Here are 100 books that Freedomland fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.
I also love books that combine thrilling adventure stories with the thoughtful exploration of ideas.
The protagonists of this haunting sci-fi/existential horror novel make contact with an alien species that, while highly intelligent, appears to lack any sense of self-awareness. This leads to the scary question: Are the aliens the weird ones in this scenario, or is human consciousness a unique mutation in a universe filled with zombies?
Two months have past since a myriad of alien objects clenched about the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent since until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us.Who should we send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet?Send a linguist with multiple - personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his…
I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.
I love books that refuse to fit neatly into genre categories. This underappreciated novel by the author of "The Lottery"and The Haunting of Hill House reads like a Seinfeld episode set on the eve of the apocalypse.
The Sundial’s combination of social satire and horror got lackluster reviews when it was published in 1958, but that’s just because it was way ahead of its time.
Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial
When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher…
I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.
This book borrows its title from a short story coauthored by H.P. Lovecraft, and it starts out like a classic Lovecraft tale, with an escaped psychiatric patient sending his wife a message from beyond the grave.
But just when you think you know what kind of book you’re reading, author La Farge throws in a twist—and then he does it again and again. It’s a unique and amazing novel that defies categorization.
From the award-winning author and New Yorker contributor, a riveting novel about secrets and scandals, psychiatry and pulp fiction, inspired by the lives of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle.
Marina Willett, M.D., has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends--or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's…
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…
I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.
It’s not the scariest Stephen King novel I’ve ever read—I’d give that honor to The Shining—but this book remains my all-time favorite.
The story of John Smith, who awakens from a five-year coma with psychic powers that are more curse than blessing, plays to King’s greatest strength as a writer: the ability to create believable characters who you really care about.
The book is also a time capsule of American politics in the 1970s—one that seems newly relevant in the 2024 presidential season.
A #1 New York Times bestseller about a man who wakes up from a five-year coma able to see people’s futures and the terrible fate awaiting mankind—a “compulsive page-turner” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma after his car accident and discovers that he can see people’s futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fiancée married another man during his coma and people clamor for him to solve their problems.
I didn’t get the itch to write till my late fifties then I wrote about Mama’s humble life on a tobacco farm. I was a novice who leaned on critique groups to learn literary rules. Short story contests helped me segue into fiction. I sold a few of those early stories and wrote a practice novel that didn’t sell but I understood the best storytelling transports us to a time and place that feels so authentic your senses respond. That place for me is the South and I wanted to write books that took you there. I was seventy when my debut Appalachian novel, If the Creek Don’t Rise, was released and became a bestseller.
In the Valley by Ron Rash is a haunting collection of ten short stories told as lean and efficient as the author’s other works. Filled with surprise twists, I could hardly close the book at bedtime, so delicious were the varied plots. I particularly loved the stories that expanded our understanding of his captivating character, Serena, that was made into a movie in 2014.
From the New York Times bestselling, award-winning writer of Serena
"One of the great American authors at work today" (The New York Times) gives us a short story collection of haunting allegories about the times we live in—from the perils of capitalism to the extraordinary acts of decency and heroism that exist within them—and the return of the villainess who propelled Rash’s famed Serena to national acclaim.
Ron Rash has long been a revered presence in the landscape of American letters. A virtuosic novelist, poet, and story writer, he evokes the beauty and brutality of the land, the relentless tension…
I love crime fiction—mysteries, thrillers, espionage, you name it, plots and puzzles that excite and confound and ultimately gratify. I also love the non-genre called literary fiction, sharply observed and beautifully written books that move me, and leave me with a slightly better understanding of humanity. And I think the sweetest spot of all is the intersection of the two, with sparkling prose, fully realized characters, and interesting settings combined with an insistent, credible plot that makes it a matter of urgency to turn the page, presenting the exquisite dilemma of wanting to race through the excitement but also the opposite urge to slow down and enjoy it all.
This bighearted, heartbreaking story about the abortion wars is also paradoxically one of the funniest books I’ve ever read; there’s a page in the middle that I’ll reread again and again whenever I need a smile. The plot revolves around Claudia, a longtime employee of a Boston clinic that’s besieged by protesters who threaten the sort of political violence that’s become all too commonplace in polarized America, creating an insistent drumbeat of menace. But Mercy Streetis not a polemic, and the antagonists are treated with deep empathy and humanity. Possibly my favorite novel of the past few years.
"Ms. Haigh is an expertly nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention. Her work is gripping, real, and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard Price, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo."-Janet Maslin, New York Times
The highly praised, "extraordinary" (New York Times Book Review) novel about the disparate lives that intersect at a women's clinic in Boston, by New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh
For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city. The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in…
Nine-year-old Chloe Janis is missing. Abby, her mom, is now faced with an impossible decision—revealing seventeen-year-old secrets she's kept hidden, or losing her daughter forever.
Everything unravels after Abby receives a cryptic message from a man from her past, someone she’d tried to erase from her memory. But now, he’s…
I have always been interested in family stories, the history of women’s lives, and history in general. Discovering new (at least it was at the time!) work in social and women’s history at university in the 1980s opened up new vistas for me and showed me it was possible to do academic work in the discipline in creative and challenging ways. These books were crucial to my development as a historian, both because of their subject matter and because they are so beautifully written. They brought the past “to life” for me and showed that historians could care about their subjects without sacrificing academic rigor.
