Here are 100 books that Early Riser fans have personally recommended if you like
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Let’s face it – the Greek gods are a self-centered, quick-tempered, jealous, prideful, and insatiable bunch. Even the all-powerful Zeus falls victim to his overactive libido and vengeful wife! While superpowers are enticing, it’s the gods’ faults and weaknesses –their humanqualities – that make them so irresistible to me. As a writer, I love poking at my characters’ soft underbelly. Where are they vulnerable? What can they not bear to lose? Can they recognize their mistakes and grow? And this question pulled me down Cupid’s Fall rabbit hole: What if the God of Love got a dose of his own medicine?
Is there any family more dysfunctional than the Greek gods? In this modern-day saga, author Stacey Swann skillfully reimagines our favorite gods as regular people caught up in the very human drama of lust, jealousy, secrets, and even murder. The author slyly crafts multiple myth-inspired vignettes, then fits them together like puzzle pieces. The central conflict is a clever spin on Aphrodite’s affair with her ho-hum hubby Hephaestus’s fiery brother Ares (the unholy union that created Cupid!). What I love most about Swann’s storytelling is her snappy dialogue – these characters don’t pull any punches! Even though we don’t really want to root for them, we can’t help ourselves. Why? Maybe they remind us of ourselves.
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick! • A bighearted novel with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology.
For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe: "The Iliad meets Friday Night Lights in this muscular, captivating debut" (Oprah Daily).
The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with…
I’ve always loved stories that rearrange reality in some simple, allusive way, including movies like Groundhog Day or The Truman Show. They remind me of a quote about Italo Calvino that I first read when I was a teenager and have loved ever since: ‘He holds a mirror up to life, then writes about the mirror.’ I tend not to be attracted to stories that simply depict reality and even less so to stories that completely abandon reality for an invented fantasy world. All my favorite fictions take place somewhere in between, in the blending of the real and the impossible.
It always seemed unfair to me that not only do we get just one life, but we only get to live it once. So I fell in love with this novel from the moment I read its premise: Ursula Todd is born and dies and is born again… and again… and again.
I love that she doesn’t remember her previous lives except as vague intuitions that help her avoid making the same mistakes twice–and I also love that avoiding those mistakes often means she makes other (often fatal) mistakes. I found this book funny, moving, and thought-provoking, but what I love most about it is the way its down-to-earth, realistic style allowed me to fully inhabit the impossible conceit at its heart.
What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.
I grew up in Boston and New York and currently live in Montreal. I have worked primarily in writing performance texts and plays. I founded the performance company Bluemouth Inc., with whom I have written and staged over a dozen works. In 2018, I completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Concordia University, where I was awarded the Dean of Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Creative Writing. As for my expertise in compiling this list, I am the daughter of a strong force-of-nature woman who fought for what she had and taught her kids they can get through anything as long as they have humor, music, and books.
This book was recommended to me by my firefighter brother, who often reads what I call “he-man” books. The titles always have words like mutiny, bullets, gangsters, firestorm, etc. So, when he suggested I read this book, I had my reservations. (In fairness, the books he recommends consistently end up on my list of all-time favorites–I guess that’s what I get for pre-judging!) In any case, over the years, I have learned the one thing we both love in a protagonist–and now I have a name for it–is grit. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
There is no knowing what lies in a man's heart. On a trip to buy ponies, Frank Ross is killed by one of his own workers. Tom Chaney shoots him down in the street for a horse, $150 cash, and two Californian gold pieces. Ross's unusually mature and single-minded fourteen-year-old daughter Mattie travels to claim his body, and finds that the authorities are doing nothing to find Chaney. Then she hears of Rooster - a man, she's told, who has grit - and convinces him to join her in a quest into dark, dangerous Indian territory to hunt Chaney down…
The Secret Order of the Scepter & Gavel
by
Nicholas Ponticello,
Vanderough University prepares its graduates for life on Mars. Herbert Hoover Palminteri enrolls at VU with the hope of joining the Martian colony in 2044 as a member of its esteemed engineer corps. But then Herbert is tapped to join a notorious secret society: the Order of the Scepter and…
I write about inequality in international development, American communities, environmental movements, and workplaces. I’ve been doing this reporting for over a decade. I’ve also worked in global health, an experience that has given me a first-hand glimpse into the depths and texture of inequality we have manufactured in our current world, including within the organizations and movements that purportedly challenge such global inequality. As a reader, I’m equally passionate about immersive nonfiction and fiction. I’ll dive into anything that’s driven by a good story.
