Here are 100 books that Beyond the Pale fans have personally recommended if you like
Beyond the Pale.
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I am a fourth-generation Asian New Zealander who always felt ‘other’ growing up. When I was little, I hated being asked ‘where are you from?’ because I wanted to be seen as ‘just’ a New Zealander. This frustration shaped a lot of my race and identity journey, and I started reading books about other people’s personal experiences because it made me feel seen. These books also helped me recognize the richness and humanity behind my family’s story. I hope this beautiful list of books will resonate with your experiences or give you insight into a new corner of the world.
Ocean Vuong writes in a poetic prose that transforms memories into fragments that linger in your mind. His choice to write this book as fictionalized letters to his mother was deeply beautiful and heart-wrenching. This is a book that took me on a journey through the Vietnam War, my first queer experiences, and the journey of finding out what it means to become American.
Longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal in Fiction, the 2019 Aspen Words Literacy Prize, and the PEN/Hemingway Debut Novel Award
Shortlisted for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of the 2019 New England Book Award for Fiction!
Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Oprah.com, Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, Nylon, The Week, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more.
"A lyrical work of self-discovery that's shockingly intimate and insistently…
Now, I’m a journalist who covers prisons—but a decade ago I was in prison myself. I’d landed there on a heroin charge after years of struggling with addiction as I bumbled my way through college. Behind bars, I read voraciously, almost as if making up for all the assignments I’d left half-done during my drug years. As I slowly learned to rebuild and reinvent myself, I also learned about recovery and hope, and the reality of our nation’s carceral system really is. Hopefully, these books might help you learn those things, too.
One thing prisons purposely do not do is teach you anything about the history of prisons. If you want to do that, you’ll have to do it on your own—and Oshinsky is such a great start. His 1996 book details the roots of Parchman prison in Mississippi and draws a line from slavery to convict leasing to modern-day penal farms.
In this sensitively told tale of suffering, brutality, and inhumanity, Worse Than Slavery is an epic history of race and punishment in the deepest South from emancipation to the Civil Rights Era—and beyond.
Immortalized in blues songs and movies like Cool Hand Luke and The Defiant Ones, Mississippi’s infamous Parchman State Penitentiary was, in the pre-civil rights south, synonymous with cruelty. Now, noted historian David Oshinsky gives us the true story of the notorious prison, drawing on police records, prison documents, folklore, blues songs, and oral history, from the days of cotton-field chain gangs to the 1960s, when Parchman was…
I am a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who studies the social neuroscience of the self and human emotion, with a focus on how biases in self-representation shape emotional reactions that determine well-being. I am particularly interested in how cognitive training practices such as mindfulness meditation and yoga foster resilience against stress, reducing vulnerability to disorders such as depression. I’ve always wished we had better ways of communicating fascinating and important discoveries in neuroscience and mental health to a wider audience, so we combined our teaching experience in the fields of mindfulness, yoga, sports, and clinical psychology to write this book.
This book may seem out of place in a list of psychologically-minded self-help recommendations. And it is long, and hard to read. Don’t even get me started on the use of end-notes in a work of fiction. But it is quite simply one of the best books written in the past 100 years and it is all about people who have gotten stuck, trapped by habit or circumstance, and are yearning for a way to find meaning in life.
To me, this book is a self help book because it is written so powerfully (in a not-so-distance fictional future) that as the characters are inevitably transformed and sometimes freed from their assumed destinies, Wallace somehow illustrates how we too can be transformed in our daily routines and interactions by finding moments of clarity and meaning right where we are, rather than being saved by some outside force that promises liberation…
'A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything' New York Times
'Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight' James Wood, Guardian
'He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He's damn good' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
'One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory' Sunday Times
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the…
Now, I’m a journalist who covers prisons—but a decade ago I was in prison myself. I’d landed there on a heroin charge after years of struggling with addiction as I bumbled my way through college. Behind bars, I read voraciously, almost as if making up for all the assignments I’d left half-done during my drug years. As I slowly learned to rebuild and reinvent myself, I also learned about recovery and hope, and the reality of our nation’s carceral system really is. Hopefully, these books might help you learn those things, too.
I read so much poetry in prison—words about survival, and loss, and absence. But one thing I did not read was poetry about people who’d been in prison like me, and wish I had. This poetry collection wasn’t out then, but I think I would have loved it if it were.
