100 books like Bad to the Bone

By James Waddington,

Here are 100 books that Bad to the Bone fans have personally recommended if you like Bad to the Bone. 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 Rider

Kathleen Jowitt Author Of A Spoke in the Wheel

From my list on cycling novels that put you right in the heart of the action.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a cyclist and a cycling fan. I’ve commuted through the Surrey countryside by tricycle and explored the cycling city of Cambridge by bike. I’ve stood at the side of the road to cheer on the Olympic road race, the Tour de France and the Tour of Britain, and the World Road Cycling Championships. I kept on cycling until I was eight and a half months pregnant and was reading a biography of Beryl Burton when I went into labour. There aren’t a lot of cycling novels out there, but I’m proud of having added one to that small number.

Kathleen's book list on cycling novels that put you right in the heart of the action

Kathleen Jowitt Why did Kathleen love this book?

It takes a certain kind of person to succeed in the sport of cycling, and The Rider is possibly the closest I’ll ever get to understanding that mindset. This book tops every list of recommendations of cycling novels that I’ve ever seen and with good reason.

Told in the first person, it’s completely immersive. We follow the narrator through a single day’s race, and we feel all of it as he does: the slog, the suffering, the drive to win. I might have wondered why he kept going, but the simple act of reading the book answers that question: you can’t stop. I barely drew breath.

By Tim Krabbé,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

At the start of the 137-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, Tim Krabbe glances up from his bike to assess the crowd of spectators. 'Non-racers,' he writes. 'The emptiness of those lives shocks me.' Immediate and gripping from the first page, we race with the author as he struggles up the hills and clings on during descents in the unforgiving French mountains.

Originally published in 1978, The Rider is a modern-day classic that is recognised as one of the best books ever written about the sport. Brilliantly conceived and best read at a break-neck pace, it is a loving, imaginative and…


Book cover of The Third Policeman

Crawford Smith Author Of Laughingstock

From my list on hilarious high weirdness.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved to read and laugh, and the weirder the humor, the better. It’s a strange and turbulent world out there, and sometimes, it seems like you have to laugh for crying. Fortunately, there are plenty of other talented writers and entertainers out there who share this outlook – and not just authors. Many musicians, actors, and comedians can convey this sense of cosmic absurdity, and I’m a huge fan of most of them. These books just skim the surface of the wild worldviews of kindred spirits who are capable of appreciating just how weird our society really is and can lampoon it to hilarious effect.

Crawford's book list on hilarious high weirdness

Crawford Smith Why did Crawford love this book?

This book continues to astound me. Flann O’Brien puts together such a surreal set of circumstances for his unnamed narrator that the book is hard to put down.

O’Brien doesn’t strike me as the Hunter Thompson type; this book made me wonder what they were brewing into the whiskey on the Emerald Isle. The improbability of the narrator’s criminal activity and the law enforcement response often seems like a fever dream, albeit a very entertaining one. Even though I now know the M. Knight Shyamalan twist, I still can re-read this book, thinking, “What’s next? What’s next?”

By Flann O'Brien,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Third Policeman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A masterpiece of black humour from the renown comic and acclaimed author of 'At Swim-Two-Birds' - Flann O'Brien.

A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt, 'The Third Policeman' is comparable only to 'Alice in Wonderland' as an allegory of the absurd.

Distinguished by endless comic invention and its delicate balancing of logic and fantasy, 'The Third Policeman' is unique in the English language.


Book cover of The Velocipede Races

Kathleen Jowitt Author Of A Spoke in the Wheel

From my list on cycling novels that put you right in the heart of the action.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a cyclist and a cycling fan. I’ve commuted through the Surrey countryside by tricycle and explored the cycling city of Cambridge by bike. I’ve stood at the side of the road to cheer on the Olympic road race, the Tour de France and the Tour of Britain, and the World Road Cycling Championships. I kept on cycling until I was eight and a half months pregnant and was reading a biography of Beryl Burton when I went into labour. There aren’t a lot of cycling novels out there, but I’m proud of having added one to that small number.

