, and was thoroughly charmed. As in her novels, her storytelling craft seeps out of every page. Made me want to reread her novels and catch up on any that I had missed.
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. This is a memoir of her journey to becoming a scientist. There are some lean times, but the story is not rooted in trauma/abusive parents. Barack Obama recommended it to me (and all of Twitter).
I love many of these books, great recs, but I often give a copy of Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan away – his Emily, Alone trilogy is just lovely too.
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Where’d you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple (an anxious woman goes around the world)
Because you liked Department of Speculation: Lydia Davis, any of her collections
…and if you like reading short book reviews, try goodreads! It’s so fun to compare book lists with your friends.
I’m not sure this fits you, but I just love The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency — the whole series — by Alexander McCall Smith. It’s set in Botswana and it gives me the impression I may know more about Botswana than I really do, but the real reason I like them is because everything always works out in the kindest and gentlest way — with a dash of humor.
OK. So if you like or are ok with mystery, I highly recommend Laurie R King, specifically “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” (and if you like it there are a ton in the series more but it’s not something where it will feel incomplete if you just read the first one). Strong, smart female lead, set in WW1 but not a war book, just the time period. Smart girl meets retired Sherlock Holmes, gives him a run for his money, he tutors her and they become an unstoppable mystery solving team with plenty of witty banter.
I recently listened to “New York 2140” which is post-apocalyptic but not really dystopian- it’s more interesting on the world-building front than on the “everything is terrible we are overcoming our suffering” front. The disaster has already happened so now it’s just a different way the world is. I did audio book because it came available before the e-book but I think I would have rather read it and been able to easily back-track for details.
I KNOW you said no YA, but if someone else is into YA (maybe the young adults in your household?) Angie Thomas writes excellent YA books featuring Black youth characters that deal with current events in a real-but-age-appropriate way (The Hate U Give is about a character whose friend is killed by police, and how she deals with that while also navigating being the token-Black-girl at her school and the dynamics of those two worlds as well). I bought both her books in hardcover so that after I read them they can be in my classroom library when schools open back up.
Laurie King is my FAV, I don’t know how she stays so consistently enjoyable.
I also liked A Gentleman in Moscow. At times the pacing was a bit slow, but it was really enjoyable. Like the commentator above, I really liked Educated, but am not comfortable recommending it to you. If you do read it, I’d love to hear your reaction.
I find Reese Witherspoon’s book club a bit hit and miss, but I really loved Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows. It is very much about friendship and womanhood, not sex.
Another top book for me this year was Pachinko. It is a story about a Korean family over multiple generations living in Japan.
When you mentioned Alison Bechdel, Middlesex came to mind.
I loved this comments section!
Oh, I read and liked The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by the same author as Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows! And I liked Pachinko and Middlesex.
“I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith is lovely.
“Middlemarch” by George Eliot
I’ll second Elizabeth Gaskell (“Wives and Daughters”)
Anything by Willa Cather
Edith Wharton – “The Age of Innocence”
I second Middlemarch! Thanks for the reminder that I should reread it!
The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Love love love. Worth buying for me, for sure, though I was very fortunately gifted it.
So many comments; definitely coming back here tomorrow to beef up my reading list! Off the top of my head (and sorry if I’m repeating anything) here some of my favorite reads.
Please note I am a very discerning reader and quite a cheapskate so I wouldn’t recommend anything I wouldn’t buy!
(Fiction)
Dear Edward – it seems like it will be bleak but was so lovely. Heartbreaking for sure but beautifully written.
Little Fires Everywhere & Everything I Never Told You – Celeste NG
Barbara Kingsolver earlier books (Bean Trees in particular)
Anywhere but Here – Mona Simpson
Gods In Alabama (or really anything else) – Joshilyn Jackson
The Center of Everything – Laura Moriarity
(Non Fiction)
Educated
I’ll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison – Wally Lamb
A fiction book I read in a book club I used to be in that I loved and has really stuck with me was People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks.
