Love In Our Other Lives? Readers share 100 books like In Our Other Lives...

By Theodore Wheeler,

Here are 100 books that In Our Other Lives fans have personally recommended if you like In Our Other Lives. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Sympathizer

Hue-Tam Ho Tai Author Of Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution

From my list on books for someone who grew up in wartime Vietnam in a family of anti-colonial activists.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interests lie in the personal experiences of war and revolution and their aftermaths. Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution is a tribute to my parents' generation of young Vietnamese who sought to combine their attempts to free themselves of the shackles of oppressive tradition with the struggle to win independence from French colonial rule before the introduction of competing ideologies.

Hue-Tam's book list on books for someone who grew up in wartime Vietnam in a family of anti-colonial activists

Hue-Tam Ho Tai Why did Hue-Tam love this book?

In this brilliantly written novel, the unnamed narrator embodies the divisiveness that war causes in individuals and their families, with loyalty to one side conflicting with affection for the enemy.

The novel is based on a real-life double agent who fed accurate (but incomplete) information to American journalists and more complete information to the National Liberation Front. After the war, he was sidelined for being too friendly to Americans.

By Viet Thanh Nguyen,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Sympathizer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016

It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain:…


Book cover of Pickard County Atlas

Devin Murphy Author Of The Boat Runner

From my list on books with super shady characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a total sucker for people who are so complicated I can’t get a read on them. This love comes from growing up without any extended family. When I heard little bits of my parents’ pasts, it felt like the world got more interesting, and I wanted to dig in to know everything there was to know about what shaped them and, by proxy, what shaped me. I’m drawn to shady characters who don’t want to give up the goods, as they present a joyful challenge by withholding mystery, and those types of characters are the ones I love to read and write about.

Devin's book list on books with super shady characters

Devin Murphy Why did Devin love this book?

I devoured this novel in one sitting. It has tons of dark stories that weave the families of unforgettable characters trying to hold their lives intact in Nebraska’s Sandhills.

I loved each interaction between Harley and the youngest Reddick boy, who is steeped in such a history of menace and projecting trouble that the mere mention of him made me nervous. As he and Harley spiral closer together it just feels like it is going to lead to an unforgettable collision. 

By Chris Harding Thornton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pickard County Atlas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a dusty town in Nebraska's rugged sandhills, weary sheriff's deputy Harley Jensen patrols the streets at night, on the lookout for something-anything-out of the ordinary. It's July 1978, and the heat is making people ornery, restless. That and the Reddick family patriarch has decided, decades after authorities ended the search for his murdered boy's body, to lay a headstone. Instead of bringing closure, this decision is the spark that threatens to set Pickard County ablaze.

On a fateful night after the memorial service, Harley tails the youngest Reddick and town miscreant, Paul, through the abandoned farms and homes outside…


Book cover of Amerikaland

Devin Murphy Author Of The Boat Runner

From my list on books with super shady characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a total sucker for people who are so complicated I can’t get a read on them. This love comes from growing up without any extended family. When I heard little bits of my parents’ pasts, it felt like the world got more interesting, and I wanted to dig in to know everything there was to know about what shaped them and, by proxy, what shaped me. I’m drawn to shady characters who don’t want to give up the goods, as they present a joyful challenge by withholding mystery, and those types of characters are the ones I love to read and write about.

Devin's book list on books with super shady characters

Devin Murphy Why did Devin love this book?

This book stunned me by becoming something different over and over again.

The characters in Amerikaland are upright role models, but then we dip into their super complicated pasts. When their family pops up, the story begins to weave itself into a wild plot that requires unbelievable fortitude to endure. As the pages kept coming, I no longer had any idea what was going to happen next and felt like anything could happen. These people were driven by inner fires that could burn up the world at any moment.

I had to lay on the couch after this one as I felt completely gutted, but while lying down, I picked it up again and started rereading.