Kathleen's book list on cycling novels that put you right in the heart of the action

Kathleen Jowitt Why did Kathleen love this book?

For me, cycling has meant freedom. This book celebrates the bicycle as a tool for women’s emancipation. Microcosm Publishing has a strong track record (pun intended) in celebrating feminism, cycling, and the intersection of the two, and this is a particularly good example.

Set in a universe that seems to be just a jump away from our own, about a century and a half ago, it’s insightful on matters of class and wealth, too. I particularly enjoyed all the little details of fashion. I found myself rooting hard for the heroine in her struggle to ride a bike, not just competitively, but at all. And I was charmed by a love story I wasn’t expecting.

By Emily June Street,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Velocipede Races as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

Emmeline Escot knows that she was born to ride in Seren’s cutthroat velocipede races. The only problem: She’s female in a world where women lead tightly laced lives. Emmeline watches her twin brother gain success as a professional racing jockey while her own life grows increasingly narrow. Ever more stifled by rules, corsets, and her upcoming marriage of convenience to a brusque stranger, Emmy rebels—with stunning consequences. Can her dream to race survive scandal, scrutiny, and heartbreak?


Book cover of The Wheels of Chance

Kathleen Jowitt Author Of A Spoke in the Wheel

From my list on cycling novels that put you right in the heart of the action.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a cyclist and a cycling fan. I’ve commuted through the Surrey countryside by tricycle and explored the cycling city of Cambridge by bike. I’ve stood at the side of the road to cheer on the Olympic road race, the Tour de France and the Tour of Britain, and the World Road Cycling Championships. I kept on cycling until I was eight and a half months pregnant and was reading a biography of Beryl Burton when I went into labour. There aren’t a lot of cycling novels out there, but I’m proud of having added one to that small number.

Kathleen's book list on cycling novels that put you right in the heart of the action

Kathleen Jowitt Why did Kathleen love this book?

I thought I’d finish this list with something more directly relevant to me and the millions of others who cycle just for pleasure and transport.

This charming book, in which a young man takes a holiday from his tedious job and encounters an equally liberated young woman, dates from the early days of the bicycle, and for me, it still captures the sense of freedom, of horizons opening up, that I experienced myself when I really got into cycling.

For me, it had an extra layer of enjoyment: I used to live in Surrey, and even at over a century’s remove, I could recognise some of the towns and landscapes the protagonists travel through. I really enjoyed the journey!

By H G Wells,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Complete and unabridged edition.

The Wheels of Chance was written at the height of the cycling craze (1890–1905), when practical, comfortable bicycles first became widely and cheaply available and before the rise of the automobile (see History of the bicycle). The advent of the bicycle stirred sudden and profound changes in the social life of England. Even the working class could travel substantial distances, quickly and cheaply, and the very idea of travelling for pleasure became a possibility for thousands of people for the first time. This new freedom affected many. It began to weaken the rigid English class structure…


Book cover of The Drunken Boat: Selected Writings

Rosanna Warren Author Of Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters

From my list on France modern art, culture, and political conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a poet, literary critic, translator, and biographer, and I grew up partly in France. I became obsessed with Max Jacob when I was twenty. Max Jacob—mystic, poet, painter, and suffering lover—took hold of me, and I found myself writing poems to him, in his voice, in my sketchbooks. They were among my first published poems: he redirected my life. A few years later I stumbled into writing his biography, never imagining that it would take thirty-five years: it came out from W. W. Norton in 2020, along with my most recent book of poems So Forth. I teach Comparative Literature in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Rosanna's book list on France modern art, culture, and political conflict

Rosanna Warren Why did Rosanna love this book?