For non-fiction, I love love love Malcom Gladwell. I own all of his books and reread them on occasion.
I can’t wait to go read the comments. This is something I’ve been thinking about lately. There’s a british author I’ve started reading named Elizabeth Taylor, who I’m liking. Angel seems to be one of her more popular books, but it’s a bit dark (by my standards, not by typical standards). MRs Palfrey at the Claremont was lovely, by the same author. Short, observational fiction, written in the sixties (I think) from the perspective of women characters.
I also recommend the Library Book by Susan Orlean, especially as you work in a library and will be able to relate to so much.
I was not a reader growing up, just did my required reading for school and otherwise played sports. I stumbled onto a bibliomemoir by Ann Hood- I forget the title but it was a short neat and tidy memoir about her love of books, and the books she read that changed her life, and I feel like her passion for books came across so well that she somehow got me more into reading. I read Little Women because of her. Oh that’s a book should buy, lol.
In terms of building a home library In general I buy books that relate to a niche interest I have, because books are rarely written on the topic and when they are they go out of print. In my case it’s women’s hockey, your own niche interest is likely different.
I also buy books that I think my kids (And I) should read at some point in their life, considering that any K-12 curriculum Despite its best efforts is going to have a lot of issues and some supplemental stuff might be in order. With this being the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote, perhaps you might buy a book about someone in the suffrage movement?
I am currently reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. So far so good, a novel….I’ll stop here, as I realize it’s YA! Another go to source for me for books is to look at the summer reading lists for local school districts.
Hope you get some good recs and buy a ton of books. My house is a wreck, and I feel like I should clean but this has inspired me to sit down and relax and read instead. Swistle, you are the best!
the Ann Hood book is called Morningstar. I like several of her novels, too though they do have sad elements.
I have loved thinking about all the recommendations here. Here are a few I haven’t seen previously in the thread:
Anything by Dara Horn but especially The World to Come– It is just the best sweetest book that I think about all the time.
Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver– it is a retelling of a fairy tale, but so so satisfying and beautifully written
If you are in for something a little more heavy, but still catchy and readable– The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
I am a big BIG fan of Sarah Waters, and agree with everyone here that the Little Stranger was a bit of an outlier, so if you haven’t done Fingersmith, Tipping Velvet, or the Paying Guest, you might well love them. She does have a novel Night Watch in which part of it takes place during WWII, so maybe ignore that one.
A big outlier for me is Laurie R King’s series with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. I am usually not a cozy mystery sort of gal, and I love Sherlock Holmes to basically ever read pastiche about it, but there is just something about a smart, snippy, well heeled strong feminist protagonist that makes me happy with these. If you don’t love the Beekeeper’s Apprentice, then the series isn’t for you.
Also, yay Dara Horn! I think my favorite of hers is Eternal Life.
Ack, I just realized I forgot one: If you liked the Olive Kitterdge books, you would probably like Linda Holmes book Evvie Drake Starts Over.
(Now I am really done… sorry)
I read it quite a while ago, so I don’t remember too much detail, but I loved Pete Hamill’s Forever. Adventure, time travel, some love but I hate romance books and I loved it.
While nothing is quite like Maeve Binchy, I would recommend Elin Hilderbrand. Her books definitely aren’t the same – they may fall more until the Sally had it all until category than you care for. But they tend to have an engaging set of characters which is what I have always enjoyed about Maeve Binchy. I find the books to generally have just enough depth without being heavy. My personal favorites were Here’s to Us and The Castaways – but of course personal favorites are quite subjective.
I also loved The Power and am reading Circe now!
Marisa de los Santos! Just discovered her and her books are funny, wise, romantic, well plotted, great characterization… I’d start with Love Walked In but the sequel Belong to Me is actually my favorite I think.
Btw, betterworldbooks.com is a great option for buying books! It’s used books, you can often get them for as low as $4.
Also, Diane Chamberlain.