By Danny Goodman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Amerikaland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a reimagined present day, Sabine, a guarded, independent German tennis player, and Sandy, a Brooklyn-born Jewish baseball player, find themselves in New York City for World Day-a sporting event meant to celebrate international peace.


For years, Sabine was regarded as a tennis legend until an act of violence threatened her life and career. Now, she is determined to stand before the crowds once again a winner. Sandy is the beloved star of his hometown team, but a recent horrific antisemitic crime nearly unravels him.


Their lives are forever changed when a massive terrorist attack strikes World Day. As Sabine…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of The Poison Flood

Devin Murphy Author Of The Boat Runner

From my list on books with super shady characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a total sucker for people who are so complicated I can’t get a read on them. This love comes from growing up without any extended family. When I heard little bits of my parents’ pasts, it felt like the world got more interesting, and I wanted to dig in to know everything there was to know about what shaped them and, by proxy, what shaped me. I’m drawn to shady characters who don’t want to give up the goods, as they present a joyful challenge by withholding mystery, and those types of characters are the ones I love to read and write about.

Devin's book list on books with super shady characters

Devin Murphy Why did Devin love this book?

I’ve never come across a character who knows how to rock, as well as Hollis Bragg! He is so creative and self-destructive as he wails on his guitar it felt like there was nothing to do but let the fierceness of his emotions wash over me.

From the first page, Hollis is a wildly manic and interesting tour guide through rural West Virginia on the eve of great changes. Everyone here has a motive, and there is no real trust in what that motive will drive them to do. They are each self-serving and captivating. 

By Jordan Farmer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Poison Flood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A near-Shakespearean snarl, a mad, seven-day action crucible set in the West Virginia wild...The Poison Flood is an ambitious saga, cockamamie and passionate. Through Hollis, Farmer produces a pocket Hillbilly manifesto."--Atlanta Journal Constitution

A captivating, gritty, and tender story of a reclusive musician and the local disaster that threatens his small town and changes his life forever.

Hollis Bragg lives on the fringes. The hunchbacked son of a West Virginia hill preacher, he now resides in rural isolation next to the burned-out husk of his father's church, and earns his living ghostwriting songs for a popular band that left the…


Book cover of Demons

Zoran Živković Author Of The White Room

From my list on literary works that I keep rereading.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a retired university professor who taught creative writing at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, and a not-yet-retired author, although I have on several occasions solemnly stated that I have written my last prose book. I believe these two qualities make me competent to create a list of 5 books that I have reread the most often.

Zoran's book list on literary works that I keep rereading

Zoran Živković Why did Zoran love this book?

Being a great fan of Dostoevsky, I have reread all of his books but by far the most often—Demons. In 2020 only I have read it as many as three times while working on a special annotated Serbian edition of the novel that I have published myself.

I love it for many reasons, perhaps most importantly because it is a book full of ingenious paradoxes. It is, at the same time, Dostoevsky’s most tragic and most comical novel… Besides, the way the novel originated is in itself a superb story…

By F. M. Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Demons as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horried Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a "novel-pamphlet" in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.

From the Trade Paperback edition.


Book cover of The Marching Season

Ray C Doyle Author Of Defection in Prague

From my list on mystery thrillers ripped from news headlines.

Why am I passionate about this?

I guess my real interest in writing about the good and bad in crime and politics and the good and bad characters involved started with my first job as a junior in a local newspaper. The 60s was a time of great change. I was in the right place at the right time and got involved in reporting local government politics. I graduated later to cover Britain’s role within the EU in Brussels. I was fascinated, not so much by the politics but by the politicians and fellow news reporters involved. They inspired the creation of my fictional character, Pete West, a hardboiled political columnist. 

Ray's book list on mystery thrillers ripped from news headlines

Ray C Doyle Why did Ray love this book?

This book moved me at a time when the Irish question was still an open sore. It has a great but simple plot centered around the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Ex CIA agent, Osbourne is involved after his father-in-law is sent to the UK as Ambassador. With three atrocities carried out by protestants and a plot to assassinate the ambassador, the clock starts ticking. Osbourne faces his old enemy, Russian KGB killer October.

