55 books like My Life in Orange

By Tim Guest,

Here are 55 books that My Life in Orange fans have personally recommended if you like My Life in Orange. 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 Educated: A Memoir

Tori Scott

From my list on books that are raw, honest, and vulnerable.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've penned 11 novels and numerous essays, and if there's one thread that ties them all together, it's rawness. I gravitate towards reading books and watching films where writers peel back the layers of their lives, exposing past wounds and delving into what they've learned from them. As an entrepreneur with a master's degree in marketing, I’ve found that this kind of vulnerability is not only compelling but essential in any form of storytelling. Whether I’m crafting a narrative for a new startup or reflecting on my own experiences for a novel, it’s this unfiltered honesty that resonates deeply with audiences. 

Tori's book list on books that are raw, honest, and vulnerable

Tori Scott Why did Tori love this book?

Westover’s memoir is a fascinating exploration of the clash between ignorance and enlightenment, with a plot twist that involves her eventually realizing she was raised in a real-life survivalist cult. Her journey from a sheltered, isolated upbringing to earning a PhD is nothing short of extraordinary.

But what really hooked me was her biting wit and the way she grapples with the contradictions of loving a family that’s as endearing as they are exasperating. It’s like watching someone untangle a lifetime’s worth of emotional knots, one revelation at a time, and somehow finding humor in the most unexpected places.

By Tara Westover,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER

Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE

'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day
'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill
'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times

Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate…


Book cover of Children of Paradise

Liam Bell Author Of The Sleepless

From my list on communes and cults.

Why am I passionate about this?

I don’t think I’m alone in considering cults and those who join cults fascinating, but I’ve also always found it frustrating when non-fiction accounts or documentaries focus on the logistics of how the communes operate rather than finding out the why. Why do people join a cult, why do they stay, why do they follow increasingly erratic and dangerous instruction? For me, researching cults for my new novel The Sleepless – about a commune whose disciples believe that sleep is a social construct – was about finding out about the characters, the individuals, who are drawn into organisations which often ask you to relinquish that self-same sense of individuality.

Liam's book list on communes and cults

Liam Bell Why did Liam love this book?

This novel reimagines the events of the Jonestown massacre with lushly beautiful prose and a magical realist twist that offers the possibility of escape and redemption from the most horrific circumstances.

It’s a wonderfully immersive story that sucks you in with sensory detail and a hope-against-hope that the main characters won’t “drink the Kool-Aid”. One of those books where you need to sit still and catch your breath after turning the last page…

By Fred D'Aguiar,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Acclaimed novelist, playwright, and poet Fred D’Aguiar has been short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize in poetry for Bill of Rights, his narrative poem about the Jonestown massacre, and won the Whitbread First Novel Award for The Longest Memory. In this beautifully imagined work of literary fiction, he returns to the territory of Jim Jones’s utopian commune, interweaving magical realism and shocking history into a resonant story of love, faith, oppression, and sacrifice in which a mother and daughter attempt to break free with the help of an extraordinary gorilla.

Joyce and her young daughter, Trina, are members of a…


Book cover of Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson

Liam Bell Author Of The Sleepless

From my list on communes and cults.

Why am I passionate about this?

I don’t think I’m alone in considering cults and those who join cults fascinating, but I’ve also always found it frustrating when non-fiction accounts or documentaries focus on the logistics of how the communes operate rather than finding out the why. Why do people join a cult, why do they stay, why do they follow increasingly erratic and dangerous instruction? For me, researching cults for my new novel The Sleepless – about a commune whose disciples believe that sleep is a social construct – was about finding out about the characters, the individuals, who are drawn into organisations which often ask you to relinquish that self-same sense of individuality.

Liam's book list on communes and cults

Liam Bell Why did Liam love this book?

It wasn’t until I picked up this book that I realised how little I actually knew about Charles Manson and his followers.

