Here are 100 books that Hope Farm fans have personally recommended if you like
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Writers often get labeled as either nonfiction or fiction writers. In grad school, it was very difficult to study across genres, which I found very frustrating: To me, the most important thing about a book has always been the voice. A novel? A memoir? Essays? Stories? Don’t pin me down, just give me something with a voice that propels me forward, that is unique and sparkling and unputdownable. When I find books with voices so singular and propulsive, I return to them over and over.
There is nothing like this groundbreaking memoir—it is as good as it gets—and it has probably influenced every memoir since (including my own).
Kingston is a poet, and I find it impossible not to sink into the striking, gorgeous language and imagery as she describes growing up between multiple worlds: the China her parents emigrated from, the California of a first-generation daughter of immigrants, the ghost-filled China of her mother’s “talk stories,” and her inner life and growing awareness. She weaves family stories, famous myths, and her own girlhood experiences into a beautiful and unforgettable narrative.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • With this book, the acclaimed author created an entirely new form—an exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities—immigrant, female, Chinese, American.
“A classic, for a reason” – Celeste Ng via Twitter
As a girl, Kingston lives in two confounding worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of…
My parents survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the aftermath of the Vietnam War, so their love for us was always tinged with anxiety, fear, and a large deal of paranoia and control. All of my books are about the complex relationship between parents and their children, and the things we knowingly or unknowingly pass down. I’ve also worked a number of years as a university student counsellor, where the same enduring themes play out in my students’ experiences. So naturally, I am drawn to stories that explore difficult but loving family dynamics.
Many years ago, because I’d written a book about my family’s experience surviving the Cambodian genocide, a talented author asked if I would mentor her through writing a book about the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict and her mother’s mental illness. The result of this is Amra Pajalic’s extraordinary memoir Things Nobody Knows about Me. Pajalic writes with raw candour about her mother’s bipolar and psychosis and growing up in the economically depressed suburbs of working-class Australia. Despite the horrors and hardships of having to constantly be an ‘adult’ in the parent-child relationship Amra’s memoir is full of humour, life, and love.
When she is four years old Amra Pajalić realises that her mother is different. Fatima is loving but sometimes hears strange voices that tell her to do bizarre things. She is frequently sent to hospital and Amra and her brother are passed around to family friends and foster homes, and for a time live with their grandparents in Bosnia.
At sixteen Amra ends up in the school counsellor's office for wagging school. She finally learns the name for the malady that has dogged her mother and affected her own life: bipolar disorder. Amra becomes her mother's confidante and learns the…
My parents survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the aftermath of the Vietnam War, so their love for us was always tinged with anxiety, fear, and a large deal of paranoia and control. All of my books are about the complex relationship between parents and their children, and the things we knowingly or unknowingly pass down. I’ve also worked a number of years as a university student counsellor, where the same enduring themes play out in my students’ experiences. So naturally, I am drawn to stories that explore difficult but loving family dynamics.
Renee’s father was in jail for murder, and her mother never got over the shame. This book is about family secrets and how corrosive they can be, and also how a child survives a manipulative mother. I was floored by the wild level of pain a parent could inadvertently bestow on their child, but there is also much grace and love in this memoir.
A gripping memoir that reads like a psychological thriller... When Anne wakes in hospital, she is unable to recognise anyone or anything, mistaking herself for a young girl at first. She can talk but cannot remember much, including, as it turns out, the birth of her daughter, her rocky relationship with a man who is said to be her husband, and a mysterious man she feels a deep longing for but is warned against. As Anne tries to recover and piece together what has happened, fragments of memory come back but do little to help and sometimes confuse her further.…
Complex relationships have been the heart of my career. I have a BA in sexual anthropology from Concordia University in Montréal and a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne. My debut novel, Weekend Friends, was published by Post Hill Press in 2023. My nonfiction book, Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2012. Themes I like writing about include friendship, desire, conflict, healing, and love. I have published short stories and poetry and have written for publications such as the Huffington Post and Daily Life. I appear on TV and give talks, including a TEDx talk. My work has been featured in a National Geographic documentary.
I was completely immersed in this novel. Through her exploration of Chinese-American culture, Amy Tan draws us deeply into the intricate relationships between the mothers in this book and their daughters.
Cross-generational and cross-cultural, Tan skillfully portrays the conflicts within these friendships—both among the mothers and between mothers and daughters—ultimately demonstrating the power of understanding and forgiveness.
