Here are 100 books that Everything Matters! fans have personally recommended if you like
Everything Matters!.
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Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a young boy who made model airplanes and hung them on his bedroom ceiling with fishing lines and thumbtacks as if the planes were dogfighting. The aircraft were inspired by a movie called The Battle of Britain and were the same Messerschmitts, Spitfires, and Hurricanes. The boy grew up and began writing books for a living, making it his mission to help people love history as much as he did. One day, it dawned on him to write about his long-ago planes and their epic battle. I am that boy, and that's when I wrote my book.
I love well-researched fiction that reads like history. I love this book enough that I’ve read it twice. I keep it in a special section of my library reserved for books that I will never give away or loan to friends for fear of never getting them back.
I love that this book inspires me to write fiction, something I ought to get cracking on now that I’ve written almost thirty history books. I love the characters, I love that I can’t put them down (even when I know what is next), and I love revisiting my time with the good guys and bad guys as the story reveals itself.
WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION
A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II
Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.'
For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic…
I’ve been writing crime stories since I was a child. They entertained me and helped me cope with a lot of family strife. My first novel was published in college and sold to the movies, which got me into screenwriting, leading to writing hundreds of hours of TV and fifty novels to date. The one thing all of my stories share is humor because I believe it’s an essential part of life–and of memorable story-telling. Humor makes characters come alive, revealing shades of personality and depths of emotion you wouldn’t otherwise see. Here are five books that taught me that it’s true and that continue to influence me as a writer.
Spy novels, especially the British ones, are densely plotted, densely written, densely serious stories full of politics and betrayals…without a smile to be had by the characters or the reader. The only funny ones are satires. But this book is different.
I could enjoy all the pleasures of a spy novel, with all the betrayals and plot twists, and find myself laughing even as I was caught up in the suspense and surprises. If anything, the laughs made the twists more twisty and the tragedies more tragic.
This book revitalized an entire genre for me…by knowing where to find the humor in what was always portrayed as a humorless job in a humorless world.
'To have been lucky enough to play Smiley in one's career; and now go and play Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron's novels - the heir, in a way, to le Carre - is a terrific thing' Gary Oldman
Slough House is the outpost where disgraced spies are banished to see out the rest of their derailed careers. Known as the 'slow horses' these misfits have committed crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal while on duty.
In this drab and mildewed office these highly trained spies don't run…
I’ve always loved peculiar heroes and heroines. Characters with strange gifts and an equal number of challenges. It started with Sherlock Holmes, whose mind fascinated me. As a child, I gravitated to the unnatural protagonist, Tarzan, in the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was never a big fan of Superman, I preferred people who adapted quickly to new surroundings and could think on their feet. Once I began my writing career, I kept those protagonists in my mind. Four novels in, I do my best to capture their spirit and determination to overcome whatever lands in front of them.
I loved this book because Antonia Scott might just be my favorite protagonist of all time.
She’s literally the most intelligent person in the world, with an I.Q. of over 200. She’s plagued by guilt and awkward social skills, but she has more crime-solving abilities than an entire police force. She’s Sherlock Holmes on steroids, with a hyper-intelligent sense of humor!
Now an Amazon Prime Original series, Red Queen is the first in Juan Gomez-Jurado's internationally bestselling thriller series, translated by Nick Caistor. Winner of the Cognac Prize 2022 with more than two million copies sold in Spain alone.
Sunday Times - Best Thriller Books of the Year
'A Spanish spin on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . . . A female Sherlock Holmes' - The Times
You've never met anyone like her . . .
Antonia Scott is special. Very special. She is not a policewoman or a lawyer. She has never wielded a weapon or carried a badge,…
I’ve always loved peculiar heroes and heroines. Characters with strange gifts and an equal number of challenges. It started with Sherlock Holmes, whose mind fascinated me. As a child, I gravitated to the unnatural protagonist, Tarzan, in the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was never a big fan of Superman, I preferred people who adapted quickly to new surroundings and could think on their feet. Once I began my writing career, I kept those protagonists in my mind. Four novels in, I do my best to capture their spirit and determination to overcome whatever lands in front of them.
Author I.S. Berry’s debut is perfect for people like me who love a realistic spy story.
