Here are 100 books that Edge of the Known World fans have personally recommended if you like
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Maybe it was because I fell in love with Sons of Anarchy and needed more when the series ended. Maybe it was because I’ve always loved alpha holes. Either way, motorcycle club romances just fit in my reader wheelhouse. There's something about the ultimate bad boys who will burn the world down for that one woman. I think what appeals to me most is that these couples, their relationships, are never perfect. The men don’t magically become the perfect boyfriends. They still screw up, but they love in their own gritty, possessive, dirty way with their whole hearts. When I devoured every audiobook I could find, I decided to try my hand at writing one.
Painter screwed up. He made the wrong choice and he knew it. Melanie swore off bikers to protect her daughter. It didn’t matter that they still loved each other. They couldn’t be together. Until Melanie makes the wrong choice and violates their rules.
This second chance romance had hold of my emotions from page one. I went on a roller coaster with Painter and Melanie.
The New York Times bestselling author of Reaper’s Stand is back in her “uber-alpha rough world of MCs”* as one woman’s future is rocked by the man whose hardcore past could destroy her…
He never meant to hurt her.
Levi “Painter” Brooks was nothing before he joined the Reapers motorcycle club. The day he patched in, they became his brothers and his life. All they asked in return was a strong arm and unconditional loyalty—a loyalty that’s tested when he’s caught and sentenced to prison for a crime committed on their behalf.
I am a writer based in Ireland. When I was fifteen, I read about the Battle of Verdun, and the horror and ineptitude of it led me into an obsession with World War I. Visiting the Imperial War Museum, I learned about the white feather of cowardice, bestowed by girls upon men out of uniform. Such a transformation of a symbol of peace to an instrument of stigma and shame made me think of Irish society as well as British. When White Feathers was published, its refusal to follow a sentimental “Tommy in the trenches” line angered some revisionist critics. But in the end, it is a passionate and intense love story with resistance.
Hochschild’s moving, powerful account of the build-up to World War One is not a dry historical treatise, but an interweaving of individual stories such as those of Sylvia Pankhurst, Keir Hardie, Emily Hobhouse, and Bertrand Russell. These counter-cultural stories of pacifists, objectors, and philosophers inspired and informed the plot of White Feathers, particularly the divisions among the suffragettes and the toxic consequences of the Boer Wars, which Emily Hobhouse bravely reported on and smuggled out post in the face of extreme censorship. An absolute page-turner and highly informative.
In this brilliant new work of history, Adam Hochschild follows a group of characters connected by blood ties, close friendships or personal enmities and shows how the war exposed the divisions between them. They include the brother and sister whose views on the war could not have been more diametrically opposed - he a career soldier, she a committed pacifist; the politician whose job was to send young men who refused conscription to prison, yet whose godson was one of those young men and the suffragette sisters, one of whom passionately supported the war and one of whom was equally…
Ying Chang Compestine is the multi-talented author of 25 books including fiction, picture books, and cookbooks. Frequently sought after by the media, Ying has been featured on numerous national television programs, is regularly profiled in prestigious news media outlets, and has been named one of the "50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading" by The Author's Show. Her keen interest in cuisine has led her to weave food into all of her writing–including cookbooks, novels, and picture books for young readers. Ying grew up in Wuhan, China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She uses these experiences, as well as her passion for food, in all her writing.
Hachiko is a tale of genuine friendship that holds an important lesson on the cultural value of loyalty.
Turner really captures the essence of Japan in her colorful and heartfelt retelling of the legend of Hachiko, the dog that faithfully waited for its owner at a train station after his passing.
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Imagine walking to the same place every day, to meet your best friend. Imagine watching hundreds of people pass by every morning and every afternoon. Imagine waiting, and waiting, and waiting. For ten years. This is what Hachiko did. Hachiko was a real dog who lived in Tokyo, a dog who faithfully waited for his owner at the Shibuya train station long after his owner could not come to meet him. He became famous for his loyalty and was adored by scores of people who passed through the station every day. This is Hachiko’s story through the eyes of Kentaro,…
Rajiv Sethi is an economist, currently a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His research deals with information and beliefs, with particular focus on how stereotypes condition interactions among strangers.
This breathtakingly original book examines two interconnected ways in which organizations can be induced to improve performance—abandonment (exit) and complaint (voice).
If exit is too easy, there may not be enough time for voice to operate, and organizations that could have recovered may end up collapsing instead. Loyalty to the organization can slow exit and create space for voice to operate, but not if loyalty is blind and uncritical.
