100 books like Not the End

By Odin Dupeyron,

Here are 100 books that Not the End fans have personally recommended if you like Not the End. 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 Hector and the Search for Happiness

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Author Of Make life Yours!: Based on real facts

From my list on live life fully.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a person like you who has lived difficult situations, has had losses, made mistakes, and deals with bad days wondering about my existence and purpose in life. I have a gift, and it's writing; I began sending reflective messages to the people at my office and that’s when I noticed that people loved them. Years later, after reading several books and accumulating more experience, I realized that there are several experiences that are common to all, but few questioned. Therefore, I decided to share my insight and thoughts in my second book, hoping to help people be a better version of themselves and live their lives to their fullest.

Mónica's book list on live life fully

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Why did Mónica love this book?

Who hasn’t looked for advice on how to be happy? I found wisdom in this book that, in addition to laughing, it made me reflect.

I realized that happiness is not an objective; it is in us, in the way we feel about ourselves. This book came to my hands when I was lost in life and gave me direction. It made me see that I was like Hector, living in the past, wondering how my life could be if I only had done something different. I learned that first, I needed to see what makes me happy.

While reading it, I took several notes that later helped me to order my own life and see who I was. And now I can share that it worked! This book was a lifesaver for me.

By Francois Lelord,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hector and the Search for Happiness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Can we learn how to be happy? Hector is a successful young psychiatrist. He's very good at treating patients in real need of his help. But many people he sees have no health problems: they're just deeply dissatisfied with their lives. Hector can't do much for them, and it's beginning to depress him. So when a patient tells him he looks in need of a holiday, Hector decides to set off round the world to find out what makes people everywhere happy (and sad), and whether there is such a thing as the secret of true happiness.


Book cover of Follow Your Heart: Finding Purpose in Your Life and Work

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Author Of Make life Yours!: Based on real facts

From my list on live life fully.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a person like you who has lived difficult situations, has had losses, made mistakes, and deals with bad days wondering about my existence and purpose in life. I have a gift, and it's writing; I began sending reflective messages to the people at my office and that’s when I noticed that people loved them. Years later, after reading several books and accumulating more experience, I realized that there are several experiences that are common to all, but few questioned. Therefore, I decided to share my insight and thoughts in my second book, hoping to help people be a better version of themselves and live their lives to their fullest.

Mónica's book list on live life fully

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Why did Mónica love this book?

When reading this book, I was dealing with many family issues, and I didn’t know what to do. This book helped me to see that life doesn’t have favorites and that it’s in us to move on and achieve anything we want.

It taught me to be a less controlling woman and detach myself from money and love. It made me realize how important it is to pay attention to my thoughts and beliefs. Do what I want, no matter what, but begin by doing something because in that moment of my life, I was living the “victim role.” I learned that the key is to act, and everything else follows.

I loved this book because it has a lot of wisdom in different areas of life!

By Andrew Matthews,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The concepts in this book ring true with practical, applicable advice, and Matthews's lucid writing and witty stories help bring his message into sharp focus. Follow Your Heart is everything you could ask for in a self-help book. It is about doing what you love, dealing with bills and disasters, discovering your own power, and finding peace of mind. Start down the road to changing your life because as Matthews says: "Our mission in life is not to change the world--our mission is to change ourselves."


Book cover of The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Author Of Make life Yours!: Based on real facts

From my list on live life fully.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a person like you who has lived difficult situations, has had losses, made mistakes, and deals with bad days wondering about my existence and purpose in life. I have a gift, and it's writing; I began sending reflective messages to the people at my office and that’s when I noticed that people loved them. Years later, after reading several books and accumulating more experience, I realized that there are several experiences that are common to all, but few questioned. Therefore, I decided to share my insight and thoughts in my second book, hoping to help people be a better version of themselves and live their lives to their fullest.

Mónica's book list on live life fully

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Why did Mónica love this book?

I needed a different book and found it in this one. The author wrote it based on interviewing more than 200 people over 60. And I learned a lot from it!

If you want to make a checkup about your life and how you live it, this is the book you need. The 5 secrets will help you to see if you are on the right path.