Sure, it had filtered down to me – through a variety of popular culture – that he was a notorious murderer and that his female followers were truly brainwashed, but how had that come to be and was there any way of making sense of his seemingly senseless violence and crimes? Guinn’s meticulously-researched book has the answers. 

By Jeff Guinn,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

After more than forty years, Charles Manson continues to mystify and fascinate us. One of the most notorious criminals in American history, Manson and members of his mostly female commune killed nine people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Now, drawing on new information, bestselling author Jeff Guinn tells the definitive story of how this ordinary delinquent became a murderer.

Mansonhelps us understand what obsessed him and, most terrifying of all, how he managed to persuade others to kill. Guinn interviewed Manson's sister and cousin, neither of whom has ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some…


Book cover of Nina X

Liam Bell Author Of The Sleepless

From my list on communes and cults.

Why am I passionate about this?

I don’t think I’m alone in considering cults and those who join cults fascinating, but I’ve also always found it frustrating when non-fiction accounts or documentaries focus on the logistics of how the communes operate rather than finding out the why. Why do people join a cult, why do they stay, why do they follow increasingly erratic and dangerous instruction? For me, researching cults for my new novel The Sleepless – about a commune whose disciples believe that sleep is a social construct – was about finding out about the characters, the individuals, who are drawn into organisations which often ask you to relinquish that self-same sense of individuality.

Liam's book list on communes and cults

Liam Bell Why did Liam love this book?

This is a novel about a young woman, the titular Nina, escaping from a Maoist cult and it’s a terrifically absorbing and engrossing tale.

What makes it unique is that it’s as much about the protagonist reclaiming, or even forming, her own identity as it is about the cult that she’s wrestling herself free from. Both the storyline and the form of the book itself involves the reader in that journey into freedom. An excellent and under-rated book.

By Ewan Morrison,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Winner of the Saltire Literary Award Fiction Book of the Year

'Literary gold . . . Morrison has published his masterpiece' Sunday Times

'Sensational. Like nothing I've ever read. A tour de force' Ian Rankin

Nina X has never been outside. She has never met another child.
Nina X has no books, no toys and no privacy.
Nina X has no idea what the outside world is like.
Nina X has a lot to learn.

Nina X has no mother and no father; she has Comrade Chen, and Comrades Uma, Jeni and Ruth. Her closest emotional connection is with the…


Book cover of When She Comes Back

Alle C. Hall Author Of As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back

From my list on girls with traumatic backgrounds.

Why am I passionate about this?

Alle C. Hall lived in Asia, traveled there extensively, and speaks what she calls, “clunky Japanese.” She lives in Seattle with a family whose love astounds her. She is proud of a note from The Kavanagh Sisters, Joyce, June, and Paula, founders of Ireland’s Count Me In! Survivors of Sexual Abuse Standing Together for Change, who write: “Alle may never know how many people she will help with this novel. Her ability to portray the hidden damage of the crime of sexual abuse shows that every decision a survivor makes is born out of deep self-hatred. Her storytelling is a frontal attack on those lies.”

Alle's book list on girls with traumatic backgrounds

Alle C. Hall Why did Alle love this book?

This memoir is not merely the tale of a woman—married, a mother—who ditches her family to follow the abusive guru, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. That alone would have made for quite the saga. Instead, that woman’s daughter tells her own story, the one about the child abandoned again and again, as her mother can’t find the whatever-it-takes to leave the cult behind her. Ronit Plank writes without an ounce of self-pity. She lets the data speak for itself. 

Plant also goes into her relationship with her father, who played such a critical role in the neglect, showing the very real effect on a child of emotional abuse through negligence.

As a trauma survivor, I didn’t find the memoir triggering. Plank hits a great balance between necessary detail and consideration for her reader.