In fierce, agile poems, Felon tells the story of the effects of incarceration-canvassing a wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood and grace-and, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of post-incarceration existence in traditional and newfound forms, from revolutionary found poems created by redacting court documents to the astonishing crown of sonnets that serves as the volume's radiant conclusion.
Now, I’m a journalist who covers prisons—but a decade ago I was in prison myself. I’d landed there on a heroin charge after years of struggling with addiction as I bumbled my way through college. Behind bars, I read voraciously, almost as if making up for all the assignments I’d left half-done during my drug years. As I slowly learned to rebuild and reinvent myself, I also learned about recovery and hope, and the reality of our nation’s carceral system really is. Hopefully, these books might help you learn those things, too.
This book is hard to find, but it was in the Tompkins County Jail Library and I fell in love on the first page, when the authors began describing the process of finding the inner strength to finish a seemingly impossible journey. In their case, the journey was an Antarctic expedition—but the words felt surprisingly germane to my own journey through the legal system.
“Success on an expedition (as in life),” the authors wrote, “isn’t about brute strength, or even endurance, but resilience: the ability to remind oneself, over and over, of the joy of living, even amid the greatest hardship.”
I copied those words into the inside of a notebook and read them back to myself again and again until I’d nearly memorized them. Before jail, it wasn’t even the sort of thing I would have typically read. But being locked up forced me to try out books I…
The extraordinary story of the first two women to cross Antarctica
The fascinating chronicle of Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft's dramatic journey as the first two women to cross Antarctica, No Horizon Is So Far follows the explorers from the planning of their expedition through their brutal trek from the Norwegian sector all the way to McMurdo Station as they walked, skied, and ice-sailed for almost three months in temperatures reaching as low as -35 DegreesF, all while towing their 250-pound supply sledges across 1,700 miles of ice full of dangerous crevasses. Through website transmissions and satellite phone calls, Ann…
As a retired family therapist, I find that writing and reading stories about emotional journeys no matter our sexual identity, ethnicity, or class has the potential to transform us. A protagonist under threat of persecution who finds healing in the power of love, of family, of community can help us fix ourselves where we are broken. I believe stories can help us sever unhealthy ties to the patterns of past generations. My mother was a closeted lesbian with no family who died when I was nine. Writing how I wished her life could have been helped me heal from childhood trauma. Our ancestors passed the talking stick. We have books.
I love that this book takes a hard look at the perils, reality, and consequences of embracing truth.
It doesn’t sugar-coat the different attitudes and reactions of family members when Annie, with 3 adult children and 27 years of marriage, falls in love with Vivica. The aftermath of the seismic family upheaval reveals dark secrets about legacy, abuse, racial discrimination, revenge, class, and forgiveness.
For me reading this book was cutting edge because it was published not long after same-sex marriage was first made legal in the U.S., in Connecticut.
A bonus is that despite the family’s legacy of trauma the story ends on a note of love and hope.
From New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb, a disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy.
As Annie Oh's wedding day approaches, she finds herself at the mercy of hopes and fears about the momentous change ahead. She has just emerged from a twenty-five year marriage to Orion Oh, which produced three children, but is about to marry a woman named Viveca, a successful art dealer, who specializes in outsider art.
Trying to reach her ex-husband, she keeps assuring everyone that he is fine. Except she has no idea…
As a retired family therapist, I find that writing and reading stories about emotional journeys no matter our sexual identity, ethnicity, or class has the potential to transform us. A protagonist under threat of persecution who finds healing in the power of love, of family, of community can help us fix ourselves where we are broken. I believe stories can help us sever unhealthy ties to the patterns of past generations. My mother was a closeted lesbian with no family who died when I was nine. Writing how I wished her life could have been helped me heal from childhood trauma. Our ancestors passed the talking stick. We have books.
I chose this book for its honest look at the fragility of love when the push and pull of church doctrine clashes in a family with twins.
One twin at 17 knows she is lesbian, and the other is a member of BOCK (Brides of Christ’s Kingdom). The story weaves lessons about the effects of homophobia and heartbreak with loss and love, forgiveness and acceptance in a small bible-belt town in Minnesota. It’s a serious subject told with wit, humor, and honesty.
A baby born helps to heal family rifts, but it’s the pull of loss and the power of love from everyone that brings a homophobic mother to acceptance that allows a young woman to follow her heart.