Her protagonist, Shane Collins, is straight out of a John le Carré novel, and his superpower is a dogged determination to end his long, questionable career by doing something right. This jaded spook is in Bahrain, caught up in the Arab Spring.
I adored how Berry captured the reality on the ground and the complexity of the modern world, and I loved the complexity of Shane Collins, a man on his way out who finds real love and something to fight for, maybe for the first time in his life.
During the Arab Spring, an American spy’s final mission goes dangerously awry in this explosive and “remarkable debut” (Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author) from a former CIA officer that is perfect for fans of John le Carré, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Alan Furst.
Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia for his final tour, he’s anxious to dispense with his mission—uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency against the monarchy. But then he meets Almaisa,…
Belden Lane is a wilderness backpacker and storyteller who has written extensively on the connections between human spiritual experience and the power of place. As Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University he taught theology and spirituality for thirty-five years with the Jesuits. Drawing on backpacking trips in the canyonlands of Utah, the Wind River Range of Wyoming, and the Australian outback, his books include Landscapes of the Sacred, Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice, and The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul.
A depth psychologist and wilderness guide, Plotkin is director of the Animas Valley Institute in Durango, CO. Building on the work of Joseph Campbell and others, he proposes various exercises, rituals, and disciplines to use in nature wandering as a soulful practice. These include dream-work and drumming, vision quests, and cross-species dialogue. His later book,Nature and the Human Soul(2007), offers a nature-based pattern for understanding stages of human development.
Since 1980, depth psychologist Bill Plotkin has been guiding women and men into the wilderness—the redrock canyons and snow-crested mountains of the American West—but also into the wilds of the soul. He calls this work soulcraft.
There’s a great longing in all people to uncover the secrets and mysteries of our individual lives, to find the unique gift we were born to bring to our communities, and to experience our full membership in the more-than-human world. This journey to soul is a descent into layers of the self much deeper than personality, a journey meant for each one of us,…
I’m a daughter, sister, Mum, wife, and writer. I’ve been writing light-hearted books about the intricacies of family life for 20 years now. When I first began my publishing journey, I was parcelled up with ‘chick lit’, but really, I’ve always written ‘Mum lit’. I love to write about the hilarious side of life, alongside the emotional. As it’s hard enough out there in the world, I want things to turn out happily in my stories. I love to add a sprinkling of travel and a touch of fashion. Sorry, but I just can’t help noticing a well-cut jacket, an embroidered silky skirt, or a carefully chosen accessory!
Every comedy needs a truly memorable comedy scene and once you’ve read this book, you will never look at any birthday cake with candles in quite the same way again.
This plot is based on of my favourite setups – grown up siblings being forcedto spend time in their family home together. In this case, they are mourning their recently deceased Dad. The seven-day stay is long enough for all the niceties to wear off and the real sibling rivalries, unresolved arguments, and tensions to surface and here, they are properly aired and almost resolved.
The very funny side and the searingly painful side are both so well done. If your sibs and in-laws are crazy or crazy-annoying, Tropper will make sure you know you are not alone.
A riotously funny, emotionally raw New York Times bestselling novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind-whether we like it or not.
The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman clan has congregated in years. There is, however, one conspicuous absence: Judd's wife, Jen, whose affair with his radio- shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the demise of his father and his marriage, Judd joins his dysfunctional family as they reluctantly sit shiva and spend seven days and nights under the same roof. The week quickly spins out…
I’ve been rising for years. In fact, Dark Star: Reclaiming Lilithis the culmination of 18 years’ worth of my personal ascension, which is certainly still a work in progress. My book is written in an extremely magical realistic, sci-fi/fantastical manner. I do believe that there are a cohort of women here on Planet Earth right now who’ve incarnated to help carry Gaia into her 5th dimension. Especially now, it’s relevant to move our planet into a more sustainable, spiritual, and connected way. If our voices can span across genres, generations, and gender, then maybe, they can reach all corners of the Universe before it’s too late for us and our planet.
This book not only changed my entire life, but it has also helped me shape the ending of my own book. Wilson gave me the permission and vocabulary to express abstract concepts that I was carrying around; sacred rage, patriarchal oppression, a lineage of matricidal trauma… big stuff. Rather than a book, Maiden to Mother is a cultural and feminine ancestral movement. By traversing your own underworlds and excavating all of the buried, scorned, traumatized parts of ourselves, we can then begin the healing journey and live honest to our souls. In this non-fiction book, Wilson asks the reader to go where they’ve never gone before, and in return, promises liberation and true joy. She delivers this in a no-bullshit manner. And guess what? It works.
