Here are 92 books that Anomaly Flats fans have personally recommended if you like
Anomaly Flats.
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I’ve been captivated by interesting people since I was a kid. Family
members always thought I asked too many questions of people, trying to
learn more about who they are. For that reason, when I started reading
fiction, I looked for characters with originality who opened new
horizons and who I wanted to hang out with. (That’s also why I host the
Novelist Spotlight podcast.) I agree 100 percent with novelist Larry
McMurtry, who said: “For me, the novel is character creation. Unless the
characters convince and live, the book’s got no chance.” The books I
placed on my list reflect this belief. I hope you dig them.
One of the most comedic books I’ve ever read. Actually, I listened to the audiobook, which is expertly read by the author, the late great Douglas Adams.
Between his British accent and speedy and offhanded reading style, Adams whistles listeners through this book. I hit “pause” or “rewind” many times to laugh or to re-listen to his cavalcade of hysterical situations and dialogue. Dirk Gently is truly an original character. Otherworldly and somewhat metaphysical, this is one of my all-time favorite novels. The audacity of Douglas Adams. I love it.
From Douglas Adams, the legendary author of one of the most beloved science fiction novels of all time, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, comes a wildly inventive novel of ghosts, time travel, and one detective’s mission to save humanity from extinction.
DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY We solve the whole crime We find the whole person Phone today for the whole solution to your problem (Missing cats and messy divorces a specialty)
Douglas Adams, the “master of wacky words and even wackier tales” (Entertainment Weekly) once again boggles the mind with a completely unbelievable story of ghosts, time travel,…
In my teenage years, it was sci-fi (and later fantasy) comedies that made me fall in love with reading. There was just something about exploring worlds where anything could happen mixed with the joy of laughter that kept drawing me back in. Naturally, in the many...many...years that followed, I've read countless novels from a wide variety of genres, but sci-fi comedy will always hold a special place in my heart.
Is it even a list of sci-fi books if you don’t include a story with a rogue artificial intelligence? Sure, it’s not necessarily the funniestpremise, but when you throw in the fact that the A.I. in question has the mind of a six-year-old, the heroes trying to catch him are essentially his daycare providers, and the author is Scott Meyer, creator of the webcomic Basic Instructions and the Magic 2.0 series, and you’re sure to have a good time.
From the author of the popular Magic 2.0 series comes the witty tale of a mischievous A.I. gone rogue.
Al, a well-meaning but impish artificial intelligence, has the mind of a six-year-old and a penchant for tantrums. And the first one to discover just how much trouble Al could cause is Hope Takeda, the lab assistant in charge of educating and socializing him. Day care is a lot more difficult when your kid is an evolving and easily frightened A.I.
When Al manages to access the Internet and escape the lab days before his official unveiling, Hope and her team…
In my teenage years, it was sci-fi (and later fantasy) comedies that made me fall in love with reading. There was just something about exploring worlds where anything could happen mixed with the joy of laughter that kept drawing me back in. Naturally, in the many...many...years that followed, I've read countless novels from a wide variety of genres, but sci-fi comedy will always hold a special place in my heart.
If all my picks so far have been a bit highbrow for you, let’s go in a new direction.Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suitsis the work of Jason Pargin (a.k.a. David Wong), former executive editor of Cracked.com, and that should tell you most of what you need to know about his writing. Sometimes clever and insightful, sometimes crass, dumb, and offensive, this book will please anyone who enjoyed Cracked during its heyday, but prefers science fiction to listicles.
New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin takes readers to a whole new level with his darkly comic sci-fi thriller, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits.
An Alex Award Winner
Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements.
An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move.
Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes.
A young woman from the trailer park.
And her very smelly cat.
Together, they will decide the future of mankind.
Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to…
When I was a child, the thing that plagued me most about my favorite genre, sci-fi, was that none of the protagonists were women! As a daughter to doctors and research scientists, it felt strange that the only female characters in sci-fi were these buxom, mystical healers or seamstresses who meekly repaired their crewmates’ uniforms. While that problem has been remedied over the last two decades of excellence in mainstream sci-fi with some truly unforgettable female heroines, they’re not as plentiful in the niche market of humorous sci-fi. I am thrilled to share this list of my favorite lighthearted, humorous sci-fi reads with female protagonists.
It is so easy to slip into this fun romp of a novel.
Scharlette is a bit of a mess, like most modern women. She doesn’t have her life in order–in fact, what she does have is a boring job and love handles. When she bumps into a time agent named Tomothy, she insists on tagging along for what proves to be a fast-paced, crazy adventure.