I should start by saying that Thiong'o has recently been accused, by his son, of beating his former wife, claims I take very seriously (and which has put my reading of Thiong'o’s female characters in a new light).
In this book, I found a sharp, cunning satire of despotic post-colonial governments working with and shaped by international funders and Western policymakers. Having worked in NGOs, I found Thiong'o’s characterization of “development” to be darkly funny and cringe-worthily accurate.
Informed by traditional African storytelling, discover Ngugi wa Thiong'o's masterpiece.
To honour the Ruler's birthday, the Free Republic of Aburiria set out to build a tower; a modern wonder of the world that will reach the gates of Heaven. But behind this pillar of unity a battle for control of the Aburirian people rages. Among the contenders: the eponymous Wizard, an avatar of folklore and wisdom; the corrupt Christian Ministry; and the nefarious Global Bank.
I started drawing comics in the first grade and have never stopped. My syndicated comic strip, Cow & Boy, ran for eight years, and now I write and draw the middle-grade fantasy series Quest Kids. I am so fortunate to have cobbled together my love of comics into a career and to have been inspired by so many talented people along the way. Below is a collection of some of the best.
My newspaper comic strip had just finished its run, and I was looking for my next big thing. That’s when I came across Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
The drawings were simple and hilarious, and the clever writing didn’t seem to be just for kids. Greg Heffley has this flawed prickly everyman edge which makes him easy to identify with. But as good as this book and series are, I was more impressed with the new way Jeff Kinney had found to sneak comics into chapter books.
The launch of an exciting and innovatively illustrated new series narrated by an unforgettable kid every family can relate to
It's a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you're ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary.
In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley's star…
I’ve loved animals for as long as I can remember. When I was young, girls my age were seeking out babies to admire. I was around the corner looking for puppies, frogs, or any other animal I could get my hands on. I’ve spent decades seeking out animals, and the more I learn about them, the more I realize how much they can teach us, point out what we otherwise might have missed, or offer a startlingly different (and often more helpful) perspective on things. The following books are some of my favorites that bring to light the unique and profound truths animals reveal to us.
In most stories, animals don’t exist for their own reasons—their purpose is simply to serve the needs of the main characters or the machinations of the plot. In Barn 8, however, chickens not only have agency and their own raison d’etre, but they catalyze every single major turn of events.
I love the premise—a group of unlikely activists decides to free the million-plus chickens suffering on an egg farm—and its quirky, clever style. But the best part is the chickens at the heart of the tale. Unferth gets inside their heads, showing their loyalty and love, their distinctive personalities, and their undeniable, fierce intelligence.
It's a captivating glimpse into the inner world of extraordinary animals who deserve to be the heroes of their own stories.
One disaffected administrator, one disenchanted teenager, four hundred and twenty-one vegan extremists, sixty trucks, and nine hundred thousand grumpy layer hens awaiting liberation. In barns. Six barns. No, wait, seven. No, wait ...
Two auditors for the US egg industry conceive a plot to liberate an entire egg farm's worth of animals, with catastrophic results. This wildly inventive but utterly plausible novel about a heist of a very unusual kind swirls with a rich array of voices: a farmer's daughter, hundreds of activists, a forest ranger who stumbles upon forty thousand hens, and a security guard abandoned for years on…
I was old (or young) enough to have only seen two Kubrick films in the cinema: Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. I began teaching film studies and Hollywood in 1998, and I have been teaching and researching Kubrick intensively since 2007, visiting his archive in London on numerous occasions. At one point, I held the record for the researcher who had spent the most hours in the Archive. I also met Christiane and Jan and spoke to many others who knew and worked with Kubrick. Having been familiar with Robert Kolker’s work, it became clear that collaborating with an international authority on film was a necessity as well as a pleasure.
This novel follows a famous Hollywood director called Boris Adrian but known as "King B" who is shooting a big-budget arthouse porn film.