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. There are DEFINITELY some outdated, sexist aspects, but the book was originally published in 1951.
The Violinist’s Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean. Absolutely fascinating look at how our genes can explain crazy cat ladies, why polar bear liver is a terrible diet, and more. I’ve re-read this a number of times and everyone who has read it on my recommendation has loved it. Swistle’s kids would probably also love it.
This Is Going to Heart: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay. Good book, but not the happiest of reads. I understand how/why the guy got a job in tv after this.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. A history of the world and society through the lens of salt. Fascinating.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. OK, so this won’t take you long to read but it is a book you will likely pick up over and over and over again.
The Women Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone. Smart, talented women who managed it all and figured out the codes used by rum smugglers during prohibition? Yes PLEASE.
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. John Snow, the cholera epidemic, the Broad St pump.
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston. I loved this book. We only recently learned what lives in the canopies of the redwoods and other super tall trees.
Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr. life story of the daughter of a once-famous copper mine owner turned senator and how she spent her money.
I’ve been on a major non-fiction kick lately.
I’d also highly recommend Spillover by David Quammen but since it spends a lot of time talking about The Next Big One (pandemic) it might hit a little close to home for some.
thank you for this list. I think we are reading buddies! i loved Salt and This is Going to Hurt and Ghost Map and the res on your list sound amazing. You might like Lab Girl as recommended above. Or Underland. Not that you asked ;)
I haven’t read through all of the comments yet, so I’m not sure if someone mentioned this already.
Have you read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud?
It’s not typically the type of book I read -My book picks are more similar to what you’ve indicated. I am reading it currently, and I can tell it will be a reread for me. I guess it doesn’t fit in any of the genres, but it feels a little like a memoir of the comics art form… ?
Anyway, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys graphic novels or comics. It gives me a different appreciation for my favorite (and even not favorite) comics/ graphic novels. After I finish it and reread Understanding Comics, I’m going to revisit favorite graphic novels as well.
Oh! We own that book but I’ve never read it! It’s Paul’s.
No time to read all the comments above yet (but I WILL), but I really did love Born a Crime by Trevor Noah to the point I read passages of it out loud to my kids when I was reading it while we were on vacation!
Also, I cannot be the first to suggest this I’m sure, but have you looked into borrowing ebooks and audiobooks from your library system? That’s what I do and it’s an amazing service! No cost, don’t have to leave home, and they return automatically so no late fees! And when I’ve been on vacation all I’ve needed is wifi to borrow and download new books from my library back home. Amazing! We are living in the future!
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is one of my all time favories.
I’ve enjoyed using paperbackswap.com for years and recommend it as a low-cost way to own and trade used books. You set up a list of books you don’t mind letting go of and make a wishlist of books you’d like to order. It costs about $2.50 or so when you order a book, and you also pay postage for books that other people request from you.
I forgot to mention another author – Connie Willis, who had some really good sci-fi/time travel books – Fire Watch, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. Must re read now as I remember enjoying them immensely a long time ago.
I love her books.
I came here to recommend Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and it looks like I’m at least the third to do so. I enjoy most of his except Snowbound. I’m highly sensitive and prefer not to read about even fictional harrowing events. Although, after swearing off WW2 for decades, I did fall down the rabbit hole last year and no one is more surprised than me. Also, I recommend anything by Alexander McCall Smith. He has several series and stand alones. Melanie Benjamin for … historical fiction. Samantha Irby for laughs, although some of that is tough to get through- Wow No Thank You is probably the easiest in that regard. Also, The Feather Thief, gobsmacked. Happy Reading!
Swistle -you mention Maeve Binchy… have you read any of Anita Shreve’s books?