For me, the tongue-in-cheek humor is the best part. I adore these novels and am always thrilled to recommend them to someone who’s uninitiated.
Ever since Scharlette’s parents gave her a name no one can pronounce, she’s been stuck in a bit of a rut. She hates her job in airport security, making people take their belts off before they fly to exotic locations she can only dream about. She owns a small apartment with large repayments, drinks bargain bin red on a couch that swallows gym memberships, and misses her little sister – lost to an exploding sandwich press, ten years ago.
Scharlette fears she might live her whole life without doing anything or mattering to anyone. Still, it comes as quite a…
I grew up in Minnesota, and although I have not lived there for most of my adult life, it will always be home for me. I miss the prairie, the lakes, and the wide open skies; I even miss the winters. So I love reading good books set in the Midwest. To me these five books exemplify all that is best about Midwesterners: their honesty, their modesty, their connection to the land; their belief in themselves, and in the interesting and good people in this part of the country. Each of these writers shows that sometimes you can go home again: and that it canbe worth it to do so.
I love the very idea of a whole book devoted to poetic writing about the weather.
Weather in the Midwest tends to be particularly dramatic, and to have a particularly marked influence on daily life. Susan Allen Toth is a wonderful writer; with humor and insight, she leads the reader on a thought-provoking exploration of how weather affects our lives, our memories, and even our character.
Midwesterners love to talk about the weather, approaching the vagaries and challenges of extreme temperatures, deep snow, and oppressive humidity with good-natured complaining, peculiar pride, and communal spirit. Such a temperamental climate can at once terrify and disturb, yet offer unparalleled solace and peace.Leaning into the Wind is a series of ten intimate essays in which Susan Allen Toth, who has spent most of her life in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, reveals the ways in which weather has challenged and changed her perceptions about herself and the world around her. She describes her ever-growing awareness of and appreciation for how…
As a lifetime Midwesterner, I've found that, just as the richness and beauty of our beloved "flyover states" can be overlooked by the rest of the country, there is a powerful collection of Midwestern novels that don't get the attention they deserve. I once read a passage by a New York writer that described a character as being from “some non-descript Midwestern town.” The Midwest is only non-descript if you’re too lazy to describe it. I kind of like that I can keep the Midwest like a secret. But I’ll share these novels with you. Best enjoyed on the coast of a freshwater lake or in your favorite worn-out easy chair.
Toews is a Canadian writer, not Midwestern, but I’m from Michigan and we tend to lump Canada in with us whenever possible. My list, my rules. The book takes place in the adorable town of Algren with heroine Knute and her daughter Summer Feelin’ as well as a cast of other quirky lovable small-town characters. Toews has the ability to write sweet and funny small-town stories without pandering to stereotypical character tropes. Whenever I think of this book, I think of the peaceful feeling it gave me one summer, reading on my porch steps or leaned over my grocery cart in line for checkout, whenever I had two free minutes to read. Toews later fiction is quite a bit darker and she does that well too, but I always love to sink into her earlier works when I want something feel-good.
Winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award
“Tonic for the spirit: a charming, deeply moving, unerringly human story, perfectly shaped and beautifully told.” —The Globe and Mail
Life in Winnipeg didn’t go as planned for Knute and her daughter. But living back in Algren with her parents and working for the longtime mayor, Hosea Funk, has its own challenges: Knute finds herself mixed up with Hosea’s attempts to achieve his dream of meeting the Prime Minister—even if that means keeping the town’s population at an even 1,500. Bringing to life small–town Canada and all its larger–than–life characters,…
I’ve always been fascinated by philosophical ideas, the more radical and counterintuitive the better. But as someone who’s never excelled at abstract thought, I’ve found these ideas’ expression in argumentative nonfiction both dry and unpersuasive, lacking the human context that would alone test the strength of propositions about spirituality, justice, love, education, and more. The novel of ideas brings concepts to life in the particular personalities and concrete experiences of fictional characters—a much more vivid and convincing way to explore the world of thought. Many readers will be familiar with the genre’s classics (Voltaire, Dostoevsky, Mann, Camus), so I’d like to recommend more recent instances I find personally or artistically inspiring.
