Love Atomised? Readers share 82 books like Atomised...

By Michel Houellebecq, Frank Wynne (translator),

Here are 82 books that Atomised fans have personally recommended if you like Atomised. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Mid-Life

Sam Carr Author Of All the Lonely People: Conversations on Loneliness

From my list on the psychological challenges of being human.

Why am I passionate about this?

I guess we all have a "calling." Mine has always been to explore the deeper, darker, less palatable aspects of being human. I’m a bit like a space explorer of the human psyche. I’m lucky in the sense that my day job permits me to research, teach, and better understand things like love, death, and loneliness. I’ve been researching and writing about them for many years now. I always treasure books that help me to shed light on these themes. They are like shiny pebbles or jewels that I pick up and keep in my pocket. I hope you enjoy and learn from some of the treasures in my personal collection!  

Sam's book list on the psychological challenges of being human

Sam Carr Why did Sam love this book?

I love the opening quote in this book. I’ve never, ever forgotten it since I turned the first page. It’s a quote from Dante’s Inferno: “Midway through life’s journey, I found myself lost in a dark wood, having lost the way.”

That’s exactly where I found myself when I started reading this book. Like millions of other people, I was lost when I found it. I was looking for someone or something–wiser than meto help me recognize that what I was going through in early midlife is actually a very normal, perhaps essential part of life’s journey.

By James Hollis,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Middle Passage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Author James Hollis' eloquent reading provides the listener with an accessible and yet profound understanding of a universal condition - or what is commonly referred to as the mid-life crisis. The book shows how we may travel this Middle Passage consciously, thereby rendering our lives more meaningful and the second half of life immeasurably richer.


Book cover of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

John S. Tregoning Author Of Live Forever?

From my list on ageing well and living a meaningful life.

Why am I passionate about this?

On reaching my late 40’s, the topic of ageing and dying raised its head with a clarion call. This wake up call led me to draw upon my 25 years’ experience as a scientist to research why we age, how we die, and what (if anything) we can do about it all. I also looked beyond the physical into the social and emotional aspects. These book recommendations reflect my journey to understanding that a life well lived is about doing things you like with people you love, rather than swallowing vitamin pills.

John's book list on ageing well and living a meaningful life

John S. Tregoning Why did John love this book?

This book completely changed the way I thought about aging and death. I listened to this book whilst walking along the Cornish Coastal Path in January. I was in the process of writing my own book about aging and had been focusing on biology but not humanity.

The warmth of the writing, the emotional journey that Gawande undergoes, the brilliant advice, and the wisdom from an expert all combine to make a wonderful life (and death) changing book.

By Atul Gawande,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Being Mortal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

'GAWANDE'S MOST POWERFUL, AND MOVING, BOOK' MALCOLM GLADWELL

'BEING MORTAL IS NOT ONLY WISE AND DEEPLY MOVING; IT IS AN ESSENTIAL AND INSIGHTFUL BOOK FOR OUR TIMES' OLIVER SACKS

For most of human history, death was a common, ever-present possibility. It didn't matter whether you were five or fifty - every day was a roll of the dice. But now, as medical advances push the boundaries of survival further each year, we have become increasingly detached from the reality of being mortal. So here is a book about the modern experience of mortality - about what it's…


Book cover of Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing - Recovering from Lost Love and Mourning

Sam Carr Author Of All the Lonely People: Conversations on Loneliness

From my list on the psychological challenges of being human.

Why am I passionate about this?

I guess we all have a "calling." Mine has always been to explore the deeper, darker, less palatable aspects of being human. I’m a bit like a space explorer of the human psyche. I’m lucky in the sense that my day job permits me to research, teach, and better understand things like love, death, and loneliness. I’ve been researching and writing about them for many years now. I always treasure books that help me to shed light on these themes. They are like shiny pebbles or jewels that I pick up and keep in my pocket. I hope you enjoy and learn from some of the treasures in my personal collection!  

Sam's book list on the psychological challenges of being human

Sam Carr Why did Sam love this book?

I think I read this book when I was heartbroken. I imagine that’s why most people would initially gravitate to it.

Heartbreak is something we are all likely to experience at least once in a lifetime. I remember how sick I was of being told by other people that they "understood" how I felt and that they’d "been there too." Ginette Paris didn’t do that. In fact, I remember how she stated that nobody really knows what YOU feel like when you’re heartbroken because nobody has lost exactly what YOU’VE lost. There’s never been a loss exactly like your relationship before because what you lost is in some sense completely unique.

The book is full of revelations about heartbreak that brought me far more comfort than the usual well-meaning platitudes.

By Ginette Paris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Heartbreak as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Look at your broken heart with the curiosity of a naturalist, as you would pay close attention to your pet, to understand what is going on.

The pain of mourning and heartbreak is neurologically similar to being submitted to torture. There seems to be only one way to end that agony and to limit somatic damage; neurobiology calls it an evolutionary jump and psychologists call it an increase in consciousness.