It is obvious that de Silva did a lot of research on the Irish situation, and I found the story very exciting as well as thought-provoking.

By Daniel Silva,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Marching Season as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A brilliantly tense what-if thriller about the sabotage of the Ulster peace process.

From the No.1 bestselling author of THE CELLIST

During the first uncertain years of the Northern Ireland peace process three simultaneous terrorist attacks in Belfast, Dublin and London shatter the hope that the bloodshed is finally over. The perpetrators are a new terror group called the Ulster Freedom Brigade. And they have one goal: to destroy the peace process.

Michael Osbourne, hero of THE MARK OF THE ASSASSIN, has quit the CIA, bitter and disillusioned. But when the President chooses his father-in-law to be the next American…


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Book cover of The Ballad of Falling Rock

The Ballad of Falling Rock by Jordan Dotson,

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…

Book cover of Never

C.A. Farlow Author Of The Paris Contagion

From my list on geopolitical thrillers from today’s headlines.

Why am I passionate about this?

Three people changed my life: my grandfather, a self-taught naturalist, the cardiac surgeon I worked for to put myself through college, and a nuclear engineer I worked for at Los Alamos National Labs. Summering on an island in northern Ontario I was immersed in a world with minimal human impact. As an exploration geologist, I traveled the world and saw first-hand the impact humankind is having on our world. My books focus on man’s threats and dangers to our world—be they environmental, medical or the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

C.A.'s book list on geopolitical thrillers from today’s headlines

C.A. Farlow Why did C.A. love this book?

Never combines it all. This fast-paced, hold-your-breath thriller features a young intelligence operative, a spy, a spymaster from China, and a US President falling in the polls as a new election nears.

This story is frighteningly realistic as the protagonists struggle to prevent the next world war. Chemical weapons are stockpiled and prepared for use. Readers are thrust into a true-to-life scenario here the world teeters on the brink of destruction.

By Ken Follett,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Never as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times Bestseller

The new must-read epic from master storyteller Ken Follett: more than a thriller, it’s an action-packed, globe-spanning drama set in the present day.
 
“A compelling story, and only too realistic.” —Lawrence H. Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary

“Every catastrophe begins with a little problem that doesn’t get fixed.” So says Pauline Green, president of the United States, in Follett’s nerve-racking drama of international tension.
 
A shrinking oasis in the Sahara Desert; a stolen US Army drone; an uninhabited Japanese island; and one country’s secret stash of deadly chemical poisons: all these play roles in a relentlessly…


Book cover of Curse the Day

Ray C Doyle Author Of Lara's Secret

From my list on mysteries with complicated plots and risky characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been writing for many years, and my main preference is political thrillers with criminal overtones. I first became interested in politics when I worked at several political conferences in the 60’s and 70’s. I have been involved in several criminal cases, including my own, and within my family, I have a nephew in the police force. For many years I have had the opportunity to mix with the upper tiers of society as well as the criminal classes and this has given me great insight into creating my characters and plots.

Ray's book list on mysteries with complicated plots and risky characters

Ray C Doyle Why did Ray love this book?

I love an all-action plot that does not rely on the action to sell the story. This is about artificial intelligence creation and a race to unlock its secret about a murder. There is lots of tech detail and the plot is well thought out.

I loved the fast pace of the story and the main character who is not so much a hero but an ex bad guy who O’Reilly creates beautifully. I do rate this very interesting story about Ai.

By Jude O'Reilly,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Curse the Day as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Starts off like a fired bullet and never lets up. A sheer delight' David Baldacci.

At a global tech gala hosted at the British Museum, scientist Tobias Hawke is due to unveil an astonishing breakthrough. His AI system appears to have reached consciousness, making Hawke the leading light in his field.