Cynthia Ozick's 1983 novel is set in a Midwestern academy founded by a Jewish refugee from Nazi-occupied France who wants to offer students a “dual curriculum” combining traditional Jewish religious instruction with the secular liberal arts. Eventually, this principal comes into conflict with a brilliant philosopher who insists that he not judge her under-achieving daughter too quickly when she becomes a student at the school. Ozick’s richly descriptive prose recreates the horrors of 1940s Europe and the placidity of the midcentury American Midwest as she surveys the dangers of American assimilation and anti-intellectualism with all the rigor we'd expect of a novelist who doubles as one of our best essayists. As a teacher myself, I recognize the anxieties of pedagogy Ozick portrays—how do we know when and if we’re doing justice to our students?—and I would recommend it to anyone who teaches at any level.
I was a teen in the midwest in the 1990s, so my debut novel, To the Top of Greenfield Street, really hits home. There’s something so potent about where I grew up, and who I met at that formative age, that doesn’t leave me, no matter how hard I try. Professionally or non, I’ve always written, drawn, and acted on stage, and the theater background ensured every conflict in my book was soaked with in-the-moment urgency and discovery. Most of all, I wanted honesty to come through. Thoughts and decisions were as real as possible, and characters breathed with laughter and tears along the way.
First off, I love the classics, and Steinbeck was a master. I recommend this book because it makes an appearance in my book. Tortilla was an inspiration. I loved the way Steinbeck casually described the average goings-on, for an average day, with average people. Sometimes novels don’t need to be bursting with conflict. And Steinbeck was a setting pro, I saw his little town and felt it. Vignettes were relatable individually and as one whole tale. Tragedy, comedy, and humor were all there, and totally accessible in one of Steinbeck’s less serious endeavors.
Steinbeck's first major critical and commercial success, TORTILLA FLAT is also his funniest novel. Danny is a paisano, descended from the original Spanish settlers who arrived in Monterey, California, centuries before. He values friendship abovemoney and possessions, so that when he suddently inherits two houses, Danny is quick to offer shelter to his fellow gentlemen of the road. Their love of freedom and scorn for material things draw them into daring and often hilarious adventures. Until Danny, tiring of his new reponsibilities, suddenly disappears...
Growing up as a kid, I was obsessed with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumpsbooks, most of which took place in small-town settings. Horror could hide anywhere in those towns, whether out in the woods or on the shelf at the local general store. I loved those books to death because they taught me (or perhaps reminded me) that darkness existed within daily life. As I grew older, my passion for the subgenre led me to consume more stories and eventually write my own.
This Stoker Award-winner nearly caused me to miss a connecting flight to Los Angeles. I started reading it in an airport restaurant and got completely swept away until the final boarding call. In Covenant, a big-city journalist visits a small Midwest town to investigate a series of mysterious suicides. What unfolds is a gripping supernatural tale filled with mysterious characters, riveting conflict, and unthinkable twists.
In a small town with a strange history of teen suicides, a group of five women have made a pact with a demon and must sacrifice their firstborn.
To the residents of the sleepy coastal town of Terrel, the cliffs of Terrel's Peak are a deadly place, an evil place where terrible things happen. Like a series of mysterious teen suicides over the years, all on the same date. Or other deaths, usually reported as accidents. Could it be a coincidence? Or is there more to it? Reporter Joe Kieran is determined to find the truth.
I grew up in Minnesota, and although I have not lived there for most of my adult life, it will always be home for me. I miss the prairie, the lakes, and the wide open skies; I even miss the winters. So I love reading good books set in the Midwest. To me these five books exemplify all that is best about Midwesterners: their honesty, their modesty, their connection to the land; their belief in themselves, and in the interesting and good people in this part of the country. Each of these writers shows that sometimes you can go home again: and that it canbe worth it to do so.
Ian Frazier’s exploration of his own family’s history takes the reader on a fascinating deep (and broad) dive into American history.
What begins as a chance discovery of letters written between his parents as a young couple leads him inexorably back into the far-reaching branches of his family tree, and a unique perspective on American life from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.
David McCullough called this book a ”remarkable history of an unremarkable family.” The author’s keen curiosity, masterful storytelling, and elegant prose kept me spellbound. I read this book when it first came out, and it was one of those books that for a while I couldn’t stop telling everyone to read.
I’ve never forgotten it, and now I think I’m about to read it again.
Family tells the story of Ian Frazier's family in America from the early colonial days to the present. Using letters and other family documents, he reconstructs two hundred years of middle class life, visiting small towns his ancestors lived in, reading books they read, and discovering the larger forces of history that affected them.
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