An innovator in contemporary thought on economic and political development looks here at decline rather than growth. Albert O. Hirschman makes a basic distinction between alternative ways of reacting to deterioration in business firms and, in general, to dissatisfaction with organizations: one, "exit," is for the member to quit the organization or for the customer to switch to the competing product, and the other, "voice," is for members or customers to agitate and exert influence for change "from within." The efficiency of the competitive mechanism, with its total reliance on exit, is questioned for certain important situations. As exit often…
I write historical fiction and survival adventures, but I’m a historian at heart. The past fascinates me and provides the best fodder to explore age-old questions about life, love, and the hero and heroine’s journey to greatness. History has sparked inspiration for some of the most beautiful fictional and reimagined stories I’ve ever read, and transports readers to places long forgotten and unknown—and all without cell phones and internet at the core. Perhaps that’s what I love—a crueler but more hard-earned, simpler life. I hope you enjoy these epic tales of love and adventure as much as I did, and lose yourself in the magic of story.
I love a book that not only transports me to new lands, but that feeds my historical nerdiness. I’m a history major by trade and author at heart. I love historical epics that feel real and ancient and include a dash of romance. Sky in the Deep does not disappoint. It’s a kickass read!
A 2018 Most Anticipated Young Adult book from debut author Adrienne Young, Sky in the Deep is part Wonder Woman, part Vikings―and all heart.
OND ELDR. BREATHE FIRE.
Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient, rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield―her brother, fighting with the enemy―the brother she watched die five years ago.
Faced with her brother's betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every…
I’ve been writing children’s books all my adult life. That means trying to find ways to communicate exactly what I’m imagining. I love words and stories. As a teenager, I wrote down my favourite words and carried them around with me. When I had children, I was fascinated by how fast they learned to make themselves understood, with and without words. The words we choose are important – but they’re only one way to communicate. What about pictures? Body language? Online media? Pheromones? The signals animals and plants give out? The more I learn about communication, the more fascinating it becomes.
I like science fiction when it’s about big ideas and they don’t come much bigger than this. Imagine a world where the alien inhabitants are incapable of lying. They can’t even use figures of speech, like similes, unless someone has acted out what they want to use as a comparison. (Avice, the girl who ate what was given to her, is the human simile who narrates the story.) Sounds idyllic? Maybe – until you start thinking about how you’d make plans, or discuss ideas. This isn’t an easy read, but it’s fascinating and it made me think hard.
Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, China Mieville's astonishing Embassytown is an intelligent and immersive exploration of language in an alien world.
Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe.
Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie.
Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect…
I wrote a novel whose characters fight to survive depression, grief, loss, and abuse. Though it’s got a sense of humor, it gets dark. People ask, why read a book like that when real life is dark enough? Because we don’t just read to escapefrom the world—we read to understandit. Fiction can help explain the awful things we might witness or experience or hear about. It can also help us feel less alone in our own sadness and grief. Without darkness, light is meaningless. Without pain, we have no use for hope. Who wants to live in a world without hope?
Like Holbert’s other novels, Lonesome Animals and The Hour of Lead, this one is populated by unusual characters, teems with senseless violence, and is rendered in a voice as compelling as it is unique. Set near the Grand Coulee Dam, Whiskey is about two part-Native American brothers, Andre and Smoker, who set out to find Smoker’s daughter, Bird, when she’s taken by a religious zealot. But the madcap plot is just one-third of a bigger story about the brothers and their destructive parents, Peg and Pork, and their collective collisions with alcoholism, marriage, the law, and one another. Though Whiskey belongs on the top shelf, expect it to burn going down. I wish I’d written it.
Whiskey burns pleasantly as it goes down, but has a lasting, powerful effect.
Brothers Andre and Smoker were raised in a cauldron of their parents’ failed marriage and appetite for destruction, and find themselves in the same straits as adults—navigating not only their own marriages, but also their parents’ frequent collision with the law and one another. The family lives in Electric City, Washington, just a few miles south of the Colville Indian Reservation. Fiercely loyal and just plain fierce, they’re bound by a series of darkly comedic and hauntingly violent events: domestic trouble; religious fanaticism; benders punctuated with pauses…
From the time I was a small, shy child, books and dogs were my best friends. I loved nothing better than reading books about dogs in the company of my dog. I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to be an author. My love of books led to a career as a librarian that lasted over thirty years. Still, I never gave up on my dream of becoming an author. Since then, I have written seven novels for young readers including A Dog’s Way Home, The Dogs of Winter, and my latest award-winning novel, Stay. When I’m not writing, I can be found hiking with my dogs in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
Although I rarely recommend books where the dog dies (I was greatly traumatized by classics Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller), this one is the exception. Brodie was a good, good dog who was wholeheartedly devoted to his boy, Aiden. When Brodie finds himself in the perfect doggy heaven—lots of green grass to roll in and endless balls to chase—Brodie is gripped by a need to go back to Earth and his boy, who he senses is in terrible danger. Aided by a smart, happy-go-lucky pitbull and snarky cat, Brodie makes his way back to Earth and Aiden at the risk of losing his soul. I love this book because it stays firmly in the perspective of the dog (and other animals) with a masterful use of sensory details. Give this book to your reader who likes books that are suspenseful while also exploring deeper themes.