Rimbaud is the inescapable, volcanically talented, revolutionary poet of late 19th century France, the boy who had mastered the classical idioms and forms of the art by the time he was fifteen, and by age eighteen was reinventing poetic language both in the prose poems of Illuminations and in visionary irregular lyrics. He stopped writing poetry at age twenty, but the poems he left behind helped to open the door to modern poetry around the world.

By Arthur Rimbaud, Mark Polizzotti (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A new translation of the best and most provocative work by France's infamous rebel poet.

Poet, prodigy, precursor, punk: the short, precocious, uncompromisingly rebellious career of the poet Arthur Rimbaud is one of the legends of modern literature. By the time he was twenty, Rimbaud had written a series of poems that are not only masterpieces in themselves but that forever transformed the idea of what poetry is. Without him, surrealism is inconceivable, and his influence is palpable in artists as diverse as Henry Miller, John Ashbery, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith. In this essential volume, renowned translator Mark Polizzotti…


Book cover of Down Below

Patricia Pearson Author Of A Brief History of Anxiety...Yours and Mine

From my list on memoirs on mental health.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author and journalist who has published eight books and written for The New Yorker and the New York Times, among other publications. I was diagnosed with a Generalized Anxiety Disorder in my twenties. “Anxiety is a shapeshifter; it visits me in unfamiliar guises,” I wrote about the disorder, and that has been indisputably true throughout my life and career.

Patricia's book list on memoirs on mental health

Patricia Pearson Why did Patricia love this book?

This slender, 70-page memoir of a time in which both one woman and the world went mad is a beautifully-rendered portrait of psychosis. Written decades after the episode, Down Below describes the British-Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington’s psychotic break in 1940, the circumstances of which were themselves aptly surreal. As a 19-year-old art student in London, she had fallen in love with the celebrated (and married) artist Max Ernst, and run scandalously away with him to a farmhouse in Provence. After Germany invaded France, the Jewish Ernst was arrested, leaving Carrington so intensely abandoned and shocked by unfolding history that she vomited repeatedly.

She began to unravel as she wandered her way out of France, eventually entering Madrid, which she perceived “as the world’s stomach, and that I had been chosen for the task of restoring this digestive organ to health. I believed that all anguish had accumulated in me…

By Leonora Carrington,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A stunning work of memoir and an unforgettable depiction of the brilliance and madness by one of Surrealism's most compelling figures

In 1937 Leonora Carrington—later to become one of the twentieth century’s great painters of the weird, the alarming, and the wild—was a nineteen-year-old art student in London, beautiful and unapologetically rebellious. At a dinner party, she met the artist Max Ernst. The two fell in love and soon departed to live and paint together in a farmhouse in Provence. 

In 1940, the invading German army arrested Ernst and sent him to a concentration camp. Carrington suffered a psychotic break.…


Book cover of Cat. Freya North

Barbara Elsborg Author Of Strangers

From my list on romance books to make you smile.

Why am I passionate about this?

I read lots of different genres, but my greatest passion in both writing and reading is romance. Though I am picky! I need humour in the stories. They don’t have to be funny on every page but I do like to smile occasionally when I’m reading. The ability to weave a plot, create interesting characters, and include humour is something I admire greatly. Even in the thrillers and suspense novels I read, it’s those touches of humour that bring the story to life for me. In the 50+ books I’ve written, none are without that spark of fun. Throw in a happy ever after – and you have a perfect romance, guaranteed to brighten the darkest of days. 

Barbara's book list on romance books to make you smile

Barbara Elsborg Why did Barbara love this book?

A romantic romp set in the Tour de France. I quite fancied writing a book about the Tour myself but I don’t think this book can be bettered. Cat, the heroine, is part of a male press corps and has to fight not only for space but for her stories. I learnt a lot about this cycling race from this book and I like the fact that Freya North has books linked through families. 

By Freya North,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

She's in for the ride of her life.

Her career is stuck in a rut.

Her love life has been a tangle.

But fortune favours the brave...