By Ronit Plank,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked When She Comes Back as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Abandoned By Her Mother

Ronit was six years old when her mother left her and her four year old sister for India to follow a cult guru. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose commune was responsible for the largest biological attack on U.S. soil, preached that children were hindrances and encouraged sterilizations among his followers. Luckily Ronit's father, who'd left the family the previous year, stepped up and brought the girls to live with him first in Newark, New Jersey, and later in Flushing, Queens. On the surface, his nurturing was the balm Ronit sought, but she soon paid a second emotional…


Book cover of In Search of the Miraculous: Chakras, Kundalini and the Seven Bodies

Mada Eliza Dalian Author Of In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness

From my list on spirituality and self-discovery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was 5 when I saw my grandfather die. He drank morphene from a bottle, to stop his cancer pains, and soon after he stopped breathing. In the silent peace that followed, I realized that I too shall die one day, and life on earth will continue. The questions, Who am I? Where do I come from? What am I doing here? and Where will I go when I die? felt like the most important questions to find answers to before I die. The book, In Search of the Miraculous: Healing into Consciousness, was written fifty years later, and is the fruit of my search and discovery of answers to these questions.

Mada's book list on spirituality and self-discovery

Mada Eliza Dalian Why did Mada love this book?

Osho is one of the greatest mystics of the 20th century. He has over 650 books in print, translated into 68 languages.

This particular book is for those who are interested in deepening their understanding of the Eastern esoteric teachings about chakras and energy bodies.

Explained from an experience and perspective of a mystic, it can help to increase your understanding and widen your perspective of how the energy centers inside and outside of the body work.

By Osho,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Osho writes in a style which is clear, simple and often humorous.


Book cover of The Book of Secrets: 112 Meditations to Discover the Mystery Within

Gabriel Dee Author Of The Power of Death: A Radical Path to Personal Transformation and Spiritual Enlightenment

From my list on spiritual books only a few people read.

Why am I passionate about this?

Gabriel Dee is a mystic, author, spiritual teacher, and the founder of Immortology. At the age of 26, he became a seeker and became enlightened on the 11th of March, 2011. He experienced most of the spiritual methods of the world and traveled to India to learn more about healing, hypnosis, and meditation. His main teaching is making people face their own mortality, and then going beyond it to realize their immortality.

Gabriel's book list on spiritual books only a few people read

Gabriel Dee Why did Gabriel love this book?

The next one on my list of the top 5 spiritual books is The Book of Secrets by Osho. He is my favorite spiritual teacher, and although he never wrote any books, the texts from his speeches were published in several compilations. Everything you read from him can be useful, but this book stands above the rest in its length, depth and practicality.

This book is based on a 5000 year old tantric scripture consisting of 112 meditations to achieve liberation. What Osho basically does is that he adds commentaries and his own experiences to each of the techniques, thereby making them understandable and practical for the modern seeker. If I had to recommend any book on meditation, it would definitely be this one.

By Osho,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In this comprehensive and practical guide, the secrets of the ancient science of Tantra become available to a contemporary audience. Confined to small, hidden mystery schools for centuries, and often misunderstood and misinterpreted today. Tantra is not just a collection of techniques to enhance sexual experience. As Osho shows in these pages, it is a complete science of self-realization, based on the cumulative wisdom of centuries of exploration into the meaning of life and consciousness. Tantra-the very word means "technique"-is a set of powerful, transformative tools that can be used to bring new meaning and joy to every aspect of…


Book cover of Astra: A Novel

Buffy Cram Author Of Once Upon an Effing Time

From my list on living that 60s cult/commune life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up living in a housing co-op on Vancouver Island, BC. While not technically a commune, it did have some of the hallmarks. There were gangs of partially clothed kids roaming wild. There were a bunch of idealistic adults who had dreams of shared land stewardship and, well, shared everything. The housing project succeeded in many ways (it still exists today) and, it failed in other ways (over the years there were many fractures in the community). I’ve always been fascinated by attempts at communal living. I suppose my obsession with cult life is just an extension of this. It is my life imagined one step further.

Buffy's book list on living that 60s cult/commune life

Buffy Cram Why did Buffy love this book?