'The Joy Luck Club is an ambitious saga that's impossible to read without wanting to call your Mum' Stylist
Discover Amy Tan's moving and poignant tale of immigrant Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters.
In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club.
Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives - until their own inner…
I’m Australian and there’s a big place in my heart for Australian-set stories. I read mostly for escapism, but there’s a deeper connection with tales from my own backyard. I’ve also always loved speculative fiction – everything from epic and paranormal fantasy to space opera and dystopian thrillers – and I’m excited when my favourite genres and setting come together. My day job is in local government. I’ve seen how government decisions can impact the trajectory of a society, and I’m particularly drawn to stories that explore that theme. I’m the author of five speculative fiction novels with Australian settings: the four novels in The Rephaim series (supernatural fantasy) and The Undercurrent (slightly futuristic/pre-apocalyptic).
It’s a dystopian YA novel where the Australian landscape is beautifully rendered in all its glory and danger. It’s also a tightly written and intense page turner, when even quiet moments are infused with a sense of menace.
It has echoes of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, although this book is unmistakably Australian - right down to speculation around where our nation’s attitude to asylum seeks may lead us. It’s not as bleak as The Road (a book I admire), but Mark reminds us how easily our veneer of society could slip away in the wake of a catastrophic, world-changing event.
I did worry for Finn’s dog as much as for Finn himself. (I’m still scarred by The Knife of Never Letting Go. This has parallels to that nail-biting novel, too.)
Since a deadly virus and the violence that followed wiped out his parents and most of his community, Finn has lived alone on the rugged coast with only his dog Rowdy for company.
He has stayed alive for two winters—hunting and fishing and trading food, and keeping out of sight of the Wilders, an armed and dangerous gang that controls the north, led by a ruthless man named Ramage.
But Finn’s isolation is shattered when a girl runs onto the beach. Rose is a Siley—an asylum seeker—and she has escaped from Ramage, who had enslaved her and her younger sister,…
I’ve been fascinated by relationships since I was a kid. I grew up a keen observer of the relationships in my own family, mostly focused on the way in which the dynamics were difficult for me. This led me to develop a strong interest in psychology, a passion I pursued in my undergraduate education. I became acutely intrigued by an idea a professor exposed me to early on – that experiences of safety and security within attachment relationships are essential in order for children to thrive, and that without safety/security, they can experience chronic struggles. This early interest paved the way for what developed into my career as a psychology professor and therapist.
This is a touching children’s book that helps to teach young children about the connections they have with others in their lives.
The metaphor used in the book is about an invisible string that connects the child to other people they love. The book is so poignant in its simplicity – the message is concrete enough for a young child to understand, providing them with language they can use to describe their ongoing emotional connection to a caregiver during a time of separation, or why it hurts when someone they loved is no longer there.
I have found that reading this book to my own children or child clients creates opportunities for important conversations about the meaning of our connection.
With over 400,000 copies sold, this accessible, bestselling picture book phenomenon about the unbreakable connections between loved ones has healed a generation of readers--children and adults alike--and has been updated with new illustrations and an afterword from the author. Now available in paperback for the first time!
Parents, educators, therapists, and social workers alike have declared The Invisible String the perfect tool for coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. In this relatable and reassuring contemporary classic, a mother tells her two children that they're all connected by an invisible string. "That's impossible!" the children insist, but…
As a children’s writer I have to draw on my own creativity, celebrate my own ideas and quash self-doubt every time I work on a story. I teach creative writing, run workshops, and visit schools regularly – above all, I want to instill courage and the love of bold imagination in children. Picture book age children have such fantastic creativity and joyous wonder at the world around them. How wonderful to see that creative energy reflected back in a story which will hopefully spark more journeys into wonderful invented places, spaces, pictures, and tales. Imagination has brought me such great joy, I hope I can pass a spark of that onwards...
This witty, quirky, ever-escalating modern classic celebrates burgeoning creativity and rubs out the criticism of others and our own self-doubt! A joyous squiggle of a story with the eponymous Pencil as a hero. How often does our own creativity – especially when we are little – begin with a single pencil line?
A pencil draws a boy, a dog, a cat and a whole world for them to play in. Then the pencil draws a brush, and the brush adds colour to everything. Everyone is very happy, until the pencil draws a rubber... which begins rubbing everything out.
