100 books like The Someday Birds

Calliope June has Tourette Syndrome and is one of the stars of this dual-POV novel – with Calliope’s chapters told in verse and Jinsong’s in prose.

At times it’s a tough story to read as it doesn’t shy away from Calliope’s struggles and the bullying she experiences at school and at home, but it’s also jam-packed with hope and beauty and small moments that can change a life forever.

I also think this was the first book I read starring and written by someone with Tourette, and it challenged virtually everything I’d ever known about the disability. I read it in an hour several years ago and it still has a firm place in my heart and soul.  

Oh, where to start with this one! I adored this story about a baseball-loving autistic girl.

The voice is so real, and the characterization dismantles so many stereotypes, at the same time as celebrating sport and kids in pursuit of their dreams. I loved how the author allowed us to understand a parent’s concern and worry about their autistic child, but this was balanced perfectly with Vivy’s courage, passion, and determination as she drives the story forward.

It’s smart and fun, endearing and utterly charming. 

Cosima Unfortunate is a remarkable historical mystery packed full of adventure that centers a group of girls, disabled or different in some way, who are sent away, or taken by force, to live and learn in a rather unpleasant school, but who together embark upon a daring heist.

It has all the markings of a future classic, and thankfully is also the start of a series. Though the main character is physically disabled, I’ve chosen this book because some of the supporting characters are neurodivergent and are portrayed accurately and sensitively and play essential roles in the plot. Each girl is feisty and determined, brilliant and brave, and shine when allowed to be themselves.

A boarding school, mysteries, magic, and animals – another classic in the making as far as I’m concerned!

It stars an autistic girl who is reluctantly sent off to boarding school – but the school and her experience that follows is far from what you’d expect. Alice’s autism is portrayed authentically, and we get to climb right inside her mind to share her worries and anxieties and in turn her actions.

Her autism is intrinsic to her character and that’s what makes this book so real. But, for me, the most marvelous aspect of this book is that an autistic character plays the lead in an exciting fantasy any child would be thrilled to read. 

I’ve never read anything remotely like this book.

It’s a painfully difficult but beautifully poetic read about an Irish girl from a miserably dysfunctional family with a difficult, abusive, ranting mother and a disabled older brother. After she is sexually abused by her uncle, the girl allows herself to be used by the boys at school and begins a series of loveless encounters, as if determined to prove how worthless she is. At college, she continues her career of joyless, destructive promiscuity.

The book is steeped in guilt and shame, redeemed only by the depictions of pure love she has for her brother. Like a poem or a lyrical poetry performance, the novel does truly incredible things with language.

Many years ago a young neuroscientist asked to visit me; he had just come to the U.S. from Brazil and was seeking advice on a lab he could join to train in the function of nerve cells in the cerebral cortex. He soon became spectacularly successful, showing that the brain forms different perceptions and controls different movements by overlapping distributions of cortical neurons that constitute an internal reality of the external world.

Building on this knowledge, Nicolellis has led the way in constructing brain-machine interfaces to enable a patient, for example, to learn to walk after suffering a stroke. In doing so, he has come to realize that everything humans experience in our lives is due to the reality constructed by the brain to represent the reality of the external world. As he expresses it, brain reality is the true creator of everything. Some may find this new view disturbing,… show more.

This is an expansive treatment of the intellectual and cultural ramifications of the bilateral mind from ancient times to the present. The dominance of the analytic left hemisphere (the “emissary”), McGilchrist fears, threatens to usurp its experience-grounded “master” – to the detriment of human culture.

While The Master and His Emissary and The Origin of Consciousness cover similar topics, it is interesting and important to note that there are areas where their perspectives complement each other and those where they differ, such as their accounts of schizophrenia. I still find myself vacillating between the two. I sometimes wonder whether my indecision may itself be the result of my own hemispheric split.

This stunning memoir is the author’s recollection of the time between her husband’s diagnosis of a brain tumour that robbed him of language, and his death aged fifty-three. Time runs out for them very quickly. Sometimes the experience of tending to him is stupendously painful and hard (she is a mother of a small child as well as a wife to a dying man). Sometimes it is oddly peaceful. Every so often there are moments of euphoria. Always there is thought, imagination, empathy, care, and love. Above all, love.

The research on the gut-brain axis connection and how what we are eating and drinking contributes to our anxiety is beyond fascinating.

A cookbook and a breakdown of the foods to eat and avoid depending on the mental health concern, this book is one for the ages. When you consider how our foods are contributing to inflammation in the body, and thus an increased stress response, it’s no wonder we feel more anxious. Thankfully, Dr. Naidoo makes astute recommendations on how we can shift the course of our anxiety but changing what we put in our mouths.

I love this book because it explores a new way of understanding human emotions. When you laugh, cry, or scowl with anger, you often assume that the emotions you're feeling are the same as everyone else’s. Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that this is not necessarily the case, according to the new science of emotion.

She clearly describes the research, including her own, that shows that emotions are not hard-wired at birth but are constructed by our brains and our bodies as we go through life. It means that we can be the architects of our emotional lives, and the implications for society are profound. Reading this book has excited me and given me a great deal of hope and optimism about how we can have more agency over our emotional lives.