When the goddess culture was stolen and buried, so too were women's rites of passage into our wild, intuitive femininity and maturity. With Maiden to Mother, Sarah Durham Wilson excavates these ancient rites, guiding us through a sacred and crucial initiation from the immature Maiden into the archetypal Mother - the powerful, safe, compassionate, full-bloom feminine life force that exists within all of us.
Becoming the Mother is every woman's birthright - regardless of whether or not she raises children. The Mother is who we needed as a child, who we were meant to be in this life, and who…
As a human behavior professor, award-winning executive coach, and trained therapist, I’ve spent the last decade helping thousands of high-achieving, highly sensitive professionals discover ways to enjoy their success without self-doubt, stress, and emotional overwhelm. I’m a highly sensitive person myself, so I intimately understand what it’s like to navigate the world as a deep thinker and feeler. Trust Yourselfis the actionable guide I wish I had had as a big-feeling, driven person trying to find my way in my career and figure out how to believe in myself in the process.
Highly sensitive people (HSPs) have more active mirror neurons, which means they can more acutely sense other people’s emotions. I have found that my empathy can be a tremendous gift, but without the right tools, feeling others’ energy can be draining. I enjoyed that Dr. Orloff’s presented a comprehensive toolkit, particularly for navigating relationships at home and work. This book isn’t a one-time read. It’s the type of book you reference and revisit over time.
What is the difference between having empathy and being an empath? "Having empathy means our heart goes out to another person in joy or pain," says Judith Orloff, MD. "But for empaths it goes much further. We actually feel others' emotions, energy, and physical symptoms in our own bodies, without the usual defenses that most people have." With The Empath's Survival Guide, Dr. Orloff offers a practical tool set to help sensitive people develop healthy coping mechanisms in our high-stimulus world-while fully embracing the empath's gifts of intuition, compassion, creativity, and spiritual connection.
I fell in love with reading in fourth grade but felt like real girls weren't reflected in young adult books. The characters had friend problems and boy problems, but books about really big problems like sexual assault were rare because most people thought subjects like addiction and abuse weren't appropriate for young readers. It's one of those weird dichotomies: we know kids deal with big problems, but we're afraid to broach the subject. I used books to help me understand stuff I didn't feel comfortable talking about so I appreciate books that show people how to claw themselves out of a bad place and be their own hero.
Just Listenhas one of my favorite male protagonists of all time, the guy I wish I would have met in high school. As a music-head, I also love the way Annabel and Owen bond over their favorite songs. Getting over an assault requires support. On one hand, you have to be incredibly strong to tell the truth about what happened. But once you tell your people, they hold you up as you walk through healing. Telling is so hard, but support is key.
The world is growing more turbulent, and every leader today has to be ready to be a crisis leader. I have been studying and teaching leadership and crisis leadership at Harvard for more than two decades. I have deployed to major incidents such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and trained crisis teams around the world. I have seen that effective crisis leaders make “worst days” better. They unite and inspire, they protect communities, and, most important, they save lives. That’s why I have a passion to help current and aspiring leaders ready themselves and their organizations for whatever the world throws at them.
I have seen how important it is for someone trying to lead to understand themselves as a person—to be comfortable in their own skin, even in trying circumstances. To be effective, you have to be authentic and have presence. It’s harder than it seems.
Dunston walks through a series of simple, yet profound questions that help you master the balance of “be and see.” That is, being the real you and as the leader others need to see. I refer to the “essential” questions regularly and find more meaning through them every time. The answers help build self-awareness, confidence, and the ability to show up ready for any challenge.
I regularly recommend this book to my leadership students.
Being Essential presents the seven questions that will help any leader discover an authentic path to the true self and master a virtuous cycle of self-awareness that fosters purpose, value, and joy at work and in life.
Leaders often know what they need to do, but don't have a clue who they need to be. Without a true essence of self, their leadership can feel void of purpose and confidence, affecting both teams and stakeholders. But when leaders discover their essential selves-who they are at their cores and why they show up-it enables them to reach a state of "radical…
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