Here are 100 books that In God We Trust fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a cultural historian, film critic, literary critic, editor, and essayist–and a closeted fiction writer–fascinated by ‘the fantastic’ in art or in life. And Christmas seems to me the perfect example of a time that unites realism and the strange–the time of ghost stories and nativities. I wrote a book on It’s a Wonderful Life (2023) because it triumphantly succeeds at bridging the connection between ordinary life and the marvelous. I have also edited anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories, The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (Penguin, 2010), and Victorian Fairy Tales (Oxford World’s Classics, 2015), both of which include many seasonal classics.
Dickens did not “invent” Christmas, of course, but our modern understanding of it undoubtedly derives from him.
For long a Londoner, because of Dickens, Christmas still seems to me at heart a matter of foggy London streets, enclosed city houses, and window-lights and passers-by at dusk. Christmas means rituals, and I, among others, go through the yearly rite of re-reading A Christmas Carol. And every year, it’s just as vivid, as funny, and as moving as the years before.
Dickens celebrates Christmas as a time of renewal, and Scrooge finds redemption by finding the person he used to be and the person he ought to be now. Robert Louis Stevenson said that reading it made him want to do good things, and what better recommendation could there be?
Tom Baker reads Charles Dickens' timeless seasonal story.
Charles Dickens' story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, has become one of the timeless classics of English literature. First published in 1843, it introduces us not only to Scrooge himself, but also to the memorable characters of underpaid desk clerk Bob Cratchit and his poor family, the poorest amongst whom is the ailing and crippled Tiny Tim.
In this captivating recording, Tom Baker delivers a tour-de-force performance as he narrates the story. The listener…
I love delving into a world unlike my own and navigating along with a young hero of a story. Sometimes rooting and sometimes cringing at the decisions they make. A story that challenges a young boy resonates with me, and what makes the coming-of-age description in a book is having the young hero deal with grown-up problems, often before he is prepared. All decisions have consequences, and all problems, no matter how seemingly trivial, have significance to the user. I enjoy stories that capture just this type of world and ones that do it in a manner where it is not forced.
This is a gritty depiction of a young boy whose decisions are far from a child’s resolve. The portrait McCarthy gives the reader left me with trail dust in my throat it was so gritty. I was uprooted from my easy, protected life and transformed into the world of 16-year-old Billy as he chooses the hard way.
His decisions have consequences, but his resolve is strong.
In The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy fulfills the promise of All the Pretty Horses and at the same time give us a work that is darker and more visionary, a novel with the unstoppable momentum of a classic western and the elegaic power of a lost American myth.
In the late 1930s, sixteen-year-old Billy Parham captures a she-wolf that has been marauding his family's ranch. But instead of killing it, he decides to take it back to the mountains of Mexico. With that crossing, he begins an arduous and often dreamlike journey into a country where men meet ghosts and violence…
I love delving into a world unlike my own and navigating along with a young hero of a story. Sometimes rooting and sometimes cringing at the decisions they make. A story that challenges a young boy resonates with me, and what makes the coming-of-age description in a book is having the young hero deal with grown-up problems, often before he is prepared. All decisions have consequences, and all problems, no matter how seemingly trivial, have significance to the user. I enjoy stories that capture just this type of world and ones that do it in a manner where it is not forced.
I was riveted in a world of young boys searching for more than just a body. So much of coming-of-age stories delve deep into the minds of these kids as they navigate both the familiar and unfamiliar. I was lifted to a time and place that resonates with my desire for nostalgia.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King’s timeless novella “The Body”—originally published in his 1982 short story collection Different Seasons, and adapted into the 1986 film classic Stand by Me—is now available as a stand-alone publication.
It’s 1960 in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Ray Brower, a boy from a nearby town, has disappeared, and twelve-year-old Gordie Lachance and his three friends set out on a quest to find his body along the railroad tracks. During the course of their journey, Gordie, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern…
I love delving into a world unlike my own and navigating along with a young hero of a story. Sometimes rooting and sometimes cringing at the decisions they make. A story that challenges a young boy resonates with me, and what makes the coming-of-age description in a book is having the young hero deal with grown-up problems, often before he is prepared. All decisions have consequences, and all problems, no matter how seemingly trivial, have significance to the user. I enjoy stories that capture just this type of world and ones that do it in a manner where it is not forced.