Past theories of grief therapy considered recovery from the point of view of stages: a one-year cycle of mourning was supposed to heal the heart. Not so! A true Liberation…


Book cover of Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays

Sam Carr Author Of All the Lonely People: Conversations on Loneliness

From my list on the psychological challenges of being human.

Why am I passionate about this?

I guess we all have a "calling." Mine has always been to explore the deeper, darker, less palatable aspects of being human. I’m a bit like a space explorer of the human psyche. I’m lucky in the sense that my day job permits me to research, teach, and better understand things like love, death, and loneliness. I’ve been researching and writing about them for many years now. I always treasure books that help me to shed light on these themes. They are like shiny pebbles or jewels that I pick up and keep in my pocket. I hope you enjoy and learn from some of the treasures in my personal collection!  

Sam's book list on the psychological challenges of being human

Sam Carr Why did Sam love this book?

I cried on behalf of all lobsters when I’d finished listening to the main essay, "Consider the Lobster," in this collection.

For me, it was a profound educational and emotional experience that jolted me into a deep sense of empathy for a creature I’d never really considered all that much up to now. 

By David Foster Wallace,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Consider the Lobster as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This celebrated collection of essays from the author of Infinite Jest is "brilliantly entertaining...Consider the Lobster proves once more why Wallace should be regarded as this generation's best comic writer" (Cleveland Plain Dealer). 

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person?

David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000 presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's…


Book cover of The German Mujahid

Diane Lefer Author Of Out of Place

From my list on for recovering erased history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Soon after 9/11, I had dinner with several American scientists worried about how new security measures would affect international collaborations and foreign-born colleagues. Since science rarely if ever comes up in discourse about the War on Terror, that set me off. I’m always drawn to whatever gets overlooked. I was born in one international city – New York – and have lived in another – Los Angeles – for over 20 years. I’ve spent time on four continents and assisted survivors of violent persecution as they seek asylum – which may explain why I feel compelled to include viewpoints from outside the US and fill in the gaps when different cultural perspectives go missing.

Diane's book list on for recovering erased history

Diane Lefer Why did Diane love this book?

For decades, Holocaust denial was widespread in Arab countries. That’s beginning to change, and Sansal’s harrowing novel – inspired in part by a Nazi officer who escaped to Algeria and became a hero in the war for independence aids in writing that history back into consciousness. We gain extraordinary intimacy with two brothers as they contend in different ways with the challenges of North African immigrant life in France, the massacre by the Algerian military that claims the lives of their parents, and the discovery of their father’s horrific past. Sansal was attacked for comparing Islamist fundamentalism to the Holocaust and for visiting Israel, but I think it’s clear his intent is to condemn any ideology based on an unyielding and violent intolerance of difference.   

By Boualem Sansal, Frank Wynne (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The German Mujahid as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“[A] masterly investigation of evil, resistance and guilt, billed as the first Arab novel to confront the Holocaust” from the Nobel Prize–nominated author (Publishers Weekly).

Banned in the author’s native Algeria, this groundbreaking novel is based on a true story and inspired by the work of Primo Levi.

The Schiller brothers, Rachel and Malrich, couldn’t be more dissimilar. They were born in a small village in Algeria to a German father and an Algerian mother and raised by an elderly uncle in one of the toughest ghettos in France. But the similarities end there. Rachel is a model immigrant—hard working,…


Book cover of Bull Rider

Terri Farley Author Of Dark Sunshine

From my list on western books to make your heart race with empathy and adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am uniquely qualified to assemble this list because I gave my heart and head to the fictional and true West in fourth grade. When I learned California history, enraptured by images of wild horses and vaqueros, the cruelty of bear and bullfighting (no one talked then about cruelty to “converted” Native Americans), and the myth of Zorro. I grabbed the chance to move to the cowgirl state of Nevada, where I learned to love the scents of sagebrush and alkali flats. Research for my fiction and non-fiction has given me license to ride in a Pony Express reenactment and 10-day cattle drive and spend all night bottle-feeding an orphan mustang.

Terri's book list on western books to make your heart race with empathy and adventure

Terri Farley Why did Terri love this book?

This ranch-centered book puts a human face on the cost of war.

A best in the West (or at least his small Nevada town) bull rider is physically and mentally torn apart by war. He can’t see the future he envisioned for himself anymore. But the story is really about his younger brother, Cam. I love Cam’s humor most of all, but his devotion to his idolized big brother is what makes this more than a story about a skateboarder turned bull rider.   

This book is about family in an opposite way from The Red Pony it confirms the safety net family can provide. 

By Suzanne Morgan Williams,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bull Rider as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

All it takes is eight seconds . . .

Cam O'Mara, grandson and younger brother of bull-riding champions, is not interested in partaking in the family sport. Cam is a skateboarder, and perfecting his tricks—frontside flips, 360s—means everything until his older brother, Ben, comes home from Iraq, paralyzed from a brain injury. What would make a skateboarder take a different kind of ride? And what would get him on a monstrosity of a bull named Ugly? If Cam can stay on for the requisite eight seconds, could the $15,000 prize bring hope and a future for his big brother?