Brodie was a good dog. And good dogs go to heaven. Except Brodie can't move on. He can't forget the boy he left behind. The boy he loved, and who loved him in return.The boy who's still in danger.So Brodie breaks the rules of heaven. He returns to Earth as a spirit. With the help of two other lost souls-lovable pitbull Tuck and surly house-cat Patsy-he is determined to find his boy and to save him. Even if it costs him paradise. Because it's what a good dog would do.
My family and I were among those prioritized for admission to the United States during the Cold War—a migration I discussed in my first book, Havana, USA. Not all who seek refuge are as fortunate, however. Less than one percent of refugees worldwide are ever resettled in the top resettlement nations like the United States. My scholarship examines how US refugee policy has evolved in response to humanitarian, domestic, and foreign policy concerns and agendas.
The United States was conceived as a place of refuge, and the nation has accommodated many different types of refugees since its founding. Despite these ideological origins, a distinct and permanent track for refugee admissions within the immigration bureaucracy was not institutionalized until the Cold War.
Bon Tempo examines the reasons why this distinct track emerged during the late 1940s, how the track evolved over the next forty years, and how the track was used to accommodate millions of people fleeing communism during the Cold War. By the end of the Cold War, US refugee policy had become intertwined with Cold War foreign policy, and the term “refugee” had become synonymous with anti-communism.
Unlike the 1930s, when the United States tragically failed to open its doors to Europeans fleeing Nazism, the country admitted over three million refugees during the Cold War. This dramatic reversal gave rise to intense political and cultural battles, pitting refugee advocates against determined opponents who at times successfully slowed admissions. The first comprehensive historical exploration of American refugee affairs from the midcentury to the present, Americans at the Gate explores the reasons behind the remarkable changes to American refugee policy, laws, and programs. Carl Bon Tempo looks at the Hungarian, Cuban, and Indochinese refugee crises, and he examines major…
Charles Templeton has been there and understands the stories of those who served in combat. He understands the wounds that do not heal after fifty years and those warriors, who in their writing, try to provide a sense of understanding and vision to their stories. He served as a Marine helicopter crew chief during the American War in Vietnam. His love of Vietnam literature began in 1967 and continues to this day. One voice that he feels has been neglected, is that of the women who served in that war, on both sides, and those who still carry the scars of that war with them. After fifty years of researching and writing about the war, he believes there is a literature of the Vietnam War with a female perspective, and enough of it that you can identify the good and the bad. He writes book reviews for the Vietnam Veterans of America. Charles also edits and publishes an avant-garde literary online magazine, eMerge. And, he and his wife started and published a weekly newspaper in Eureka Springs, Arkansas for a few years, The Independent.
Lê Thi Diem Thúy’s novel tells the story of a young refugee girl in San Diego. The novel is a lyrical accounting, full of disjointed narrative and poetic language, that captures her thoughts and feelings as a Vietnamese immigrant to San Diego in 1978. Early on in the war, most of the literature was written by soldiers and correspondents and dealt strictly with the military side of the war. Later in the eighties and nineties, the scope and quality of the writing about Vietnam has vastly improved, as different perspectives are brought to bear on the war. Lê Thi Diem Thúy writes about refugees whose experiences were much more traumatic compared to the American soldiers who never actually saw combat. Originally published in 2003, it is imminently relevant today.
In 1978, six Vietnamese refugees were pulled from the sea just off California. In San Diego, a little girl's matter-of-fact innocence masks the ghostly traumas that still haunt her: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland; the memory of a brother who drowned; the heartbreaking spectacle of her parents trying to make a new home, their struggle backlit by the memory of a forbidden love when they were young. le thi diem thuy has revealed a world of great beauty and enormous sorrows. The Gangster We Are All Looking For is an authentically original novel about remembering and forgetting, about home…
