100 books like In Watermelon Sugar

I’ve never read anything like The Living Mountain. A book that is, at once, an autobiography of a remarkable yet under-celebrated woman writer and an exploration of the ecstasies of experiencing the world through the body and its senses.

In gorgeously vivid prose, Shepherd invites us to pursue depth over breadth and to rely upon our felt experience as a way of knowing in the world. This book challenges dominant “hero’s journey” narratives in both content and form and suggests that all we yearn to experience and know can be found right where we find ourselves, wherever that may be. 

Vonnegut’s book is a unique combination of satire, science fiction, and raw war critique. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, lives out the trauma of surviving the Dresden bombing by becoming "unstuck in time," drifting through different moments of his life, from past to future. This strange, nonlinear structure mirrors how we process trauma in fragments and waves, never in a neat, chronological order. The randomness of death, the meaninglessness of war—all these themes come together in a way that’s both absurd and deeply moving. As we witness terror and violence continually unfold across the globe, the echoes of Slaughterhouse-Five feel ever-present.

The phrase “So it goes” serves as a refrain throughout the novel, after every death—reminding us of the inevitability of loss in wartime, no matter the scale. This book hit me hard with its dark humor and cynical commentary on the glorification of war. Vonnegut forces you to laugh in… show more.

This is the Tom Robbins book for me: the glorious bastard that made me want to be a writer.

It's a day lost in Tijuana, or Nice, or Beijing, or some other place you'd never thought you'd be, and you don't speak the language, but you've convinced yourself that you're fluent, and you can do it: you can get around anyway, and there's no cabs, and so you get into some guy's really old Volvo or, more ill-advised, van, and you give him the local equivalent of ten bucks to take you where you hope you want to be and not kill you, and he does it, but when he drops you off he yells at you, in his language, for being stupid enough to take a ride with a stranger.

And you do it again the next day, and you never learn your lesson.

I was intrigued by the ideas about why we chose our partners in the first place. I discovered ways to have more compatibility in relationships. This book opened my mind to aspects I had not considered before. Those realizations caused positive shifts in behavior.

And… I had a much better understanding of why my partner approached things the way he did.

I saw my first raven near Mount Rainier. The bird looked me in the eye, hopped to the left, sized me up, and continued his business. The advancing Russian army drove Bernd Heinrich and his family into the forest near Hahnheide, Germany, where they lived in a small hut for five years.

There, he began his lifelong quest to connect with insects (especially bees), owls, trees, antelope (he runs ultramarathons), geese...and ravens. The mind of the Raven is a deep, scientific meditation on the intersection between being human and raven. It concludes that “ultimately [our differences are] less a matter of consciousness than of culture” (342).

I wonder how culture has dulled my imagination, a struggle Heinrich clearly has fought more successfully than I have.

I was a few years sober from alcohol, and in my first heterosexual relationship in quite a while when I read this book. Just being sober during sex, and having a penis involved, kept things interesting for about a year or so. But after a while, I wanted a deeper connection with my partner during sex, and more frequency. This proved to be challenging. One day I was crying on the phone about the state of my carnal life to a mentor and she recommended Passionate Marriage. So, I dug into the 408 pages of this relationship masterpiece. Spoiler alert, it didn’t save that relationship, but it did change my life.

It taught me about the erotic charge that can come from differentiation and how to navigate “relationship crucibles.”  I also first learned about open-eyed orgasms from Schnarch. I had been squeezing my eyes shut since I started having… show more.

This is my favorite book about non-monogamy and polyamory; it uses attachment theory to explain our relationship dynamics. I particularly loved how detailed the book was. She described some of the self-destructive and less-than-ideal behaviors and thoughts I’ve had in past non-monogamous relationships and explained, “Okay, here’s why you’re likely doing this, and here’s how you become secure enough to do this stupid shit, no longer.”

I remember feeling very motivated after reading Fern’s book, as if I had an action plan for future relationships. Now—and hopefully, I’m not jinxing it here—I’m in the healthiest non-monogamous relationship I’ve ever been in. 

I recommend this book because I have found the meaning of love to be elusive. Slipping in and out of my life's timeline. When love stays, it waits for me to generate it alone, by myself, in hopes that I will alchemize it to all of my relationships. Bell Hooks helped me see how to better understand the mystical workings of love, and it's sometimes confusing nature.

Her work helped me appreciate that the endurance of pain is not the presence of love. Allowing love to be an inner source as life-giving, rather than codependently attaching to an outside source, which can be life-ending.

Nobody writes like Tom Robbins, although admittedly, his wild wit, metaphorical overkill, and commitment to not taking anything too seriously might not appeal to everyone.

Put me on a long train ride or a slow ship with a worn paperback copy of any of his books, and I can happily lose myself in his zany, funny, thought-provoking, and sexy world. Exotic locations are baked into most of his books, and you can burn your retinas on each page’s creative flair.

Put down this book, and you’ll never look at beets, immortality, or life in quite the same way again. Tom Robbins inspired me to read more, write more, and, most importantly, live more.  

This book plays hide and seek with reality. You’re never a hundred percent sure if you’re in the normal mundane world or the world of magic and danger. The story moves swiftly and compellingly between worlds and raises questions about what we can and cannot believe in.

Some parts seem like drug trips gone wrong and others like the comfort and assurance of close relationships no matter how long they’ve lasted.

Murakami is a master at juggling worlds in such a way that sometimes the fantasy worlds are more real than the actual worlds.