Louisa Waugh is a writer, blogger, and the prize-winning author of three non-fiction books: Hearing Birds Fly, Selling Olga, and Meet Me in Gaza. She has lived and worked in the Middle East, Central and West Africa, and is a conflict adviser for an international peace-building organisation. She blogs at The Waugh Zoneand currently lives in Brighton, on the southern English coast, where she kayaks and drinks red wine on the beach, usually not at the same time.
Of all the destinations we can and do explore during our lives, our internal landscape is the most intimate. Without silence, how do we begin to know ourselves, and to see ourselves for who we really are? Sara Maitland moved from being a chatterer to “a silence hunter,” seeking out spaces where she could live alone and savour silent solitude. Her book explores histories and landscapes of silence, from contemplatives to explorers. She nails the difference between bad silence (the kind most of us are terrified of) and the spaciousness of prolonged silence that, eventually, becomes a state of bliss. Don’t be put off by the apparent seriousness of this subject: Sara might be a religious reclusive, but she writes in accessible prose that, ironically, induces the sense you could almost be having a drink together. It’s a brilliant book.
After a noisy upbringing as one of six children, and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland began to crave silence. Over the past five years, she has spent periods of silence in the Sinai Desert and the Australian bush and on the Isle of Skye. She interweaves these experiences with the history of silence told through fairy tale and myth, Western and Eastern religious traditions, the Enlightenment and psychoanalysis, up to the ambivalence towards silence in contemporary society. Maitland has built a hermitage on an isolated Scottish moor, and the book culminates powerfully with her experiences of…
Although I’m an academic by training, I secretly struggle with heavy nonfiction tomes (think: massive histories of long-ago countries). I start reading these with the best intentions but quickly get sleepy, bored, or both, setting them aside and instead picking up a novel, which I’ll immediately devour. That’s why I love memoiristic, hybrid work so much: writing that pairs the intimacy of fiction with the information buffet of nonfiction, where you learn without realizing you’re learning. These books feel like a conversation with a close friend who is intelligent, thought-provoking, and passionate about various subjects—what could be better than that?
I read Olivia Laing’s bookat the height of my own loneliness: isolated, in lockdown, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Part memoir, part art history, part cultural criticism, the book managed to be both intimate and expansive—just what I needed as I sat by myself in front of a computer, anxiously refreshing virus graphs.
I became absorbed by the lives of Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper, Henry Darger, and David Wojnarowicz, artists I’d heard of but knew nothing about, and by the various aspects of loneliness I’d never previously considered. It’s the perfect example of the type of hybrid writing that I find truly magical.
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism
#1 Book of the Year from Brain Pickings
Named a best book of the year by NPR, Newsweek, Slate, Pop Sugar, Marie Claire, Elle, Publishers Weekly, and Lit Hub
A dazzling work of biography, memoir, and cultural criticism on the subject of loneliness, told through the lives of iconic artists, by the acclaimed author of The Trip to Echo Spring.
When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by the most shameful of experiences, she began…
Like many people, I have experienced my share of suffering. I have also spent a lifetime exploring the suffering of others through great works of literature and art. My attraction to Japanese literature–imbued with a Buddhist sensitivity to loss–reflects my taste for the melancholy beauty of works of art that transmute suffering into aesthetic form. The qualities I find in Japanese literature are in wonderfully long supply in writings from around the world. My list of favorite books is a small testament to that aesthetic work which has the potential to heal us.
I have never read a more profoundly sad but philosophically wise novel about the complex bonds of friendship and how the betrayal of those bonds and of one’s own authentic feelings leads to loneliness and even anguish.
I first read this great Japanese masterwork, written by Japan's greatest writer of fiction, over forty years ago, and I revisit it every year, both for the life lessons it continues to teach and for its literary beauty—which only deepens with time.
"The novel sustains throughout its length something approaching poetry, and it is rich in understanding and insight. The translation, by Edwin McClellan, is extremely good." —Anthony West, The New Yorker
Kokoro, which means "the heart of things," explores emotions familiar to everyone—love and hate, hope and despair, companionship and loneliness.
Sensei, a man seen against the rich background of old Japan entering the modern era, is outwardly successful. He has position, wealth, a charming wife. But deep in the heart of things, he is harried with a profound sense of isolation whose cure lies only in "faith, madness, or death."…