Here’s some of my favorite books:
Tiny Beautiful Things – Cheryl Strayed (non-fiction)
Anything by Jo Ann Beard – especially “In Zanesville” (fiction)
The Home For Unwanted Girls – Joanna Goodman (fiction)
Here’s what I currently have on hold at the library:
Sea Wife-Amity Gaige
My Life As A Villaness – Laura Lippman
I also really like Sarah Waters, and I must say this in defense of The Little Stranger: the narrator is not omniscient, he is unreliable! Everything that happens in the book is his fault, and he has no idea. I enjoyed the “I know something you don’t know” element of the ending, but possibly the author did not do a good enough job making this clear to the reader. I gave this book as a present to my father who is also a Sarah Waters fan, and like you he was totally baffled by the ending.
Fingersmith is my favorite book of hers, and I also enjoyed her latest The Paying Guests a lot.
I also recommend The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins, which reminded me of Affinity, The Paying Guests, and Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (another favorite author).
The AUTHOR is omniscient, is what I was saying, not the narrator. Speaking generally, I was saying I don’t like when the endings of books are “WE’LL NEVER KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED” (often defended by adding that it’s just like in real life where sometimes we don’t know), because in this case we are talking about an artificial world where the author is omniscient and SHOULD know what happened.
I’ve recommended the hilarious memoir “Wow, No Thank You” (Samantha Irby) to several people who have all been so happy for a laugh in these times.
You may also like “An American Marriage”. There’s not great stuff that happens at the very beginning but the rest is not too dark, though it is deep.
I imagine you’d like “Little Fires Everywhere,” which has is a fantastic exploration of suburban life and motherhood and teenagerhood.
Nothing I would have expected to like, but ended up loving, was the Deborah Harkness All Souls trilogy. I bought the first one on a rec by a bookseller, and was hooked. I’ve re-read these, which is something I rarely do.
Most of the books I would have recommended to you have already been recommended, but I’ll add everything by Laurie Colwin, one of my very favorite authors. My own favorites of her novels are Family Happiness and A Big Storm Knocked it Over, but it’s hard to decide. I recommend equally her books of essays about home cooking, which are dry and funny and perfect.
I just came in to say Laurie Colwin! Own all her books, give them away over and over, so comfroting sweet with a knowing edge – the cooking books are wonderful too.
I think we have FULLY OPPOSITE reading preferences, but Ill chime in to say that I’ve also been buying tons of books. No eating out, no movies…gotta spend it all somewhere!
I know this is not for everyone, but my work bought me an iPad a few years ago and let me keep it when I left, and eBooks have been great – especially free ones from the library! No contact, not even a delivery person, and you can instantly start reading the sequel at 10pm if you want to!
Also, tip: I use the Kobo app for eBooks on iPad, and I have my account linked to my hometown indie bookstore so they get a cut every time I buy a book. Probably a tiny cut, but still!
I have very high standards for OWNING a book and keeping it and having it occupy physical space in my life (as I usually read on a Kindle, as my library has free e-borrowing and offers nearly all the books I want to read, plus I like reading on the treadmill, in bed, or while doing chores like washing dishes or folding laundry and it is much easier to do this with a Kindle). Books I want to own are ones I would want to have in a worst case scenario or, more likely, books I want to encourage the rest of my family to read.
From your list I would agree with about 40% as books to own, about 30% as books I would recommend to read but not to own, about 25% I have not read, and about 5% I read but didn’t like or didn’t like well enough to recommend.
“I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith – Suggested already, perfect to read right now and escape from your worries, this book takes you into the mindset and adventures of a teenager from a penniless family in England living in an old rundown castle. Light, heartwarming, and tragic all in balance.
“The Dog Stars” by Peter Heller – Perhaps not one to read right now, post apocalypse where a flu has taken 99+% of the population, but most of it takes place about ten years later. Beautiful, simple, nature focused writing. It does cross the lines a bit with too much violence/horrible people left in the world, but still well worth it.
“A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” by Anthony Marra – This book reminded me of “Station Eleven” in content and style. It moves back and forth in time and a story that plays out with intertwining characters.
“Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter – Also a non-linear plotline with storylines intersecting. A good book to read right now.
“Recursion” by Blake Crouch – Modified time travel/ruining then trying to save the world type story.