Lorraine Tyler is the only queer person in Bend, Minnesota. Or at least that’s what it feels like when the local church preaches so sternly against homosexuality. Which is why she’s fighting so hard to win the McGerber scholarship—her ticket out of Bend—even though her biggest competition is her twin sister, Becky. And even though she’s got no real hope—not with the scholarship’s morality clause and that one time she kissed the preacher’s daughter.
Everything changes when a new girl comes to town. Charity is mysterious, passionate, and—to Lorraine’s delighted surprise—queer too. Now Lorraine may have a chance at freedom…
As a retired family therapist, I find that writing and reading stories about emotional journeys no matter our sexual identity, ethnicity, or class has the potential to transform us. A protagonist under threat of persecution who finds healing in the power of love, of family, of community can help us fix ourselves where we are broken. I believe stories can help us sever unhealthy ties to the patterns of past generations. My mother was a closeted lesbian with no family who died when I was nine. Writing how I wished her life could have been helped me heal from childhood trauma. Our ancestors passed the talking stick. We have books.
There’s a lot to absorb here, especially for a white, straight ally of the LGBTQ+ community who doesn’t cut her own grass. It's a novel about the effects of discrimination against race, class, and sexual identity. It’s the authentic experience of a 22-year-old Hispanic man who, against all odds, tries to make an honest living and figure out his place in 21st-century America.
On the banned books list, this novel seems to assault the sensibility of censors who want to protect the young and vulnerable against truth. It must be the language, graphic and raw at times, but in the end, it’s not possible to ban reality. The love of his broken family and cobbled-together community has his back as he embraces his sexuality.
For Mike Munoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work - and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew - he knows that he's got to be the one to shake things up if he's ever going to change his life. But how?
In this funny, angry, touching, and ultimately deeply inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young…
As a Jamaican migrant, I often read Jamaican fiction to feel recognized, but I struggle with the word “best,” so consider this an exceedingly tentative ranking. I read each of these texts to learn about what it means to be a part of the Jamaican diaspora and to write a Jamaican novel, and each one elicited in me something that I often did not know about myself. Their attention to gender, to migration, to family, and more are as enlightening as they are captivating. And if that is not enough, then come for the plots, all of which are gripping, and the prose, all of which delights.
If you have not yet read Patsy, just read it. I won’t regale you with tales of its critical and commercial success, as you may already have heard about it. What I will say is that this is a book that will stick with you. Its portrait of longing, of love, of motherhood, and of childhood is so attentive to the thought of its central two characters—a mother and child—that they will feel so real to you that you will think of them when you encounter their facsimiles in your own life.
Heralded for writing "deeply memorable . . . women" (Jennifer Senior, New York Times), Nicole Dennis-Benn introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine for our times: the eponymous Patsy, who leaves her young daughter behind in Jamaica to follow Cicely, her oldest friend, to New York. Beating with the pulse of a long-withheld confession and peppered with lilting patois, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to love whomever she chooses, bravely putting herself first. But to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a nanny, while back in Jamaica her…
As someone who’s never been allowed to drive, but gets motion-sick reading in a bus or car, I’ve been a lover of audiobooks since I had my Walkman and a backpack full of audiobook cassettes. As a queer man, I’m always looking for more immersive stories about people like me. Finding queer voices and queer narratives is so important to me as a way to offset how queer people don’t have an inherited continuance of our culture as most marginalized people do; books are a way to fill that gap. I do own a rescued husky, and there’s nothing like an engrossing audiobook to get me through those minus-forty Canadian winter walks with a dog.
The way Rey handles butch-femme relationships never fail to impress me, and I think so much of it comes down to how expertly she manages to make her butch characters so non-toxic in their masculinity. They support without taking over, lead without diminishing, and her characters are so often imperfectly doing their best that you root for them even when you know they’re about to do something they’ll regret. Twice Shy puts two women together who’ve both divorced their exes, and listening to Kiera Grace perform Quinn and Amanda tentatively finding their way to each other was as sweet as Amanda’s bakery’s cupcakes. Oh, I should warn you, though: any Rey book will make you hungry. Bring snacks.
Sometimes, you get a second chance at love. Sometimes, you hook up with your ex and remember why you broke up in the first place.
Amanda Russo knows better than to give her failed marriage another try, but the brief fling reminds her there’s more to life than work and parenting. When the architect she hires to remodel her bakery turns out to be as charming as she is talented, Amanda finds herself ready to take a chance on new love. The only problem? Her ex-wife didn’t get the memo.
For Quinn Sullivan, the sting of divorce is still fresh.…
