100 books like Half Broken Things

I first discovered The Rose and the Yew Tree while searching for novels about irreparable rifts between once-close friends. I always seek out books that resonate, thematically, with any current emotional challenge that I have. At the time, I had just been sent the most vicious communication I’ve ever received in my life from someone I’d believed was a close friend. Her letter accused me of two things I hadn’t done, and I was absolutely floored by it. 

Later, once I’d calmed down, I reread the WhatsApp messages I’d sent her in response to her letter, explaining that she was mistaken and that I had not done the things she’d accused me of. I was shocked by my own panicked and subservient tone. I recognised the palpable fear in my words, and I realised that I’d had only one goal at the time: to ward off further attack. 

So, I… show more.

I heard of this book before I got sober. I felt it was too “Western trying to be Eastern Healers” and for people who had personal dysfunctions that I couldn't relate to. 

I came across it again after sobriety and realized that I was running from my past and making up a future based on my fears of the past, never really being present, which was a wack in the gut for the better. The road to healing was way more understandable when I accepted the present, knowing that I also had the power to change anything I wanted. 

This book, and a couple of seminars with Byron Katie, really did change my life! I was stuck in negative thinking and couldn’t seem to get out of it. She offers a straightforward method to challenge your thoughts and turn them around to other possibilities. It‘s almost magical how your hurtful beliefs can be changed into accepting “the way it is” without the hurt.

Get this book and get some relief from whatever is bothering you. Truly.

Everybody knows Ahab, but do you know Bartleby? It’s a strange story about a strange man, which, of course, attracts me. Bartleby is a lawyer’s copyist who decides he doesn’t want to do this sort of writing anymore and meets every instruction with the words: I would prefer not to. You can read Bartleby as simply a humorous tale. Or you can read it as a story of the existential crisis most writers, myself included, face at one time or the other. Melville was feeling dissatisfied with his choice of a writing career—the critics were unfriendly—and, in my opinion, the title character reflects this. It’s also, in my view, an implicit critique of economic control in America—my SDS youth would approve! It’s not for nothing that the story’s final words are: “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!”

Set in Australia, the story opens with a dead man lying in the desert heat. The quest to discover who he is, and what happened to him provide a most satisfying read, involving family feuds and community tensions. I can’t think of another book where I was so desperate to learn what had led to the man’s death—the back story, the reasons and the truth of the various family relationships. The central character is endearing and the slow realisations that dawn on the reader are handled with great skill. I have been to Northern and Western Australia a number of times, so could visualise the setting very well. I am fascinated by the lives of those living in such a hostile environment.

Though this is Penny’s first in the “Three Pines” series featuring CI Armand Gamache, I’ll confess that I initially read it out of order. I picked up a later Penny book and liked it well enough to go back and start from the beginning.

This book feels like a debut. The writing is good, but not quite as sure-handed as more recent books (which makes sense). It introduces us to Armand Gamache, a seasoned detective if ever there was one, and to the cast of characters in Three Pines.

By the time I finished it the first time around, I’d become a legit Gamache fan-girl. This series is one of the few that I’m so enamored with that I pre-order forthcoming titles. ‘Nuff said.

Another murder mystery set in a small peaceful community—this time near San Francisco. It is the first featuring Kate Martinelli as the detective, who is new to the job. I found the characters totally credible and appealing, and the theme of portrait painting as a way of revealing the depths of someone’s personality was powerfully well done. It stayed with me long after I finished, and is wonderfully original. Laurie R. King is very prolific, and I find the quality of her work quite variable. But when she’s good, she’s fantastic.

Two young women set up a gift shop in a quiet rural village and deal with any threats to their security in their own outrageous fashion. This is hilarious and utterly original. A short marvellous romp, where nothing is off limits. The basic storyline resembles that of my book with a very different but equally delightful treatment. John Bowen wrote several brilliant novels, and I love them all. I think it’s a great shame that he is almost forgotten, when his stories are so enjoyable. He breaks rules, can be very shocking, and always surprising, with delicious twists and turns.

Set during the London Blitz, I found this to be Greene’s most vivid novel.

His characters reel in the face of the power of Hitler’s onslaught on London, yet cling to the possibilities of love, even through the carnage and loss, until the wreckage of London overtakes them in a beautiful and tragic conclusion.

Picture it: you’re a woman married to a man whose first wife went missing, presumed dead. Then: knock, knock, who’s there? It’s the missing wife.

I loved the freaky premise, the mystery, and the scheming among the members of this shockingly unexpected and awkward ménage à trois. I can relate to Merritt, the caring second wife who feels a moral obligation to help the now-unmissing Lydia. I’d want to help too, and like Merritt, I’d probably feel guilty for enjoying a dreamy new life with another woman’s husband.

I enjoyed pondering the thorny legalities of the situation, but as the parties involved dig deeper into the circumstances of Lydia’s disappearance, it turns out that who’s legally married to whom is the least of their worries.