I knew about the history of enslaved people and the institution of slavery in the Americas. Still, until I read Jones’ book, I did not appreciate how slavery affected African-American women’s lives in so many different ways, even after the institution itself formally ended.
I also gained a new understanding of their bravery, ingenuity, persistence, and contributions to their communities and American society more generally. Jones tells their stories with empathy and great wisdom, shattering stereotypes and insisting that we pay attention to these women and their lives.
The forces that shaped the institution of slavery in the American South endured, albeit in altered form, long after slavery was abolished. Toiling in sweltering Virginia tobacco factories or in the kitchens of white families in Chicago, black women felt a stultifying combination of racial discrimination and sexual prejudice. And yet, in their efforts to sustain family ties, they shared a common purpose with wives and mothers of all classes. In labour of Love, labour of Sorrow , historian Jacqueline Jones offers a powerful account of the changing role of black women, lending a voice to an unsung struggle from…
As the Black American daughter of Jamaican immigrants born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, I love stories that depict the beauty of being multifaceted human beings. Stories steeped in broad understandings of place and home. Stories that encourage us to delight in being the people we are. I also believe our children are natural poets and storytellers. Lyrical picture books filled with rich language and sensory details encourage the thriving of such creativity. In addition to writing All the Places We Call Home, I'm the author ofAll the Colors We Will See, an essay collection about race, immigration, and belonging.
A History of Me is a poetically-told story of trial and struggle, but ultimately of triumph and celebration of self. This book is deeply rooted in the author’s experience as a Black child who attended a predominantly white school. Yes, I love this book for its words and illustrations, but I also love it because I share the same experience. This book is one I wish I could hand to the child I once was. Theodore directly addresses the challenges but also provides encouraging words of connection to past generations. These words empower the little girl in the story and readers who find themselves in this book. We need more stories that consider the impact racial injustice can have on identity formation. A History of Me is one such story.
An uplifting message of hope for the future and pride in your history, inspired by a mother's experience of being the only Black child in her classroom.
Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
Emphasizing the strength, creativity, and courage passed down through generations, A History of Me offers a joyful new perspective on how we look at history and an uplifting message for the future.
Being the only brown girl in a classroom full of white students can be hard. When the teacher talks about slavery and civil rights, she can feel all the other students'…
I grew up in an immigrant household where success was defined by how much money you made and your individual progress. But I’ve always been fascinated by social change as the measure of collective success. As a former business journalist, I was most inspired by leaders who were creating opportunities for overlooked communities. I now advise organization leaders on how to create more inclusive and diverse organizations by rethinking the measure of success purely from the profit perspective. That’s why I wrote Inclusion on Purpose. These books have helped me transform my definition of success. I hope you’re catalyzed to action by these books!
Dr. Blackstock’s advocacy for equity and access during the COVID-19 pandemic made her a hero in my eyes, and I was eagerly awaiting her memoir! I read it in one weekend. It’s compelling, heartbreaking, and, in parts, deeply devastating when you’re shown firsthand the huge health disparities in this country.
It’s tragic to see how some people are given immediate access to health care while others are systematically denied it on the basis of their skin color. The racism Dr. Blackstock has to navigate in her career as a Black physician and academic doctor is heartbreaking, but the overall story is one of triumph and resilience.
Dr. Blackstock is an incredibly inspiring character, but the ultimate heroine is their late mother, whose training at Harvard Medical School led to her twin daughters becoming the first Black mother-daughter legacies from the school. This book reminded me that success doesn’t come from…
“This book is more than a memoir—it also serves as a call to action to create a more equitable healthcare system for patients of color, particularly Black women.” —Essence
One of NPR’s 11 Books to Look Forward to in 2024
One of Good Morning America’s 15 New Books to Read for the New Year
“Legacy is both a compelling memoir and an edifying analysis of the inequities in the way we deliver healthcare in America. Uché Blackstock is a force of nature.” —Abraham Verghese, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Covenant of…
Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.
Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriff’s office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. As…
I am a lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster. I write regularly on popular music and culture in scholarly form and as a critic in various publications. I am convinced that popular music can gesture at utopia despite its emergence from within a capitalist market society.
This book was actually written before Baraka’s turn to Marxism, but as a social history of African American music, it is more than exemplary of a style of writing that takes the relationship of cultural form to its conditions seriously.
How Baraka moves between the music and the social conditions of Black musicians changed what I thought engaged musical analysis could be.
"A must for all who would more knowledgeably appreciate and better comprehend America's most popular music." — Langston Hughes
"The path the slave took to 'citizenship' is what I want to look at. And I make my analogy through the slave citizen's music—through the music that is most closely associated with him: blues and a later, but parallel development, jazz... [If] the Negro represents, or is symbolic of, something in and about the nature of American culture, this certainly should be revealed by his characteristic music."
So says Amiri Baraka (previously known as LeRoi Jones) in the Introduction to Blues…