“The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” by Claire North – Also a time travel time story.
“The Passage” trilogy by Justin Cronin – An epic end of the world by way of vampire zombies, full of complex and wonderful characters.
“All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr – Suggested already, WWII but so good. Non-linear plotline follows a young blind girl in France and a bright orphan boy in Germany.
“A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towel – As also recommended by others. A great choice for right now as we all feel we are a bit under house arrest.
Books I would recommend for you to read but not necessarily buy: “The Glass Hotel” by Emily St. John Mandel, “11/22/63” by Stephen King, “The Shining Girls” by Lauren Beukes, the “Wool” trilogy by Hugh Howey, “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood (and just about all of her books if you haven’t read them), and “Hollow Kingdom” by Kira Jane Buxton.
Thank you to everyone for all the suggestions!
Ooh, I forgot about The Passage trilogy! Really liked those :)
We have similar tastes. You may want to try Maggie Dawson. My favorite of hers is Matchmaking for Beginners. Not a romance – just completely delightful.
Oh goodness, so many comments. I feel late to the party. But if you enjoyed the Rook/Neil Gaiman, I would like to recommend a series I’ve been ploughing through the last few weeks. It’s called either the “Rivers of London” or “Peter Grant” series (depending on which country you’re in) by Ben Aaronovitch and it is delightful. It’s about a cop in London who is recruited into a branch that handles magic and the uncanny. I think the main character is very amusing, irreverent, and super smart without seeming pretentious. Also the narrator for the audio version is amazing if you’re into that sort of thing.
Jenny Lawson’s books/memoirs (aka The Bloggess) – Let’s pretend this never happened & Furiously Happy. She’s fantastic and funny.
Adam Savage – Every tool’s a hammer
My husband really enjoyed this one (I haven’t read it yet).
I really enjoy James Rollins & Clive Cussler. They’re both action/adventure-y type writers. Both include story within a story (there’s the present day story that is the majority of the book, but a story-in-the-past that’s included which is relevant to what’s happening in the present. For Rollins, his Sigma series is quite enjoyable – PhD military/government people saving the country/world/humanity. Rollins also has the Sanguine series that he wrote with Rebecca Cantrell and that was enjoyable in general, but also because I grew up Catholic so I really enjoyed their twist on it. Clive Cussler also does the past story that relates to the present story to give background to whatever is spurring the present story focus. I didn’t enjoy his Isaac Bell books as much as Dirk Pitt, Oregon Files, and Numa Files. The Dirk Pitt books all have some kind of super cool historical car(s) that play large roles in each book.
Edward Willett Worldshapers series – Only 2 books in the series so far (3rd releases later this year I believe). His Big Idea post explains it better (and reading it was what sold me on buying the book): https://whatever.scalzi.com/2018/09/18/the-big-idea-edward-willett-3/
Mary Robinette Kowal – The Lady Astronaut series.
This thread is so fun.
Coming to say that my favorite Barabara Kingsolver (maybe my favorite book, though like children, I truly can’t choose) is Animal Dreams. And, I second Barbara Pym, Dorothy Sayers, and Margaret Atwood. How about Marge Piercy? My favorites of hers are He, She, and It and Sex Wars and another that unfortunately is WW2. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Toto-Chan by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. Possession by AS Byatt. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Also, many memoirs including Song in a Weary Throat and Proud Shoes by Pauli Murray and The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway.
YES Possession by AS Byatt!
Georgette Heyer. GEORGETTE HEYER. Her mysteries are cozy. Her regency romances could have been written by Austen. Start with Venetia. So delicious.
I have spent my somewhat long life NOT reading romance novels (lots of mysteries and fantasy/sci.fi.).
But a friend of mine convinced me to read “Frederica” and I laughed and laughed. So, if you think you don’t like this kind of thing you might try a Georgette Heyer, maybe after you can borrow again.
“A Gentleman in Moscow” has already been mentioned, but I want to amplify the message. Among other things, it has a VERY SATISFYING ENDING. I bought it after I read it.
