100 books like Falling in Love with Hominids

This book, again by JRR Tolkien, was published in 1977, actually four years after its author’s death. It deals with Middle Earth long before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both set in the Third Age.

It concerns a foe, Melkor, who is infinitely more powerful than Sauron, the adversary in the later books. Tolkien himself summarises it better than anyone: "The Silmarillion is the history of the War of the Exiled Elves against the Enemy. Several tales of victory and tragedy are caught up in it; but it ends with catastrophe, and the passing of the Ancient World, the world of the long First Age." Tolkien’s son Christopher had to finish something that was not fully complete.

For some, it might be an effort to keep up with the intricate cultural and in-depth world building than anything we see in the Third Age, yet again the… show more.

This classic middle grade fantasy tale is what first taught me an appreciation of figurative language and lyricism in writing. It revolves around a young courtesan tasked to provide a definitive definition of delicious to resolve a court dispute. He asks many people throughout the land, which yields answers such as “a cold leg of chicken eaten in an orchard early in the morning in April when you have a friend to share it” or “a drink of cool water when you’re very, very thirsty.” At an early age, those descriptions made clear to me the power of making comparisons that evoke memory and mood. It also heavily influences my food and drink reviews to this day!

I studied the literature of the Harlem Renaissance in college, and the rhythmic power and cadence of so many great works of that time still influence me: the deep bass throughline of Claude McKay’s Banjo; the fiery, relentless push of truth in James Baldwin’s essays and novels. Zora Neale Hurston imbued her allegories and anthropological studies of the era with literary devices that made them smooth to read and easy to slide under your skin. Just the repetition of mountain in Moses, Man of the Mountain, is enough to reveal the power of the simplest literary devices. And her expert use of alliteration makes this a beautiful, boisterous, and emboldening read.

I was unprepared for this book’s unrelenting pace, as it provides some of the most on-the-nose and funny skewering of our present era that I’ve read to date, via alien invasion and our coping strategy of viewing reality as a show. Anderson wields short chapters and surprising reveals in his last sentences as atypical, but effective, literary weapons. His framing of the whole work as a series of images, through chapter titles that read like illustrations, is brilliant and a quite literal representation of figurative language. Each time we’re reminded that this is a story about television, about fiction, about the comfortable lies we tell ourselves, the words strike a familiar beat, like a cinematic score reprising a theme. 

I lived in Bangkok for six years. This is the rare novel that captures the sounds, the smells, the spirit, and spirituality of the place. Bangkok in fact is the main character, with supporting roles by humans who make their lives there, from the nineteenth century to the present and into the not-so-distant future, when water lays permanent claim to a city built more or less at sea level. You can expect lyrical writing and engaging characters, whether human or urban. 

Continuing with heartbreaking love stories (can you sense a theme? and perhaps the reason my debut is often recommended to be read with tissues), I adore this book. I was listening to the audiobook and enjoying it so much that I bought the print version to inhale the formats in tandem.

It is another love story told over decades, set against the backdrop of political upheaval in Tehran. It will leave you nostalgic for the path not taken while deeply satisfied with the ending Kamali pens (Warning: I bawled). A poignant novel that will stay with you for a long time.

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.

This collection of short stories offers a contemporary Hawaiʻi full of flawed characters who face challenges both unique to the islands and universal in motivation.

Kahakauwila explores the concept of paradise and the price paid for it. They are stories that capture the spirit and tenacity of Hawaiʻi, the nuanced layers of its social fabric, and brings me home every time I read them. 

The first time I read it, I was alone in a cabin in the woods in the middle of my first writing residency. Suddenly I was no longer pressed up against a wood stove trying to stay warm. Through her gifted storytelling, all the sights and sounds and smells of home came rushing in, both comforting and familiar.

You don’t need to know Hawaiʻi to enjoy this book, but by the end of reading it, you will feel like you do.

Alvar’s stories of men and women of the Philippine diaspora take place all over the globe, shedding insight on the export of labor.

As they separate from the safety and familiarity of family, the characters’ longing and aspirations are universal. This is an important book that helps to illuminate a fascinating and often painful experience of leaving, losing, and searching for home.

This groundbreaking volume paved the way for a modern understanding of urban heritage and, by this, enabled more focus on resource qualities that can be used to respond to climate change.

Even a few years old, this book marked an important milestone in the evolution of a modern heritage understanding that is now often called the New Heritage Approach. Leveraging the since-then prevalent concept of cultural heritage as objects (buildings), this book elaborates based on the recommendation for the historic urban landscape, an idea of urban heritage that consists of different layers, functions, etc., and emphasizes the relations and connections between these different entities.