Book cover of Shotgun Lovesongs

Maggie Ginsberg Author Of Still True

From my list on the essence of small town Wisconsin.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve only ever lived in small Midwestern towns. I grew up there, raised my kids there, recovered from a divorce there, remarried there. I’ve had the same best friends for 40 years. I’ve paid and bartered for my classmates’ trade services. I’ve argued with them in churches and cafes, rooted for and against their kids at high school basketball and football games all over the state. We’ve celebrated and buried each other’s loved ones. I’ve run hundreds of miles of Wisconsin trail, soaked in her waters, marveled at her sunsets. It’s as home to me as my own body, and I’ll never tire of reading about it. 

Maggie's book list on the essence of small town Wisconsin

Maggie Ginsberg Why did Maggie love this book?

Reading Shotgun Lovesongs years ago is my first adult memory of seeing myself on the page—the kind of thing that probably happens more frequently if you’re from New York or L.A. but isn’t as common for those of us born and raised in so-called flyover states.

I fell hard for Nickolas Butler’s debut—the story of four boyhood friends in a small Wisconsin town, one of whom becomes a famous rock star—from the first chapter. While it became an international bestseller for its universally appealing story, hooky concept, and lyrical prose (not to mention its rumored, real-life inspiration),

I personally was drawn to the intimate portrayal of life-long, small-town friendships, the precise push-pull of life in a fishbowl; the loyalty we feel for each other that isn’t always earned; and the way we tether ourselves to people and place, for better or for worse.

By Nickolas Butler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Shotgun Lovesongs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Impressively original." ―The New York Times

"Sparkles in every way. A love letter to the open lonely American heartland…A must-read." ―People

"The kind of book that restores your faith in humanity." ―Toronto Star

Welcome to Little Wing.

It's a place like hundreds of others, but for four boyhood friends―all born and raised in this small Wisconsin town―it is home. One of them never left, still working the family farm, but the others felt the need to move on. One trades commodities, another took to the rodeo circuit. One of them hit it big as a rock star. And…


Book cover of The Little Friend

Robert Gwaltney Author Of The Cicada Tree

From my list on the gothic American South.

Why am I passionate about this?

Raised alongside three feral younger brothers in the rash-inducing, subtropical climate of Cairo, Georgia, I am a lifelong resident of the South. A circumstance, no doubt, leaving an indelible mark on my voice as a writer. At this point in my writing career, I write what I know. As a reader, I enjoy exploring the rich stories woven by Southern authors, capturing other places, people, and experiences beyond my own frame of reference. Ultimately, as a Southerner, I endeavor to reconcile the South’s troubled past of racial and social oppression with the romanticized notion others have of this place I call home.

Robert's book list on the gothic American South

Robert Gwaltney Why did Robert love this book?

This 2002 novel follows young Harriet Cleve Dufresnes in 1970s Mississippi during the aftermath of the death of her nine-year-old brother, who was killed by hanging in the shadow of unexplained circumstances. I am particularly enamored by the novel’s focus on the customs and dynamics of Harriet’s extended Southern family.

Tartt best describes in her own words why I love this novel: It is “a frightening, scary book about children coming into contact with the world of adults frighteningly.”  

By Donna Tartt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Little Friend as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. •  “Destined to become a special kind of classic.” —The New York Times Book Review

The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets…


Book cover of Black Mouth

Tyler Jones Author Of Heavy Oceans

From my list on plots Mulder and Scully should have investigated.

Why am I passionate about this?

As horror writer, I’m often asked what scares me most, and almost every fear I have is, at its core, about the Unknown. Not just what we don’t know but the things we cannot know. In all my books, I’ve tried to lean into that personal fear as much as possible, and with Heavy Oceans, I was inspired by the cases Mulder and Scully investigated back when the idea of a government lying to and spying on its own citizens seemed almost quaint by comparison to the moments we’re living. And, as the show’s title credit often said, in glowing words that blazed over a darkened sky…"The Truth is Out There."

Tyler's book list on plots Mulder and Scully should have investigated

Tyler Jones Why did Tyler love this book?

This book damn near ticked every single box I have when it comes to what I love in a novel. 

A complex and conflicted addict as the main character? Check. Regrets? Check. Deep childhood friendships? Check. An evil magician and a creepy carnival? Check and check.

Black Mouth is dark and intense, and even though it plunges straight into the supernatural, it’s very much grounded in the real world. A world full of pain, heartache, loss, and broken people. 

It also features a character with a disability, and he’s drawn with such love and tenderness that I can’t help but think more novels would benefit from disability representation. The character of Dennis is often seen most clearly in the way others interact with him, revealing much about the kindness or cruelty of the other characters. 

A special book that I didn’t so much read as live inside. 

By Ronald Malfi,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Mouth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A group of friends return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they first stumbled on as teenagers in this mesmerising odyssey of terror.

An atmospheric, haunting page-turner from the bestselling author of Come with Me

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.

Nor can…


Book cover of The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Mid-Life
Book cover of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Book cover of Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing - Recovering from Lost Love and Mourning

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Interested in brothers, Francophiles, and anthropology?

Brothers 114 books
Francophiles 5 books
Anthropology 104 books