Also, I didn’t see a mention of “The Weight of Ink” by Rachel Kadish. It involves, among other things, a contemporary woman scholar studying recently discovered 17th century letters and memoirs.
I read it on Kindle but I am going to buy a hard copy so I can turn to my favorite parts more easily.
Long time listener, first time commenter – but books this summer have been my thing, as my children have finally reached the stage of life where a little benign neglect will literally not kill them. I enjoy a bit more tragedy in my novels, but I also appreciate an uplifting ending. Here are some suggestions:
The Water Dancer, TaNahesi Coates – this was such a beautiful novel, well plotted, mystical but yet it was rooted in realism (the subject is slavery, so it isn’t always easy to read, but it was a really beautiful book)
One Day, Gene Weingarten – the story of a randomly chosen day, all over the US – a tinge of the “White Male Reporter” gaze, but I’m nosy so I loved taking a peek into the lives of so many people
Women Talking, Miriam Toews – yeah, I don’t mind reading about upsetting things, so do be warned that there are … upsetting things; however, it was one of the most interesting books I’ve read this year
I Miss You When I Blink, Mary Laura Philpott – a collection of essays that is sort of like spending an hour or so with a philosophically bent, funny friend.
The Stationery Shop, Marjan Kamali – charming, reminded me a bit of “The Notebook”
Fleishman is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner – A really interesting way to deconstruct a marriage, and a woman, and how we tell stories.
Life After Life, Kate Atkinson – I’ve read a number of her books, and love most of them, but this remains my favorite.
The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry – Historical fiction (more Victorian, not WWII), not a mystery, not a love story, not a tragedy, but something like the inverse of all of those
Daisy Jones and the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid – Behind the Music, interview style novel about a fictional band that felt real.
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones – there’s some true injustice, a love triangle, and some great writing.
I liked Life After Life! I’ve seen there’s a sort-of sequel, and I want to read it, but it makes me feel like I need to re-read Life After Life first, so I keep getting stuck on that.
I read the sequel after some time had passed, and don’t remember feeling like I needed to re-read, but I DO remember feeling maybe a tad bit let down. That might be just a Super Great Book / Very Good to Read discrepancy.
I agree with this assessment!
I recently loved A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier; any of hers are great, really; of course Girl w/a Pearl Earring but also Remarkable Creatures, and The Lady and the Unicorn. Falling Angels is also good but takes place in and around a cemetery which may or may not be good right now (I can’t remember who died, it’s been a long time).
What a great thread! I love my library but I also love to have re-reads in the house. Elizabeth Strout is awesome, also I love all of Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.
Non-fiction: An eye opener for me was “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Perez. It’s subtitle says “exposing data bias in a world designed for men”. Really good.
We have many of the same likes and dislikes, although I do read romance and YA. But I swore off the Oprah book club books years ago because I just could not take one more grim, sad story. Here are some books that I think might fit your list:
1. Since you liked The Rook, The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.
2. Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories — someone else mentioned these above and I was already coming here to recommend them.
3. I just started this one yesterday so I can’t promise that I’ll like the whole book, but This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is one I’m really enjoying.
4. I like Deanna Raybourn a lot. Her current series is the Veronica Speedwell mysteries.
5. Non-fiction: Have you read Bad Blood about the Theranos story? It reads like a thriller, but it is all true!
I have two recomendations that are not *necessarily* in line with what you suggest – but on the other hand they’re both beautifully, clearly written (I like journalistic, straightforward prose) and they’re very accessible but not at all trashy. Both are thematically quite similar, they kind of tell the life story of the central characters. One is Any Human Heart, by William Boyd, and the other is Versions of Us, by Laura Barnett.
Oh and I almost forgot my other FAVOURITE BOOK OF ALL TIME – I see you’ve already read some Kate Atkinson. Behind the Scenes at the Museum is one I’ve read and re-read dozens of times and I never find it less funny or less moving.