The auteur was allegedly based on Kubrick, with whom Southern collaborated on Dr. Strangelove, and the book is dedicated to "the great Stanley K" whom Southern alleges wanted to make such a film. As Southern also had screenwriting credits for Easy Rider and Casino Royale, it offers a first-hand account, albeit fictionalized, of someone who worked with the director but also with others in Hollywood.
“Terry Southern writes a mean, coolly deliberate, and murderous prose.” ―Norman Mailer
King B., an Oscar-winning director, is now determined to shoot the dirtiest and most expensive X-rated movie ever made. Displaced to Liechtenstein (which, in order to boost tourism, has negotiated the exclusive rights to show the film for ten years) and fueled by suspiciously rejuvenating vitamin B-12 injections, the set of The Faces of Love is fraught with monstrous egos and enormous libidos ― the kind of situation that could only come from the imagination of the irrepressible Terry Southern.
My first job upon graduating from college was working for an invention-marketing firm. This wasn’t my intention; armed with a degree in journalism, I was ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, the country was enduring a recession, and after six months of unemployment, I was happy to be offered a copywriting position. So often during the two years I spent there, I would think to myself, “This could make such a great novel.” It took me a while—and with more than a few rejections along the way—but inspired by the writers and books I’ve included in my collection, I finally got around to penning my own tale.
My son’s a young adult now, but I treasure the memories of the hours we spent reading together. We went down all the well-trodden paths and shared countless joyful hours with J.K. Rowling and Dav Pilkey and The Mysterious Benedict Society, but the creativity of this book is exceeded only by its humor. Also, it clocks in at around 700 pages, so it’ll entertain you and your children for a good while. I always enjoy a laugh as a reader, and if my work elicits a chuckle from you, then I feel my mission is complete.
Unlike cats, bluebears have 27 lives, which can be very handy when one considers the manner in which the hero of this story repeatedly manages to avoid death only by a paw's breadth. The story describes Captain Bluebear's first 13 and a half lives.
I’ve been passionate about absurdist literature since my early youth when we read Kafka’s Metamorphosis in school. Later in life, friends recommended Irving, Vonnegut, Bellow, and Boyle to me. I discovered Murakami, Mendoza, and Niven. Films like Common Wealth or The Last Circus by Spanish filmmaker Alex De La Iglesia, which are equally entertaining and thought-provoking, gave me the spark to start writing myself. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
I read the book when things were going well for me, and I laughed at all the absurdities happening to the hero who never gave up.
Despite everything, he persevered and hung on. It taught me to appreciate my loved ones and spend more time with them, enjoying every moment, savoring it like that tiny white mint on the tip of my tongue, letting it slowly dissolve.
A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.
'A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and heartbreaking...terrific' WASHINGTON POST
Anniversary edition with a new afterword from the author.
A worldwide bestseller since its publication, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, struggling writer and illegitimate son of Jenny Fields - an unlikely feminist heroine ahead of her time.
Beautifully written, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP is a powerfully compelling and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers…
I have been thinking about spiritual things since I was around 9 years old, and as soon as I was old enough, I was off learning experientially in the world. This has allowed for deep learning and understanding of a wide range of subjects, particularly spirituality and ultimate reality. I teach philosophy, religious studies, and politics in my day job, and so, now on the cusp of 46 years, I can truly say I love spiritual and philosophical thought. I also think it’s hard to write books about these topics and I love how allegory and fable can be so accessible.
I laughed out loud and had moments of deep philosophical reflection, normally at the same time, with this book. I loved the clever and deep meanings and parodies of faith and the divine. I think that this book taught me to always take things with a pinch of salt, and I started thinking critically because of it.
I could not stop reading it and devoured the other books in the series and I think this is one of my favourite authors. I am inspired to emulate some aspects of the author’s thinking and this book is why.
Fans of Sir Terry Pratchett will love this stunning graphic novel adaptation of his bestselling standalone Discworld novel Small Gods. Beautifully brought to life by illustrator Ray Friesen, it takes a close look at religion's institutions, its people, its practices and its role in politics in Pratchett's unique way...
'An intriguing satire on institutionalized religion corrupted by power...' - Independent 'Deftly weaves themes of forgiveness, belief and spiritual regeneration' - The Times 'I loved this book. I wish it could go on and on and on because it was so enjoyable to read. I wish more books are like this…
