98 books like Native Tongue

This book minces no words about the difficulties of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Bryson does a brilliant job laying out the reality that despite extensive planning and, in the case of his hiking partner, Steven Katz, differing motives, things can go wrong.

Bryson does an amazing job keeping the story light with side-splitting humor. The blend of humor and adventure play roles as some of the primary inspirations behind my own writing.

No book has had a bigger influence on me as a person or a writer than this one. I suppose a lot of hoopy froods could say the same. It’s an adventure on a galactic scale, and yet, at its core, it’s just about a guy who wants to go home and have a cup of tea.

It’s a brilliantly funny satire and full of jokes and moments I’ll never forget. All four books in the series are amazing, and I’ve re-read them countless times. The fifth and final book is a downer worth skipping. 

I love every one of M. C. Beaton’s books, including her witty, wry humor and observations of an abusive ex-husband and her move to a small village. I love her flaws and that she is an unapologetic smoker and has two cats she loves. I love that she is relatable with a hardscrabble life, coming from an impoverished childhood and finally making it. Albeit with all the insecurities that come from her past. Every book is a treat. 

I enjoyed the silly and irreverent humor in this book and was happy to hitch a ride along with protagonist Thursday Next, a literary detective for an English government agency that safeguards literary masterpieces against time travelers.

Having majored in English literature myself, I was delighted by the characters’ discussions on literature, including the evergreen debate on the true author of Shakespearean plays. I also relished the setting–an alternative England in the 1980’s. All in all, this novel is a classic and well worth the read.

While it’s hard to pick a single favorite among the Discworld series, Mort stands out for me as a mix of a bizarre concept, quirky characters you can cheer for, and unexpected plot twists.

It’s hard to imagine a book about death being so funny, but the outlandish premise sets a stage rife with opportunities for humor. And yet, it’s the characters that really carry the story. Characters of this world have a wide spectrum of moralities, and yet despite their flaws and mistakes, you find yourself cheering for them.

While Silverstein is most known for his wonderful compendium of poetry, Where The Sidewalk Ends, this was one of my favorite books as a child (and my sister’s too). Yes, it’s written for kids, but it’s still a great read as an adult, laugh-out-loud funny – and ultimately, very affecting. As you may have deduced from the title, it’s about a lion who figures out how to shoot back to defend himself and his pride against hunters – which then sparks an extremely inventive and surprising journey. Plus, it is deftly illustrated by Silverstein as well.

I love this book because it perfectly blends the surreal with noir and science fiction and comes together with its own brand of dark humor. While parts of this book are unsettling and strange, there’s a solid throughline of the investigator seeking the truth in a broken world.

Of all the books here, I think this one has the most damaged society, and the main character, Conrad Metcalf, is a match for it. Drugs that make you forget everything and be complacent. Baby heads. Uplifted animals. The book is never afraid to get stranger, but it also tackles some pretty heavy themes. This is a world where asking questions is taboo, and the moral and ethical implications of that shape the entire world in which Metcalf lives.

“I poured a few drops of an ’87 Mondavi Chardonnay into her navel and leaned down to slurp it out.” Thus begins the first adventure of Archie McNally, Lawrence Sanders’s foppish gumshoe. I first heard of him on a golf course not too far from his Palm Beach digs. I’ve been a fan ever since.

Think of Archie as the love child of Bertie Wooster and Sam Spade. He tootles around town in his red Miata, sleuthing for his barrister father and hiding his extracurricular ding-dongs from girlfriend Connie. Along the way, he rubs elbows with the one percent and collars crooks. And at day’s end, he can be found sipping martinis at the Pelican Club. I wish I could join him.

Maybe it’s because, as a woman who worked in a historically male-dominated industry, I always root for the underdog—be it a newbie with the chutzpah to say no to a pushy buyer or a small town fighting off a huge conglomerate. Give me a character who is a caricature of an amusement park scion, dialog dripping with sarcasm, and a zany plot that spits in the eye of corporate America.

I led the applause as S. V. Date gleefully poked fun at the greediness of big business while indicting a state government that, for a price, was more than happy to go along for the ride.

Edna Buchanan moved from New Jersey to Miami on a whim in 1965 and found her calling in the journalistic life.

Calvin Trillin would later write, “In Miami, a few figures are regularly discussed by first name among people they have never actually met. One of them is Fidel. Another is Edna.”

She had a nose for the bizarre and the macabre—as well as for a good lead: “A man wandering along a Miami Beach street in his undershorts and carrying a blood-stained knife Sunday morning led police to the scene of a murder.”

In this memoir she recalls zipping around South Florida from Hollywood to Homestead in her yellow Triumph Spitfire to produce her almost-daily cataloguing of gruesome crime. The “polite” killer who abducted couples on dates, raped the woman, and then allowed her to dress before shooting both.

The hand grenade thrown… show more.