Love Boyhood? Readers share 100 books like Boyhood...

By J. M. Coetzee,

Here are 100 books that Boyhood fans have personally recommended if you like Boyhood. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of West with the Night: A Memoir

Laura Shepard Townsend Author Of Destiny's Consent: The Gypsy's Song

From my list on adventures where the marvelous meets reality.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have learned about the nature of magic and the mythical firsthand. I have always been a seeker, fiercely curious and an avid reader to try to understand the world so as to find myself and my destiny. Wise women appeared to guide my path as I quested the heroineā€™s journey with its many helpers and spirits, its coincidences, and its marvels. When I dreamt about the Roma, I knew the story was important; I attended UCLA and got to work. My passion has never dwindled during the 20 years it took to manifest the Destiny's Consent book series.

Laura's book list on adventures where the marvelous meets reality

Laura Shepard Townsend Why did Laura love this book?

I think more than anything, I loved the way she described everything. Her language is as if her words were first sent to her heart and then to her soul before they came onto the page. The warmth and the power are overwhelming in her style. It is obvious she loved grandly Africa and its denizens, and as a reader, I couldnā€™t help but feel the same.  

I love heroines in exotic places and situations, especially if it is much of their own makings or seemingly destiny. This book is a memoir of a tomboy girl in East Africa, so even though it is all true, it feels epic.  

I could really relate to Beryl as a girl with her animals. (Growing up, I loved and collected animals from nature, too.)  Beryl grew up with a zebra for a pet, horses for friends, and, of course, the most loyal dog.ā€¦

By Beryl Markham,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked West with the Night as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WEST WITH THE NIGHT appeared on 13 bestseller lists on first publication in 1942. It tells the spellbinding story of Beryl Markham -- aviator, racehorse trainer, fascinating beauty -and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and 30s.

Markham was taken to Kenya at the age of four. As an adult she was befriended by Denys Finch-Hatton, the big-game hunter of OUT OF AFRICA fame, who took her flying in his airplane. Thrilled by the experience, Markham went on to become the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot's license.

In 1936 she determined to fly soloā€¦


Book cover of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood

Selina Molteno Author Of The Secret Son of Wallis Simpson: My Quest for the Truth

From my list on white Africans.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born into a third-generation white South African family. I came to Europe at the age of 18 to pursue a career as a ballet dancer and became interested in liberation politics in the 1960s, working for some years for the Anti-Apartheid Movement in London. It almost goes without saying that Black Africans should be at the centre of books about Africa. In an era in which the slogan ā€˜Black Lives Matterā€™ has gained so much acceptance, it seems almost quixotic to focus on white Africans. However, this is a fascinating group of people who have made a notable contribution to the continent, winning thirteen of the twenty-eight Nobel Prizes awarded to Africans.

Selina's book list on white Africans

Selina Molteno Why did Selina love this book?

This memoir of Alexandra Fullerā€™s childhood is a hilarious take on her familyā€™s experience of farming in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a refreshing reminder of what it was like to live and grow up as a member of the white minority intent on remaining in power during a fast-changing, violent, and deeply unstable period in the history of southern Africa. It is a wonderful portrayal of some of the traumas of growing up with a witty, mad, and heavy-drinking mother who had to endure the unspeakable tragedy of losing a child, a chain-smoking father who farmed by day and fought terrorists by night, and a glamorous older sister. It is a book that keeps you laughing or crying the whole way through.

By Alexandra Fuller,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With an introduction by author Anne Enright.

Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, a story of civil war and a family's unbreakable bond.

How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.

As the daughter of white settlers in war-torn 1970s Rhodesia, Alexandra Fuller remembers a time when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. This is her story - of a civil war, of a quixotic battleā€¦


Book cover of What Is the What

Harriet Levin Millan Author Of How Fast Can You Run

From my list on astonishing idealism and survival in East Africa.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I first met Michael Majok Kuch and he asked me if I was interested in writing his life story, I knew nothing about South Sudan. Over the next several years, we met weekly. Iā€™d interview him, write a chapter, research it, and then show it to him for his approval. I read everything I could find on South Sudan and the adjacent countries. In fact, I became so obsessed with Michael's culture that once I read Francis Mading Deng's Dinka Folktales, Mikeā€™s sister arranged a meeting between Francis Mading Deng and me. These books prepared me for writing How Fast Can You Run, helping other ā€œLost Boysā€ of Sudan reunite with their mothers.