A boy wrapped up in mischief resonates with me. Tom is a clever young man, and antics abound. He is one step in front of his peers. He is a young boy and deals with young boy issues until he is forced to deal with a grownup world.
I cherish the quirky wit the boy uses to navigate his world. This is a classic for a reason.
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is the first of Mark Twain's novels to feature one of the best-loved characters in American fiction, with a critical introduction by John Seelye in "Penguin Classics". From the famous episodes of the whitewashed fence and the ordeal in the cave to the trial of Injun Joe, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is redolent of life in the Mississippi River towns in which Twain spent his own youth. A sombre undercurrent flows through the high humour and unabashed nostalgia of the novel, however, for beneath the innocence of childhood lie the inequities of adult reality…
I love delving into a world unlike my own and navigating along with a young hero of a story. Sometimes rooting and sometimes cringing at the decisions they make. A story that challenges a young boy resonates with me, and what makes the coming-of-age description in a book is having the young hero deal with grown-up problems, often before he is prepared. All decisions have consequences, and all problems, no matter how seemingly trivial, have significance to the user. I enjoy stories that capture just this type of world and ones that do it in a manner where it is not forced.
This is by far my favorite novel by John Grisham. I loved that he delivered a sensational narrative of Luke Chandler, the son of a poor cotton farmer. The boy must learn to deal with life faster than a seven-year-old should ever have to, as life on the farm comes with many obstacles and plenty of secrets he must manage to juggle.
It is masterfully told, and the life as Luke sees it is well depicted. I recommend this highly.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers — and two very dangerous men — came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke’s world.
A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A fatherless baby is born ... and someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse,…
I’ve always loved satire. In college, I wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of a two-man team, and most of my work features at least some comic elements. For example, my novel The Whale: A Love Story is a serious historical novel about the relationship between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne that also offers moments of comedy to honor Melville's comic spirit (Moby-Dick, while ultimately tragic, is a very funny book). The most serious subjects usually contain elements of the absurd, and the books I love find humor in even the gravest situations.
Actually a collection of nine novellas set in the fictional town of Babbington, in an alternative-reality version of 1950s New York, this collection is historical fiction at its funniest and strangest, satirizing not only 1950s American culture but also our literary traditions.
Each novella chronicles a coming-of-age adventure of Peter Leroy (the author’s alter ego) in the style of a different classic-fiction genre, from a Huck Finn-style river journey to a Proustian moment at a family outing to a send-up of Aesop’s fables.
I grew up in the town of Yalta on the Black Sea. The sea had gotten its name because of its bad temper–storms, squalls, fogs. Warships never docked in Yalta, but passenger ships did. If the ship was a regular (and many were because people still used them to get from point A to point B), we recognized it by the sound of its horn. When passing by, the warships gave us a wide berth–dim silhouettes on the horizon on an unknown mission. I left Crimea for good many years ago, but I am still a sucker for bad-tempered seas and secretive navies.
I had often wondered how it felt to be a part of a big war on its periphery. This book gave me the answer: what happens is piecemeal disintegration of humanity, sparing no one.
I discovered that the book was a page-turner, but that, of course, should’ve been expected from a top novelist; what I had not expected–I realized I knew people in positions of authority who were exactly like the infamous Captain Queeq.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a perennial favorite of readers young and old, Herman Wouk's masterful World War II drama set aboard a U.S. Navy warship in the Pacific is "a novel of brilliant virtuosity" (Times Literary Supplement).
Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life--and mutiny--on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951, as one of the first serious works of American fiction to grapple with the moral complexities and the human consequences of World War II.
In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has sold millions…
I was born and brought up in the north of England. I have a degree in English and taught English Literature to older teenagers for many years. The period between 14 and 19 is an age group that has always fascinated me. It’s a time when people are accumulating experience and trying to understand themselves and their lives. The books I’ve chosen all put young people in challenging situations and excel at showing how they respond, handling, in sensitive and insightful ways, the moods and tensions of growing up. Most of my own novels have young heroes and heroines, although they’re read by people of all ages.