You mentioned several of my favorite authors (Anne Patchett! David Sedaris!), so I think you’d enjoy maybe my favorite author ever – Isabel Allende. Her most well known is probably House of the Spirits, but I really love her more recent stuff, too. I just read The Japanese Lover (which does have a little bit of WWII Japanese Internment camp stuff in it, but is not a WWII book), and I enjoyed it so much.
I read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite after my library ebook app recommended it and it was so funny and dark and not a thing I thought I would have liked but I really did.
I’ve recently learned about https://www.thriftbooks.com/ and it feels like a great compromise between library books and buying new books (especially from that large company that I always feel bad about buying from, but they have everything!). The last book I bought from them had been a library book in a previous life and I just like owning a book that FEELS like a library book.
My Sister, the Serial Killer was not one I would have chosen, but it was recommended somewhere, and it was so unexpected and funny!
Try this essay- https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/16/the-crane-wife/
And if it sticks with. You like it did me she wrote the book I enjoyed/ stuck with me most this year- family of origin by cj hauser
Reading all these recommendations provides further reassurance that Swistle readers are My People. Yes, that one! That one too! Yes, but that’s not how I’d describe it, but also yes!
A couple more:
Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion (some sad things but I think the resolution is sufficient offset)
Bernardine Evaristo, Girl Woman Other
Super fluffy, but I liked it anyway: The Summer Island, Lauren Willig
Thrillers where the protagonist doesn’t do idiotic things that create needless suspense: Ruth Ware
Not one single Life of Pi comment? Here it is. Life of Pi. It’s my go to book. Rereading Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks as well because plague fiction is all the rage now. In that vein, Paul Tremblay’s new Survivor Song will haunt you but it is enthralling. But to purchase a book? For keeps? We bought my daughter the Harry Potters last month because “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
If you like Jane Austen then you will love “Middlemarch” by George Eliot. It’s ridiculously long but it never gets boring. Wonderful character development and many plot twists and turns.
Two memoirs I recommend are The Girl Behind the Door by John Brooks and Inheritance by Dani Shapiro. There really hasn’t been anything quite like it, and it will probably be made into a film. The Brooks were very influential in getting the Golden Gate Bridge to install the barrier. Here is John’s blog: https://parentingandattachment.com I also suggest Cracked, Not Broken by Kevin Hines. Kevin actually survived jumping from the bridge. Inheritance has also been optioned for a film.
In Small Fry by Lisa Jobs, Lisa goes deep into her complicated relationship with her dad, mom, and stepmom.
In More Than Love, Natasha Gregson Wagner reveals the complex relationship with mom Natalie Wood before and after her death.
The Life of John F.Kennedy, Jr. by his friend Steven Gillon.
What Remains by Carole Radziwill
The Matchbaker by my friend Jerrica Knight Catania
Oh, oh, Mrs Pollifax, yes. My all time favorites, I reread them a lot!
Love, love these comments. I have been doing the e-book library option for a while now. Love my Kindle…and I buy books or get them for free as well. But the Libby online library is the best thing ever. I just went through some of these recommendations and either checked them out or put them on hold. I live two blocks from the library and they have just recently opened up again, but without browsing (although I think they allow a little more of that). I use the library to walk the shelves or look at new books so the “no browsing” was difficult.
Recommendations? Most of mine have been stated already, but I love Maeve Binchey, Rosamund Pilcher (not the same at all), Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, and the Agatha Raisin series (to name a few).
The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins
Slightly South of Simple by Kristy Woodson Harvey
Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
Homecomings by Marcia Willett
The Bookish life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
Something Missing by Matthew Dicks
Given you like The Department of Speculation you might like Weather by Jenny Offill. It’s about a librarian and reminded me a lot of you!
Plain Song by Kent Haruf and its two sequels – Eventide and Benediction. There are a few bad/sad things that happen, but the good people doing good things outweigh it. They are uplifting. They soothe my soul. And they are well-written and really capture the feel of a rural town in the West.