What shocked me was to learn that happy people aren’t afraid to die. People who live life wisely accept death as part of life. When I read that, I committed myself to putting into practice the 5 secrets because I want to be like those the author interviewed: nothing to regret.

It’s more than a book: it’s a great life guide!

By John Izzo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“What brought you the greatest joy? What do you wish you had learned sooner? What ultimately mattered and what didn’t?” asks Dr. John Izzo. Based on a highly acclaimed public television series, this book takes the reader on a heartwarming and profound journey to find lasting happiness.
 
Imagine for a moment that you are about to take a foreign vacation to an exotic destination. You have saved your entire life to travel there. It is a destination with almost unlimited choices of how to spend your time and you know you will not have enough time to explore every opportunity.…


Book cover of The Janitor: How an Unexpected Friendship Transformed a CEO and His Company

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Author Of Make life Yours!: Based on real facts

From my list on live life fully.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a person like you who has lived difficult situations, has had losses, made mistakes, and deals with bad days wondering about my existence and purpose in life. I have a gift, and it's writing; I began sending reflective messages to the people at my office and that’s when I noticed that people loved them. Years later, after reading several books and accumulating more experience, I realized that there are several experiences that are common to all, but few questioned. Therefore, I decided to share my insight and thoughts in my second book, hoping to help people be a better version of themselves and live their lives to their fullest.

Mónica's book list on live life fully

Mónica Ramírez Chimal Why did Mónica love this book?

I enjoyed reading this book because it’s written as a story. All the learning is through the janitor, on his advice to the CEO, to see life in a different way.

It opened my eyes because, at that moment, I was doing what the CEO does in the book: I was very stressed, not having time for something else, and wrongly thinking that I needed to do more in the same way. The message of the book was compelling for me: I needed to change the way I lived my life because this book made me reflect on how I would leave my legacy.

There are few books that I’ve read that made me cry, this one did. It touched my heart, and hopefully, I touch other lives. 

By Todd Hopkins, Ray Hilbert,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Do you ever find yourself losing sight of the important things in life-work and stress can become overwhelming at times. Such is the situation where CEO Roger Kimbrough finds himself in this business parable.

The Janitor was inspired by Todd Hopkins's personal experiences of interviewing overqualified retired businessmen for evening shift janitorial positions. Todd's applicants consistently would say they simply needed something to do. In this fable, janitor Bob Tidwell helps Roger to reevaluate how he is leading his business and his life. Bob's counsel is based upon six principles that Todd and coauthor Ray Hilbert discovered have the most…


Book cover of On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel

Ann Marie Jackson Author Of The Broken Hummingbird

From my list on Americans learning to live in Mexico.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am fascinated by the places where cultures intersect and the means by which they do so. I am an American lucky to live in gorgeous San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and previously in Hirakata, Japan; Shanghai, China; Suva, Fiji; and Oxford, England. Each move entailed a challenging but rewarding effort to absorb a new set of unwritten societal rules. A great way to grow is to immerse yourself in the unknown and have things you took for granted about how the world works suddenly come into question. Another is to learn from those who have gone before us, so I am delighted to share these wonderful books with you.

Ann's book list on Americans learning to live in Mexico

Ann Marie Jackson Why did Ann love this book?

If you ask American expats in San Miguel de Allende how they “discovered” this beautiful city in the central highlands as far from a beach as one can be in Mexico, a significant percentage of us will mention Tony Cohan’s lovely memoir, On Mexican Time, set in the San Miguel of 1985.

San Miguel is often referred to as magical, and most of us tend to think of whatever moment we personally arrived as peak San Miguel magic. The longer we’re here, the more nostalgic we grow for that lost era. The thing about magic, though, is that it can evolve. Today’s San Miguel de Allende is less sleepy and quirky than the town Tony described, but it is still abundantly charmed.

