84 books like I Shall Not Hate

Cummings and his friend William Slater Brown were imprisoned in a detention center for foreign ‘undesirables,’ and to this day we are guilty of locking people up because they are stateless or nationals of another country. Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains, translated by Omid Tofighian, recounts his imprisonment along with fellow refugees on Manus Island. It is a visceral and vivid account, and it speaks in an unrefusable voice. I think it is an act of true human generosity that someone who has suffered so much at our collective hands would still choose to reach out and tell his own story; simply choosing to speak is an act of great hope and belief.

Since long before COVID, Ruth Coker Burks has lived a life of service to people who were abandoned by their families after being diagnosed with AIDS.

In the dark days of that epidemic, she cared for them, advocated for them, even buried them in her own family plot in Arkansas. She persevered despite relentless bigotry and hatred that included cross-burnings on her front lawn. Nothing stopped her.

Coker Burks earned the nickname ‘cemetery angel’ by proving that everyone can make a difference in the lives of others. I’m honored that we have become friends, because she inspires me every day.

Having grown up in South Africa during apartheid and witnessed how the appalling regime destroyed so many lives, I was profoundly affected by this read. It takes place in the sprawling black township of Soweto at the height of apartheid, where survival was a daily battle for the oppressed and marginalised inhabitants. To this end, Tsoti, an apparently heartless young township thug, lives a life of brutal crime. That is until he unwittingly kidnaps a baby during a bungled carjacking. Forced to care for the infant, Tsotsi gradually rediscovers his own humanity. The reader can’t help but be moved from a place of horror to one of deep understanding and empathy for the main character – a remarkable feat for any author. A compelling story of hope.

In 2015, Chanel Miller was sexually assaulted outside a party on Stanford’s campus. The media gave her assailant a name and a backstory—Brock Turner, the Stanford Swimmer—while she was quickly reduced to a nameless victim—Emily Doe.

Her beautifully written memoir and her victim impact statement, which went viral when published on BuzzFeed, are a reclamation of identity. Despite its subject matter, Know My Name manages to be as hopeful as it is heartbreaking. This comes partly from her vivid, clear prose and partly from Miller’s own resilience.

A space hospital for aliens–what a clever idea.

The second book in Bear’s White Space series, Machine is an entertaining blend of SF adventure and multiple mysteries that sucked me right in. A space hospital begins to experience escalating mishaps after a rescue mission returns with the cryo-suspended crew of a stranded generation ship along with its memory-challenged ship’s mind.

Trust is a key theme in Machine, and you can trust Bear’s capable writer hands to tell a whopping good story.

The Physician is exciting, imaginative, and easy to read.

Noah Gordon describes places, people, and treatments of the 2nd century so vividly that you feel as you were there. Not only do you see the individual characters in front of you, but you hear their screams and smell the general stench of excrement, dirt, and sweat that a medieval city brought with it.

In addition, one experiences the spatial confinement in which one lived at that time, virtually on one's own body. I especially liked the part set in the Orient, where the Middle Ages and the exotic are combined in a very exciting way. It is no longer the Catholic Church, but Islam and Judaism that determine the daily life of the people.

I read this book for background for my first novel, in an effort to understand why some physicians (very few, thank goodness) kill. What I discovered in this book is what I experienced in real life working for eleven years in healthcare: hospitals are breeding grounds for medical error and cover-ups. Physician, protect thyself, so to speak. The number of times this insane MD (Michael Swango) was allowed to continue practicing when he could have been stopped is appalling, but not surprising to those inside healthcare.

Dr. Willard traveled the trail in the 1820s. He met Hugh Glass, the Revenant as Hollywood named him, and inspected his wounds. Willard brought medicine to New Mexico and Mexico where the Catholic church had made life difficult for doctors. He describes the treatments he used and it’s truly remarkable that any of his patients survived.

Dealing with disappointment and rejection is part of growing up. But our kids also face unique challenges and social stressors that did not exist when we were their age. That’s why it can be hard to give them the kind of help they really need in those moments when they feel particularly vulnerable. Dr. G, a family physician, international speaker and mom of four boys, has written a book to help us help our kids in compassionate and practical ways. Her goal ought to be a top parenting goal for everyone: Teach kids resilience – i.e., the ability to move through and beyond your emotions and figure out what your next best move will be. With resilience as a life skill, kids have what they need to rebound in the face of any setback.

I love a good page-turner. I love to write them and I love to read them. I strive to write novels that the reader will binge. Novels as addictive as a drug. I want each chapter I write to be like another hit—a re-up that floods the reader’s brain with dopamine. Tell No One by Harlan Coben is a novel that I binged. It keeps you guessing until the end. And while some of the payoffs may seem a little over-the-top, I am able to overlook it because this novel (like much of Coben’s work) is just so damn addictive!