In a kind of similar style as Plain Song though a little bit darker/not as hopeful about humanity: Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore. But I still liked it very much.
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Random, but “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea” was fascinating. Reads more like fiction/memoir. I wanted to learn more about North Korea and it was perfect for that.
Do you like Jane Eyre? I just finished Wide Sargasso Sea, which is a retelling from the point of view of the crazy wife in the attic, and I thought it was lush, beautiful, amazing.
Do you like short stories? Alice Munro is one of my favorite authors. Everything she has written is amazing…
…and I also love the short stories of Ursula K. LeGuin. I like the collection The Unreal and The Real. Her stories make me really think about different realities and then I bug people to discuss them with me. They would be great for your adult sons to read too and make them discuss them with you!
Ok, rereading your preferences, you maybe wouldn’t like Ursula K. LeGuin because her short stories are very much in the figuring out a new/alien society from context sort. And one of her most famous stories (very short, can read it full text online) has something bad happening to a child but not in a terribly graphic way. “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas” – you can search it and read it online. But I don’t think it is representative of all of her stories.
Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series Strong Female lead, werewolves and vampires, but not scary. Steampunk-ish. Lots of british style humor. I also third? the Jodi Taylor St. Mary’s series. Also, I didn’t read all the comments, but The Rook has a second book in it’s series. It was pretty decent too. Oh and T E Kinsey has a Lady Hardcastle series and I absolutely love the banter between the two main characters. They are a Lady and her maid who are also former spies that settle down in the English countryside and solve small town mysteries.
Swistle, you need to listen to the What Should I Read Next podcast! It is a delight and Anne Bogle sounds so lovely. Your taste in books dovetails quite nicely with her taste in books and that of her guests. Like, I don’t really read the same as you or most of them but I still love to listen to it and I recognize a lot of your titles and authors from that podcast. Here’s some titles I’ve added to my “to read” list just based on listening to strangers talk about them on it:
The Passage – Justin Cronin
Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker
The Expats – Chris Pavone
The Mysterious Benedict Society – Trenton Lee Stewart
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride (audio book because it’s read by Cary Elwes)
West with the Night – Bery Markham
And here is a left field personal recommendation: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. It is straight up science fiction, but it is funny and compelling (I think) and also very short so even if you hate it it will be over quite fast. There are 5 “diaries” (short novels) and I got them all from the library but I think I will buy them so that I can have them available whenever I want. And I never re-read books anymore because there’s too much to read.
You can download the Kindle app to your phone or tablet (for free, without owning a physical Kindle) and then download and read samples of books for free. You can often read the first 10% or so. And then you can choose to go buy the book from a less-evil book retailer of your choice, if you are Amazon-averse.
I have never commented! And I know you wrote this a while ago, and I thought it wasn’t worth commenting, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then so I am breaking down and commenting! You did help me name a girl though, on your name blog, although I had two boys haha! (Trying to love an honor name…Jeannette). Maybe the next one will be a girlie : ) Also, we are pandemic kindreds. Anywho! I really think you’d like this book series, the Mary Russell series by Laurie King. It’s fiction, and about a BRILLIANT, strong, independent, young, female apprentice to Sherlock Holmes. She’s my best friend. The series begins with him (Holmes) in retirement in his home in Sussex and unhappy. She literally stumbles upon him while out on a walk herself (she has a very interesting backstory). He is quite impressed by her brains and befriends her and she begins learning from him. She is fairly alone in the world and still young so he means a lot to her. Then they have adventurers (of the spying nature) together; BUT, the best part is the smart smart smart content and dialogue AND their relationship. I also love how they go to a different country in almost every book and I then learn about a very interesting place and time in each new book. There was one book so far I really didn’t love and it was the one about pirates – but it’s a ways into the series. She also has other series, but I haven’t read those. I am usually suspicious of series books but this series is high quality and so charming! They drink a lot of tea and it’s so lovely! I hope you try them!