100 books like Florida

I’m always impressed by how Karen Russell pulls the reader into her stories with no warning about what we’re getting into. No easing into strange situations. She places her characters in what we publicly claim can’t be real but privately know to be true.

To make a fabulist story work, images must cling to the reader’s mind like golden treacle. Each one either grounding us in the familiar or firmly establishing the unfamiliar as quotidian. Russel is a master at this. Her stories flow so easily, and her characters’ unforgettable voices hit the reader in the first paragraph.

Nobody for my dollar moves between front story and back story better than the Canadian author Alice Munro, whose 2013 Nobel Prize was recognition not only for the brilliance of her career but also for the possibilities of the short story as a form.

The final story in the collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” is among the most lasting fiction I’ve read, a meditation on memory and its limitations, as well as the compromises people make to help those they love and have hurt.

McCracken was a librarian at my local library before she was a New York Times bestseller, so I’ve always eagerly read her books, beginning with The Giant’s House. I love Thunderstruck because it’s typical McCracken – unique, funny, tragic, and smart. In spite of the fact that accidents and death are ubiquitous, that wounds don’t magically heal, and that grief haunts many of the stories, this is not a maudlin book. McCracken can make you laugh out loud. Irony, wry humor, and joy live right next to cruel tragedy throughout the book. Best of all, compassion and tenderness abound.

In my very favorite story in this book full of favorites, “Pilgrims,” young children cope with adult reality in a Lord of the Flies-like atmosphere where a tragic accident is offset by the innocent gift of a lost tooth, a talisman meant to create magic in a world that can seem devoid of it. How to Breathe forefronts girls and teens struggling with guilt, peer pressure, identity, envy, sickness, death. Sounds grim, but the writing, the world Orringer creates, is as beautiful and moving as it is dark. Her characters are the kind you can live inside, remember being, feel for. I think about them a lot, still, and I read the book more than a decade ago.

This book mixes realistic elements with fantasy. These YA characters are incredibly intriguing and there's always a sense of mysteriousness as you read it. This book teaches about friendship and investigating the unknown. It felt truly magical, as the main character, Allie Jo Jackson, and her friend, explore a mystical event that happened at The Meriwether Hotel. 

Because…I adore multiple points of view. Here we get Marin, a foster child seeking clues to her past through the  I Ching; a beleaguered but loveable social worker; a woman longing for a child; an orphaned owl out of his element in the city; and the Earth herself. 

My favorite is Owl, who knows what it is to be abandoned and sees Marin as a hatchling he needs to protect. This is a short book with very brief chapters, but Crowder fills it with the wisdom of the ages (or is it the wisdom of owls?) I especially love how beautifully she handles friendship between generations and species.

For academic perspectives on bisexuality, this book is a great resource. Because many books on bisexuality are centred in or around North America this is a welcome addition. It is the first to bring together academic research on bisexual people from around Europe. It also won the Bisexual Book Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 (if you’re looking for more bi books the annual Bi book awards by the Bi Writers Association is always a good place to search!). 

The book includes research from different disciplines, showcasing the many ways that scholars have approached bi+ issues. It provides fascinating insights that are a great stepping stone for venturing deeper into the topic. 

Textbooks can be expensive, and many academic articles are locked behind pay-walls, so the authors made sure that there’s an open access version of the textbook (click the direct link below).

This bestselling classic book is designed especially for happy, newlywed or otherwise newly committed couples to teach them research-based communication and problem-solving skills, how to address “hidden” or broader issues like power and control, closeness and caring, respect and recognition, integrity, commitment, trust, and acceptance, which fuel specific conflicts around money, sex, childrearing, housework, in-laws, and others. 

It also provides tips on increasing fun, friendship, and intimacy.  Based on the authors’ decades of testing the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP©), it provides a simple guide to essential ideas and skills that maintain a healthy marriage – skills that many people do not learn in their families growing up. 

I trained with Drs. Markman and Stanley way back in the 90s and brought PREP to NYU Medical Center and ran many couple workshops, and I’ve seen how effective these relationship tools can be for happy couples eager to… show more.

Approaching the topic of body autonomy, this book tells the story of a boy who gets to choose what he does with his body, which in turn empowers him to respect the body autonomy of others. No more forcing hugs and kisses from friends and family members. When we give our children the tools and the respect to make decisions about their bodies, we allow the space for them to give that same respect to others. 

The eerie forces in Folk’s debut story collection aren’t so much mystical as they are technological.

Each story in this book could be its own episode of Black Mirror, and readers come away understanding how the messiest human impulses are eternal, no matter the advances we make as a society.

Folk’s characters are people trying (and often failing) to find love, meaning, and purpose while their lives are marked by encounters with artificial intelligence and imminent apocalypse.