When journalist Cat McCabe lands a job reporting on the Tour de France she's confident it might give her stuttering career the boost it needs and provide a welcome distraction from a messy break-up. Or so she hopes.

She quickly realizes Le Tour is not just all about the bikes. Large bulges, huge egos, lashings of Lycra and plenty of sexy shenanigans play their part and, soon enough, her own life starts to…


Book cover of The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World

Matt Durand Author Of White Space: Short Fictions

From my list on blending science fiction, horror, and surrealism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a lifelong lover of short fiction, novels, and comic books since I can remember. Ideas were always king, leading me to a career in the creative arts as a graphic designer with years of experience in the world of advertising. Much of the core of what I did for advertising—crafting brief tales to engage with an audience in a creative/unique way—translated over well to when I began writing my own short stories. And all of the book recommendations here directly inspired me to write White Space.

Matt's book list on blending science fiction, horror, and surrealism

Matt Durand Why did Matt love this book?

Post-apocalypse and gritty science fiction doesn’t get any better than this collection. Harlan Ellison writes in a rough and unflinching style that, to me, was like watching a classic 80s action/sci-fi movie. And the novella in this book, A Boy and His Dog, is another favorite of mine. It’s bloody and raw and felt ahead of its time for its prose and structure. After reading it, I saw this was published over fifty years ago, yet it still resonated as something fresh and new.

Book cover of Promenade

Mónica Armiño Author Of A Wolf Called Wander

From my list on pictures that you will enjoy more as an adult.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a professional illustrator for 20 years. In all this time I have gathered a vast collection of picture books, animated movie artbooks, children's books... I use them as a source of inspiration for my work, but I really collect them because they are my treasure. I don't just look for books with beautiful illustrations, but that really give me something, that make me think, or that stay in my memory. They are timeless books, that are not aimed at any age, that anyone can enjoy, but that at the same time have deep meaning if you know how to look at them. Not all picture books are just for kids.

Mónica's book list on pictures that you will enjoy more as an adult

Mónica Armiño Why did Mónica love this book?

Promenade is a gift for anyone who, like me, loves books. What I like most is the concept itself: a tribute to books, to what they make us feel. They can be the vehicle of a great journey, a refuge, or the door to a new world. The dreamlike and surreal illustrations are so evocative that they do not need accompanying text. Another concept that seems very interesting to me is that, in addition to presenting the book as a magical object, it also makes it an object of great value: it is a large-format book, with a very careful edition and a print that extols the beautiful illustrations. These are details that I love because they make it a perfect book gift. 

By Jungho Lee,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Magritte

Mike Russell Author Of Magic: a novel

From my list on questioning the nature of reality and fun to read.

Why am I passionate about this?

Hello. My name is Mike Russell. I write books (novels, short story collections, and novellas) and make visual art (mostly paintings, occasionally sculptures). I love art and books that are surreal and magical because that is the way life seems to me, and I love art and books that are mind-expanding because we need to expand our minds to perceive just how surreal and magical life is. My books have been described as strange fiction, weird fiction, surrealism, magic realism, fantasy fiction… but I just like to call them Strange Books.

Mike's book list on questioning the nature of reality and fun to read

Mike Russell Why did Mike love this book?

My first introduction to the surreal in art was Monty Python’s Flying Circus. My first introduction to the art movement of surrealism was seeing Max Ernst’s "Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale". I was astounded that you were allowed to do that. Then I discovered Magritte (and later Escher) and saw that the anarchy of surrealism could be put to the most profound use, that of exploring life beyond the material. Magritte uses conventional representation to undermine that very convention and puncture so-called reality in a way that is a joy to look at. This is a decent book on his life and work. Magritte reminds us things are not what they seem… and that’s a good thing.

By Suzi Gablik,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A study of Rene Magritte's basic philosophy and art, and particularly the development of his Surrealist style.


Book cover of The Rider
Book cover of The Third Policeman
Book cover of The Velocipede Races

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