100 books like Going Postal

This book made me see life on Earth in a new way.

Fungi live mostly underground, much less visible than plants or animals. When Merlin Sheldrake started studying fungi at Cambridge, he did this in the Department of Plant Sciences. There is no Department of Fungi Sciences, which helps explain why scientists know so little about them and why society keeps regarding them as less important than plants or animals.

Merlin explains fungi are closer to animals than plants. They are crucial, fascinating, and intelligent beyond ways Western man has words for. He uses language in a sensitive and creative new way to describe and visualize the fungi world. This book is not for fungi lovers (I’m not one); it is for anyone who wants to expand his view of life.

Here is yet another book where at first it seems as though there are no heroes.

Abercrombie writes a masterful world filled with magic, politics, swordfights, and bleak attitudes. One of the main POV characters is a torturer—I mean a full-on break your toes and laugh about it torturer—but even still, I found myself wanting more of his story. He’s certainly not a hero, but he was at one point, and that’s even more intriguing.

The characters drive this fantasy series, but the world is also a gorgeous setting that Abercrombie clearly spent many long nights thinking through. Every detail feels like it matters, and throughout this trilogy, the smallest specks of plot come back to matter.

On top of it all, I loved the audiobook narrator and his particular performances for each character brought the world to life.

I find the combination of mystery and fantasy in the Harry Dresden books irresistible, and Storm Front is certainly no exception. A typical detective has to watch out for the as-yet-undiscovered killer. Harry has to watch out for the killer—as well as the White Council, the organization of wizards that is profoundly suspicious of him and more than ready to execute him if he takes one step out of line. And then there are various supernatural creatures who want either to kill humans or to use them for their own purposes.

Butcher’s imaginative humor is second to none. I have to laugh every time I think about Bob, the skull animated by an air spirit, or Toot-Toot, the wyldfae who serves Harry in exchange for pizza. Butcher seamlessly blends such touches of original humor with pulse-pounding excitement.

Stephen King’s Dark Tower series might be uneven at the end, but the beginning is masterful.

Roland, a dusty old cowboy on the edge of reality, is the prototypical antihero. He doesn’t care much for other people, he’s got a dark past, and I wanted to follow every dusty step of his journey. The broken pieces of Roland are what make The Dark Tower series unique—that and some astral plane travelling shenanigans. With each dark deed or questionable decision, I wanted to know more about Roland and what led him to that point.

It’s difficult to stay grounded in a world with interdimensional travel and monsters, but I always felt like I had one foot planted in humanity through Roland.

I will remain forever astonished at the epic feat of world-building in The Arrival. It thoroughly pulls me into an immersive experience where I am learning along with the main character how to navigate the new world into which he has immigrated. As he learns, we learn. I find myself so emotionally involved with his success in his hopeful new reality. The art is amazingly detailed and conveys the complex and richly visual world, yet also sets a strong emotional tone that brings us into the action.

This is possibly the best known book on my list, yet it took me a long time to discover it.

This is a thriller-style adventure that follows Nathaniel, a young magician’s apprentice on a quest for revenge, who summons Bartimaeus, an all-powerful djinni. Nathaniel (unwittingly) and Bartimaeus (unwillingly) get caught up in a tangled plot of magic-fueled mayhem in which they have to work together to survive.

Bartimaeus’ sarcastic observations and side tangents add an element of humor that keep it from staying dark and somber, while also highlighting the underlying threads of slavery and social injustice in this fantasy world.

Jude Duarte, a human girl living in Faerie, is a cold-hearted ball of ambitious rage. Never have I rooted for a character so much.

Although picking fights with the clever and cruel Fair Folk is not pragmatic – on the surface – when the choice is between waiting for a random death on a bully’s whim or fighting back with every weapon at her disposal, Jude will always fight. I may have cheered out loud when she stabbed an enemy who broke into her bedroom and then stuffed his body under her bed until she could bury him. She does what she has to do to survive–and, in the end, to make Faerie a (slightly) better place.

Holly Black’s writing is so poetic, so smart, so sharp, like a honed fairy blade. She is a master.

The whole storyline is unique.

It’s not a typical paranormal romance, it’s a vampire book without it. It’s well written, and I love how the author takes the reader on a journey around the world not based in one location.

There is suspense but with a historical factor driving it and that’s what makes it such a unique book.

I definitely recommend this book for the audience who is steering away from the paranormal romance tropes and wants to sit down to read a unique book. 

There are two reasons I picked up this book. Firstly, that title. I’m a happy sucker for oxymorons. Secondly, and embarrassingly, more importantly, someone I really fancied recommended this book to me. And I have no regrets. 

Anyone with a more sensitive constitution is easily offended and can’t find humour in darker subject matters is kindly invited to stay away. This book hilariously tackles the moral quandary of how to deal with someone you -- and the world -- thought dead. Worse still when they are an awful roommate who you desperately want out of your house.

Being someone who often ponders life's "what ifs," I was quick to snap this novel up. The plot revolves around a suicidal woman, Nora Seed, who finds herself in a mysterious library between life and death, where each book serves as a portal to a different version of her life had she made alternative choices.

Though the story shares thematic elements with traditional time travel narratives—such as the exploration of alternate realities—it’s not time travel in the strictest sense. Instead, it has a dreamlike quality that offers a clever means to explore the deeply personal and relatable concept of self-discovery.

As Nora samples all the different lives she could’ve lived, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own life choices and the paths I didn't take…and be grateful for the ones I did.