I love this book, a beautiful celebration of young love set in the summer 1997.
It’s easy to identify with Charlie Lewis, his failed school career and his shambolic home life. He meets the rich and privileged Fran Fisher, whose background is totally different from his. The contrast between them is beautifully drawn and I felt for Charlie as he tentatively moved towards a girl he feels is out of his reach. His insecurity is moving.
The Romeo & Juliet link which is obvious from the title is well handled, enriching without being intrusive. There’s a heart-rending sense of nostalgia that reminds you of what it’s like to be trying to find your feet as a teenager.
“A tale of first love that hits all the right notes . . . [it] just might be the sweetest book to brighten your late summer.” —The Washington Post
"Dazzles with wit.”—People
From the bestselling author of One Day comes a bittersweet and brilliantly funny coming-of-age tale about the heart-stopping thrill of first love—and how one summer can forever change a life.
Now: On the verge of marriage and a fresh start, thirty-eight year old Charlie Lewis finds that he can’t stop thinking about the past, and the events of one particular summer.
As the sex and relationship advice columnist at Men’s Health Magazine, I’m obviously pretty damn obsessed with sex. I find it fascinating on so many levels, which is why I not only have a ton of it but also made it my career. For so long, I struggled with sexual shame, and one thing I realized as a writer is that I’m not special. Sure, I’ve probably been to more sex parties than you, but if I’m struggling with shame, being bisexual, and embracing my kinks, then other folks are, too. And just like I’m obsessed with sex, I’ve become obsessed with helping others remove sexual shame.
This is THE book for neurotic hypersexuals. It set the genre. I think it’s wild, brilliant, horny, thoughtful, introspective, delusional, and absurd at the same time. I mean, for the love of God, there’s no plot! It’s the protagonist (Alex Portnoy) rambling to a psychologist about his clear Oedipal Complex. The man is torn, trying to be a good Jewish boy who betters the world, but he has some nasty sexual desires (and messed-up feelings about his sexual partners) that are holding him back.
This book is one of my obsessions. (It’s fitting, given the obsessive nature of the book.) Ironically, I felt really seen and sane while reading it. No, I’m not as neurotic and horny as Alex, but boy, do I struggle with some of the same obsessive thought patterns as that man!
'The most outrageously funny book about sex written' Guardian
Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933-)]:A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature.
Portnoy's Complaint tells the tale of young Jewish lawyer Alexander Portnoy and his scandalous sexual confessions to his psychiatrist.
As narrated by Portnoy, he takes the reader on a journey through his childhood to adolescence to present day while articulating his sexual desire, frustration and neurosis in shockingly candid ways.
Hysterically funny and daringly intimate, Portnoy's Complaint was an immediate bestseller upon its publication…
Historical fiction meets the picaresque in many novels about going on the road. As a fiction writer, my narrative tools are not forged in a vacuum. I stand on the shoulders of centuries of writers who invented the novel form and developed it through its beginnings in romance and all its permutations since. In my new book, I am following innovations in two genres. In historical romance, romance “fell” into history. What was lost in the historical world could be made up in the romance of heroic characters. In the picaresque, characters belonging to the lower echelons of society “go on the road” for all sorts of reasons, mostly to survive.
Although published long ago, it is remarkable how easy it is to become involved in this book and be charmed by its main character, Tom.
Orphans abound in 18th and 19th-century fiction. What happens to him in an upper-class environment is inevitably unfair and hypocritical, so when he gets on the road—whether as a result of desire or force—the fun truly begins.
Tom says at the beginning that his tale has the purpose of understanding “human nature”, and after spending time with him on his adventures, from the estate where he grows up to his romp in London, we have a sense of the good nature of human nature. Tom’s sense of life infuses his life on the road, offering a character to celebrate despite his flaws.
Henry Fielding's picaresque tale of a young man's search for his place in the world, The History of Tom Jones is edited with notes and an introduction by Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely in Penguin Classics.
A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neighbouring squire - though he sometimes succumbs to the charms of the local girls. But when his amorous escapades earn the disapproval of his benefactor, Tom is banished to make his own fortune.…