By Tony Cohan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An American writer and his wife find a new home—and a new lease on life—in the charming sixteenth-century hill town of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

When Los Angeles novelist Tony Cohan and his artist wife, Masako, visited central Mexico one winter they fell under the spell of a place where the pace of life is leisurely, the cobblestone streets and sun-splashed plazas are enchanting, and the sights and sounds of daily fiestas fill the air. Awakened to needs they didn’t know they had, they returned to California, sold their house and cast off for a new life in San…


Book cover of Cliff Diver

E.R. Yatscoff Author Of Teeth of the Cocodrilo

From my list on crime plunging you into new places away from the norm.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent over 30 years as a fire rescue officer, and my investigative experience in arsons and fires of all types had me working with police at times. Firefighters come in contact with a lot of crimes. Crime scene protection is important before cops and detectives arrive. I’m curious by nature, and I like cops. They have so many rules. Firefighters aren’t like that. When we arrive, there is little time to follow rules. I have a firefighter crime series published, but I chose Teeth of the Cocodrilo in the theme of exotic crime. I'm the only firefighter in Canada who has written firefighter crime novels.

E.R.'s book list on crime plunging you into new places away from the norm

E.R. Yatscoff Why did E.R. love this book?

As a reader I simply couldn’t have one book without the other. Detective Cruz is the first female detective in Acapulco and fights for every inch of respect in a police department rife with corruption and misogyny in a country where Mexicans don’t trust the police, feeling that no one cares. But Det. Cruz cares. The recurring theme of so many girls gone missing is her passion which occasionally rises up during other investigations throughout the series. As a writer I enjoyed suspense and danger. Carmen Amato makes you feel the heat and taste the food of Acapulco. Best ever female cop protagonist.

By Carmen Amato,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Acapulco’s first female police detective dives into an ocean of secrets, lies, and murder when she investigates her own lieutenant’s death.

In this explosive start to the award-winning Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series set in Acapulco, Emilia beat the odds to become the resort city's first female police detective. But she lives in a pressure cooker where trust is in short supply.

Her fellow detectives are scheming to push her out. Her lieutenant is a shady character playing both sides of the law. The police department is riddled with corruption and drug cartel influence.

When her lieutenant is murdered, Emilia…


Book cover of The Old Gringo

Ann Marie Jackson Author Of The Broken Hummingbird

From my list on Americans learning to live in Mexico.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am fascinated by the places where cultures intersect and the means by which they do so. I am an American lucky to live in gorgeous San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and previously in Hirakata, Japan; Shanghai, China; Suva, Fiji; and Oxford, England. Each move entailed a challenging but rewarding effort to absorb a new set of unwritten societal rules. A great way to grow is to immerse yourself in the unknown and have things you took for granted about how the world works suddenly come into question. Another is to learn from those who have gone before us, so I am delighted to share these wonderful books with you.

Ann's book list on Americans learning to live in Mexico

Ann Marie Jackson Why did Ann love this book?

I read The Old Gringo in college before I had any inkling that I would one day be a not-too-old gringa making her home in San Miguel de Allende.

Fuentes imagines meaningful final days for Ambrose Bierce, an American journalist who in 1913 headed off into Mexico at the age of 71, never to be heard from again. I love this book for the way Fuentes captures and probes profound differences and lingering mistrust between our cultures as well as the universal human struggles for meaning, opportunity, security, and belonging.

While Fuentes’ old gringo, we are told, came to die a worthy soldier’s death in Mexico, the gringos of my generation are here to live fully and well.

By Carlos Fuentes,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

One of Carlos Fuentes's greatest works, The Old Gringo tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American writer, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa's soldiers, particularly his encounter with General Tomas Arroyo. In the end, the incompatibility of the two countries (or, paradoxically, their intimacy) claims both men, in a novel that is, most of all, about the tragic history of two cultures in conflict.


Book cover of The Space Between

Monique Polak Author Of Planet Grief

From my list on to read if you are are obsessed with death like me.

Why am I passionate about this?

As far as I can remember, I have been obsessed with death! Maybe it’s because my mom, who died four years ago at the age of 86, was a Holocaust survivor. Anyway, what I’ve noticed is that all kids' stories deal with death. Think, for instance, of how Harry Potter is an orphan. Or how so many characters in fairy tales have a parent who is dead. I think dealing with death – talking about it openly --- helps us live our lives in a more meaningful way. For my own novel, Planet Grief, I did a ton of researcher and befriended an amazing grief counselor named Dawn Cruchet. You can look her up on the web and learn about her too. Dawn taught me that there is no one, correct way to grieve, that grief is a life-changing journey.