Harriet's book list on astonishing idealism and survival in East Africa

Harriet Levin Millan Why did Harriet love this book?

When One Book, One Philadelphia called me in my office at Drexel University and asked me to select 10 students to interview 10 South Sudanese refugees for a One Book project, I read Dave Eggerā€™s epic tale of Valentino Achak Dengā€™s survival as a so-called ā€œLost Boy" of Sudan. Valentino along with thousands of other ā€œLost Boysā€ was forced to separate from his parents at a young age and trek thousands of miles across Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya without resources to food or water to arrive at several refugee camps. This is Valentinoā€™s story yet it resonates with fleeing people worldwide. Anyone who lives in freedom will stop and listen to the plight of others after reading this astonishing book.

By Dave Eggers,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked What Is the What 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?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ā€¢ The epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children ā€”the so-called Lost Boysā€”was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom.

When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel thatā€¦


If you love Boyhood...

Ad

Book cover of Hemingway's Goblet

Hemingway's Goblet by Dermot Ross,

Hemingway's Goblet is a rollicking read about a mismatched relationship between a middle-aged commitment-phobic university professor in London and one of his female students, a Korean 15 years younger than him. He is accused of sexually harassing her, but somehow their relationship survives as they join forces to seek toā€¦

Book cover of Sufferings in Africa: The Astonishing Account of a New England Sea Captain Enslaved by North African Arabs

Tim Bascom Author Of Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia

From my list on memoirs of American and European expats in Africa.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since spending seven years of my youth in East Africa, I have read the literature of that continent. I have relished the incredible novels of authors like Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Maaza Mengiste, but I have also sought out stories of those who entered Africa from outside, wanting to confirm my experience and to make sense of it. My reading has included masterpieces like Abraham Vergheseā€™s novel Cutting for Stone or Ryszard Kapuscinskiā€™s journalistic expose The Emperor. But here are a few personal memoirs that have given me a basis for my own understanding of being an expatriate shaped profoundly by life in Africa.  

Tim's book list on memoirs of American and European expats in Africa

Tim Bascom Why did Tim love this book?

This remarkable tale is not as well known as others, in part because it was written in 1817 and by a less accomplished writer, but it is hard to beat as a true account of nearly unsurvivable hardship. Captain James Riley, captured when his American shipā€”Commerceā€”runs aground south of Morocco, is taken into the Sahara desert along with several of his crew as slaves of Bedouins. Barefoot, terribly sunburnt, forced to drink camel urine, they walk hundreds of miles behind their masterā€™s camels until finally ransomed by an American consul. This shocking reversal of the usual slavery tale is a poignant indictment of the slave trade. Abraham Lincoln claimed that Sufferings in Africa, along with The Bible and Pilgrimā€™s Progress, had the most effect on his political ideology.

By James Riley,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In August 1815, New England sea captain James Riley and his crew were shipwrecked off the coast of Moroccan Western Sahara. They headed inland, only to be captured by marauding Sahrawi natives who kept them as slaves. Riley and his crew were beaten, sun-burnt, starved, and forced to drink camel urine before eventually being rescued.

Abraham Lincoln, listed Riley's narrative, alongside the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress, as one of the three most influential works that shaped his views on slavery.


Book cover of Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White

Kenneth P. Vickery Author Of The African Experience: From "Lucy" to Mandela

From my list on Southern Africa as picked by a historian.

Why am I passionate about this?

For fifty years I have studied and taught the history of Africa, which  makes me about the luckiest guy around.  My focus has been on Southern Africa, and especially Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.  Aside from the fantastic physical beauty, the region attracts because of the comparability of its history and experience with that of the United States at many points:  for instance, a colonial past, systems of slavery, and fraught [to say the least] racial dynamics.  I have enjoyed 23 journeys or lengthier sojourns in Southern Africa, and have taught at five universities, including North Carolina State, Duke, and the University of Zimbabwe as a Fulbright Lecturer.