But when terrorists storm the building, they don't just leave chaos in their wake. They seize Hawke's masterwork, sparking a chain reaction of explosive events which could end the world as we know it.

Michael North, ex-assassin and spy-for-hire, must find the killers and recover the AI. But he…


Book cover of The Incendiaries

Jenna Clake Author Of Disturbance

From my list on abusive and toxic relationships.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a poet, novelist, and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Teesside University in the UK. I like to write and read about particularly gender power dynamics, and how those come to play in domestic situations. I love lyrical novels and books that explore characters’ interiority, and I’m interested in how, generally speaking, ‘toxic’ and ‘abusive’ relationships have become synonymous – even though they are quite different. These novels helped me write my own, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I did!

Jenna's book list on abusive and toxic relationships

Jenna Clake Why did Jenna love this book?

This novel is a masterclass in unreliable narration. It follows Will, a young man estranged from his family and religion, as he attends college and falls in love with Phoebe.

As Will takes over and narrates his recollections of their relationship, Phoebe’s friendship with a man named John Leal, and her inculcation into a religious cult, he becomes increasingly untrustworthy. Will rails against John Leal, his lies, and the damage he has done to Phoebe, revealing his complicity in toxic masculinity and his own harmful actions.

Kwon renders her characters as entirely believable, frightening people, in lyrical and considered prose.

By R.O. Kwon,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Incendiaries as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'R. O. Kwon is the real deal' LAUREN GROFF

'Absolutely electric . . . Everyone should read this book' GARTH GREENWELL

'Every explosive requires a fuse. That's R. O. Kwon's novel, a straight, slow-burning fuse' VIET THANH NGUYEN

'In dazzlingly acrobatic prose, R. O. Kwon explores the lines between faith and fanaticism, passion and violence, the rational and the unknowable' CELESTE NG

'A sharp, little novel as hard to ignore as a splinter in your eye' WASHINGTON POST

'Raw and finely wrought' NEW YORK TIMES

'The Incendiaries packs a disruptive charge, and introduces R. O. Kwon as a major talent'…


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Book cover of This Animal Body

This Animal Body by Meredith Walters,

Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse…

Book cover of Constant Risk

William Fietzer Author Of Metadata Murders

From my list on technothrillers with a cyber-security protagonist.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by the potential of the Internet ever since I chaired the Metadata subcommittee for the American Library Association. Here was a device capable of benefiting lives or destroying mankind simultaneously. Particularly intriguing was its almost supernatural ability to accomplish these ends as if we were gods beyond the realms of morality or accountability. I’m not a very spiritual person, but such potential calls out for revising our old worldviews and/or exploring new ways of coping with our burgeoning technical prowess and moral responsibilities. Dealing with these conflicts is what I write about and what stories from other authors I recommend to readers.

William's book list on technothrillers with a cyber-security protagonist

William Fietzer Why did William love this book?

This book’s narrative zooms from the get-go. When Crouch introduces the controlled and calculating master villain, Michael Jeter, plotting his revenge in the first chapter, the tension never disappears.

Detective Tanner Dempsy’s marriage proposal to computer security expert Bree Daniels takes a back seat to their preventing murders by slow drowning that they witness over the Internet. I was thrilled at how the author filled each page with tension, terror, and repressed longing as his hunters became the hunted.

By Janie Crouch,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Constant Risk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Constant Risk
By Janie Crouch

The hunters
Become the hunted.

Deputy Tanner Dempsey and Bree Daniels are tasked with tracking a killer on the loose, and Bree's computer genius is their only hope at solving the crime. Tanner is determined to make sure both solve the crime but what happens when they both become a killer's next target...

Colton on the Run
By Anna J. Stewart

A mysterious woman...
And a killer on the lose

When he finds a half-dead woman stranded in his barn, rancher Leo Slattery feels his blood run cold. Though she can't remember who she is,…


Book cover of The Sympathizer
Book cover of Pickard County Atlas
Book cover of Amerikaland

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