Monique's book list on to read if you are are obsessed with death like me

Monique Polak Why did Monique love this book?

Oh, this is an amazing book! Hard to read in a few places, because it deals openly with the aftermath of a gruesome suicide. But if you ask me, that’s what readers need – openness about subjects, such as suicide, topics which many people would prefer to avoid altogether. Also, I’ve met author Don Aker and I love him. He told me he got the idea for this story from a real-life suicide that took place in his community.

By Don Aker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Space Between as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

Just dumped by his girlfriend, Jace Antonakos has recorded a proclamation in a notebook his English teacher made him take on his winter vacation to the Mayan Riviera: I'm going to Mexico to get laid. The fact that he's only days away from turning 18 and still a virgin has Jace spooked, and he figures that Playa del Carmen's golden beaches draped with equally golden girls should increase his odds of success. On the other hand, the fact that he's travelling with his mother, his aunt and his nine-year-old autistic brother just about kills that bet. Then he meets Kate,…


Book cover of Casa No Name

Joanna Maclennan Author Of The Foraged Home

From my list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am mainly known as an Interiors Photographer and although accidentally falling into photographing Interiors, it has become a passion, always interested in the story these places tell and alongside my husband we have built our own home creating a unique space using recuperated materials. As part of my work, I am always looking for interesting and inspirational books and places. It is how I train my eye, drawn to the unusual. I am as happy photographing a chateau in Provence as I am in a small and remote cabin in Norway. 

Joanna's book list on inspiring creating your own unique home or space

Joanna Maclennan Why did Joanna love this book?

I was given this as a present and what a wonderful present it was. Deborah Turbeville is a wonderful photographer whose work I admire. Her fashion photography was innovative, imaginative and so creative.

This book, a visual diary of her house and time in Mexico is filled with her signature blurred images, from black and white portraits to colourful interiors. It goes against everything we learn in Interiors but it’s magical, evocative, and gothic.

By Deborah Turbeville,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Casa No Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the tradition of Kahlo and Allende, Turbeville’s brilliantly stylish portrait of her Mexican house evokes both her vivid imagination and the mystique of Mexico. High-ceilinged rooms surround a central courtyard that is lined with faded frescoes of biblical scenes. The glimmer and shafts of diffused light that stream into the courtyards and curtained rooms add to the romantic atmosphere—one feels as though they have entered into a quintessential Turbeville photograph. Turbeville has captured the spiritual nature of Mexican culture by incorporating into candlelit interiors such traditional religious artifacts as colorful painted tin retablos, hand-carved saints, wooden tableau boxes, and…


Book cover of On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey

David Beaupre Author Of Quest and Crew

From my list on travel adventures.

Why am I passionate about this?

There is no easier way to have an adventure than to travel. People have a yearning for travel and adventure. For me it is in the air we breathe. I have spent a lifetime traveling to distant foreign lands and sailing the ocean. It's a good life most of the time. But more importantly, I have been fortunate to have been immersed in the sights and sounds of this magnificent world. For an experience you will not soon forget, come along on a sailing adventure in the Quest Series

David's book list on travel adventures

David Beaupre Why did David love this book?

Another deeply insightful book from Paul Theroux, On the Plain of Snakes explores the cultural richness and sometimes dangerous aspects of Mexico. With a forward style and charisma, he comes face to face with narcos, police, corruption, migrants, and the sometimes frightening indigenous culture. His writings are not just all darkness and gloom. He goes to great lengths to describe the importance of family in a country with virtually no social network. He talks with the educated, the poverty-stricken, and even meets the leader of the Zapatistas.  After reading On the Plain of Snakes' you will develop a new appreciation for our Mexican neighbors, particularly concerning migration and the border control issues that have dominated the US for too many years. This is a long arduous trip which Theroux makes thoroughly enjoyable. 

By Paul Theroux,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE EDWARD STANFORD AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO TRAVEL WRITING 2020

The master of contemporary travel writing, Paul Theroux, immerses himself in the beautiful and troubled heart of modern Mexico

Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A forty-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Mexico, New Mexico, and the Mexican Revolution?

Mexico 231 books
New Mexico 61 books