Kenneth's book list on Southern Africa as picked by a historian

Kenneth P. Vickery Why did Kenneth love this book?

Move Your Shadow is a masterpiece of reportage. Lelyveld, a former executive editor of the New York Times, spent considerable periods in apartheid South Africa in both the 1960s and the 1980s. The sixties was the period of ā€œbaaskapā€ā€”ā€œbosshoodā€ apartheid, when the perverse racist cruelties of the system were imposed with a sledgehammer. I would call the eighties the era of ā€œfaceliftā€ apartheidā€”why, the word was hardly used by the regime anymore. 

To paraphrase Gramsci, the old world was dying, a new one struggled to be born. Monsters abounded. Nobody captured the period better than Lelyveld. The chapter on Philip Kgosana, the idealist who led Cape Town demonstrations in 1960ā€”at age 19ā€”was betrayed by the state, and wound up in exile in Sri Lankaā€”is worth the price of the book.

By Joseph Lelyveld,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Drawing on his tours in South Africa as a correspondent for the "New York Times," the author details the absurdities, rationalizations, inequities, and cruelties of apartheid, showing what it means to suffer and survive under the restrictions of racial separation


Book cover of Life & Times of Michael K

Rob Harris Author Of The Absurd Life of Barry White

From my list on heroes youā€™ll root for, but not all of the time.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like the character of Wala Kitu in Dr No, I consider myself an expert on nothing. Heroes have to be flawed, right? And you donā€™t always have to like and admire them. They donā€™t have to be perfect. With perfect hair and teeth. Because Iā€™m not. And I need someone to identify with. Someone to walk the roads I might or might not walk. A list of Nick Hornby, Michael K, Miles Jupp, Billy Liar, and Wala Kitu shouldnā€™t belong together. But they do. Right here. Itā€™s absurd, right? The connection of different roads? Different stories? Different hurdles to jump? Different act of heroism I say.    

Rob's book list on heroes youā€™ll root for, but not all of the time

Rob Harris Why did Rob love this book?

It's not an easy read, but I read this one and Cormac McCarthyā€™s The Road back-to-back. These are two books about lost souls walking away from something, not knowing where theyā€™re going.

Michael K is another character who invokes more sympathy/pity than admiration. Sometimes, I didnā€™t overly care about Michael Kā€™s suffering, feeling heā€™d brought it on himself. Mostly, though, I wanted him to find his simple peace.

JM Coetzee is such a good writer. His sparse but full sentences always deliver something.

By J. M. Coetzee,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Life & Times of Michael K as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee.

J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.

In a South Africa turned by war, Michael K. sets out to take his ailing mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. This life affirming novel goes to the center of human experience-the need for anā€¦


Book cover of Imaginings of Sand

Gretchen McCullough Author Of Shahrazad's Gift

From my list on books influenced by Thousand and One Nights.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a fiction writer and currently live in Cairo, where I have lived for over twenty years. I noticed that the way I started telling stories was influenced by learning Arabic and by listening to the stories of the people in the city. My interest in Arabic also led me to read Arabic literature, like A Thousand and One Nights.   

Gretchen's book list on books influenced by Thousand and One Nights

Gretchen McCullough Why did Gretchen love this book?

I admired the creativity and originality of this epic novel. Brink has yoked the harsh political reality of South Africa with the frame of the One Hundred and One Nights

On the eve of cataclysmic change in nineties South Africa, a young South African Ć©migrĆ©, Kristien, who lives in London, has been summoned back to her grandmotherā€™s deathbed. In between the tense atmosphere before impending elections in post-apartheid South Africa, the ancient Ouma tells her granddaughter the history of all of the women in their Afrikaans family, blending fable, African folktale, and actual fact. One relative even turns into a tree! Once Ouma finishes her last story, there is one more tragedy which hits very close to home.