This novel tells the story of one person, Astrid, who grows up in a dysfunctional failed utopian commune in British Columbia, Canada.

The story of Astrid is told from multiple points of view. Each character paints a different picture of this child-who-becomes-a-woman, at different stages in her life. But what I like most about this book is its exploration of the aftermath of growing up in a failed utopian commune.

How does a person carry this ejected-from-Eden baggage with them over a lifespan? Is it possible to overcome it and fit into “normal” society again? The answers to these questions might surprise you.

Book cover of The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848-1851

Jonathan Beecher Author Of Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848

From my list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the failed revolutions of the 19th century and by the romantic socialists, democrats, and nationalists who made these revolutions. I think I have a better understanding of their world and the forces that brought them down than I have of the world I live in. But I do find in their writings remarkable echoes of my own fears and hopes about the future of democracy today.

Jonathan's book list on writers and artists in 1848 and the Paris commune

Jonathan Beecher Why did Jonathan love this book?

T.J. Clark treats 1848 as a time when “art and politics could not escape each other,” and he offers a brilliant discussion of the efforts of artists to confront that situation. There are wonderful chapters on Delacroix’s anguished retreat into a private world, Millet’s portrait of the peasantry as a class in dissolution, and Baudelaire as a poet of post-revolutionary despair.

But for me, the most arresting portions of the book focus on Daumier, who was unique in his ability to depict the life of the Paris streets and create the great image of the Bonapartist con-man in the figure of Ratapoil. What I find most telling in these portraits, and the book as a whole, is T.J. Clark’s ability to “put back the doubt into revolution”—to recapture the confusion, the uncertainty, and the sense that everything was at risk.

By T. J. Clark,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

When this book and its companion volume, Image of the People, appeared in 1973, they were taken as a challenge to the way art was usually written about. "This book," said the Times, "is a product of that school of art history whose history is as well read as its art, and whilst it covers only a small area of time and place, Clark's approach and style are such that it throws up enough ideas and pleasures to illuminate far beyond its rather special circumstances. It is suffused with wit and pathetic irony."

T. J. Clark's subject is painting and…


Book cover of Commune: Book 1

Devon C Ford Author Of Survival

From my list on current post-apocalyptic series.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve long had a passion (read: obsession) with the apocalypse in whatever form it takes. I’ve written viral pandemics, zombie outbreaks, post-nuclear survival, dystopian totalitarianism, extinction-level-event, alien invasion, WW3… all of them have the theme of the great reset. The ability to reinvent yourself in the new world. The erasure of your life and the clean slate to try again and become who you want to be. I read and listen to this genre as well as write it because I'm passionate about the worlds writers create and the way their characters adapt to overcome the challenges my own have faced. As a former police officer, I’ve probably spent too many night shifts pondering the end of the world.

Devon's book list on current post-apocalyptic series

Devon C Ford Why did Devon love this book?

Joshua is another author with multiple series, but Commune is a standout piece of literature. His style is subtle and suggestive, making the reader pay attention so they don’t miss the nuances and the snippets of backstory. That said, his action sequences are fast and brutal with a realism that hits home. The humour of the characters throughout is so genuine it’s a stroke of brilliance.

Full disclosure – I loved this series so much I’m writing more Commune with him!

By Joshua Gayou,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The world has ended.

A few have survived.

But is survival worth the loss of humanity?

Finding a friend in the apocalypse isn't easy, and for Jake Martin, it's been damn-near impossible.

Life has become an endless trek for canned food, shelter, and avoiding those who've turned to killing for anything all while trying not to become a killer himself.

When Jake encounters Billy, an elderly wanderer on the highway to ruined Las Vegas, everything changes. Billy reminds him of life before the world ended, of when being human meant acting like more than a mindless beast. Although their bond…


Book cover of Educated: A Memoir
Book cover of Children of Paradise
Book cover of Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson

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Interested in the communes of France, Sanskrit, and India?

Sanskrit 22 books
India 483 books