I loved the wide sweep of this novel, which reminded me somewhat of Faulkner, that traces the literal Calvinism and fierce militarism of the first Afrikaans settlers to South Africaā€”andā€¦

By Andre Brink,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

When expatriate Afrikaner Kristien MĆ¼ller hears of her grandmother's impending death, she ends her self-imposed exile in London and returns to the South Africa she thought she'd escaped. But irrevocable change is sweeping the land, and reality itself seems to be in flux as the country stages its first democratic elections. Kristien's Ouma Kristina herself is dying because of the upheavals: a terrorist attack on her isolated mansion has terminally injured her. As Kristien keeps vigil by her grandmother's sickbed, Ouma tells Kristien stories of nine generations of women in the family, stories in which myth and reality blur, inā€¦


Book cover of White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid's Bitter Roots Witnessed By Eight Generations Of An Afrikaner Family

Trilby Kent Author Of Stones for My Father

From my list on South African identities.

Why am I passionate about this?

My motherā€™s family is descended from both Afrikaner and English South Africans, and the inherent tension between those two groups has always fascinated me. From Olive Schreinerā€™s The Story of an African Farm to Andre Brinkā€™s Devilā€™s Valley, books that examine the reclusive, defensive, and toughened attitudes of white settlers make for the kind of discomforting reading that I find immensely compelling.

Trilby's book list on South African identities

Trilby Kent Why did Trilby love this book?

Untangling the roots of Apartheid is a thorny challenge, but Marq de Villiersā€™ approachā€”of telling the story of the Afrikaners, or South Africaā€™s ā€œwhite tribe,ā€ through one familyā€™s complex and troubled historyā€”does an excellent job of explaining the mentality that creates hateful systems of oppression. 

I highly recommend this powerful book.

By Marq de Villiers,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked White Tribe Dreaming as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a history of the Afrikaner as seen through the history of one family, the de Villiers, who first moved to South Africa in the 1600s. The book traces the history of the family and the Afrikaner, showing how the Afrikaner acted at the turning points in their history and revealing how that has made them what they are today. It also charts the development of the hallmarks of apartheid, including the pass system and tribe mentality. Journalist Marq de Villiers includes memorable scenes from the family's history culled from the diaries and papers.


Book cover of How Long Will South Africa Survive?: The Looming Crisis

Gail Nattrass Author Of A Short History of South Africa

From my list on modern South Africa.

Why am I passionate about this?

Gail Nattrass was born in Northern Rhodesia. She was educated at Mufulira High School and the universities of Natal, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and UNISA. She relocated to South Africa with her husband in 1967, and subsequently lectured in the history department at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand for 20 years. She has written materials for students and presented papers on various aspects of South African and international history at four universities in South Africa. She is also the author of The Rooiberg Story, the co-editor with S B Spies of Jan Smuts: Memoirs of the Boer War, and a contributor to They Shaped Our Century and Leaders of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902.

Gail's book list on modern South Africa

Gail Nattrass Why did Gail love this book?

R W Johnson, an international commentator on South African affairs, first wrote a book with this question in 1977. It provided a controversial and highly original analysis of the survival prospects of the apartheid regime. 

Now, after more than twenty years of post-apartheid ANC (African National Congress) majority rule, the situation has become so crucial that he feels the question must be posed again. He moves from an analysis of Jacob Zumaā€™s corrupt rule to the increasingly dire state of the economy and concludes that South Africa under the ANC is fast slipping backward.

He feels that twenty years of ANC rule have shown that the party is hopelessly ill-equipped to cope with the challenges of running a modern industrial economy.

By R.W. Johnson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How Long Will South Africa Survive? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1977, Johnson's best-selling How Long Will South Africa Survive? offered a controversial and highly original analysis of the survival prospects of apartheid. Now, after more than two decades of ANC in government, he believes the question must be posed again. 'The big question about ANC rule,' Johnson writes, 'is whether African nationalism would be able to cope with the challenges of running a modern industrial economy. Twenty years of ANC rule have shown conclusively that the party is hopelessly ill-equipped for this task. Indeed, everything suggests that South Africa under the ANC is fast slipping backward and that evenā€¦


Book cover of West with the Night: A Memoir
Book cover of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
Book cover of What Is the What

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,893

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in apartheid, Ethiopia, and Kenya?

Apartheid 46 books
Ethiopia 47 books
Kenya 62 books