Here are 100 books that Nothing Special fans have personally recommended if you like
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Growing up on a small farm in southern Ohio, I was the first generation of my family to attend both high school and college. Literature, reading it, talking about it, studying it, was my entry into a world of larger possibilities than my family’s somewhat straitened circumstances had allowed me. Faulkner attracted me because the rural enclave in which we lived, and my neighbors, resembled locales and characters in his fiction. Shakespeare attracted me for many reasons, most notably the beauty of his language and the ability of his plays to reveal new meanings as my life experiences changed.
This, Sally Rooney’s first novel, was greeted with widespread critical acclaim. Fresh, witty, knowing, and au courant in its exploration of present-day sexual and romantic entanglements, the novel was clearly the work of a major talent.
Both Conversations and Rooney’s highly popular second novel, Normal People, have been adapted for television. Perhaps you’ve seen one or both and have read the novels as a result. If not, I urge you to do so, beginning with Conversations.
I haven’t yet watched either adaptation, but I believe that watching and reading have different sorts of advantages. Against the immediacy and vividness of watching TV shows, reading the novel will allow you to move at your own pace, to savor Rooney’s verbal dexterity, to revisit earlier scenes, and to discover their added significance. Watch (if you haven’t already), read, enjoy!
'This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone.' - Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram)
'Brilliant, funny and startling.' Guardian
'I really like Conversations with Friends. I like the tone [Rooney] takes when she's writing. I think it's like being inside someone's mind.' - Taylor Swift
'A sharp, darkly funny comment on modern relationships.' Sunday Telegraph
Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend.…
I’m an Australian writer with a passion for literary fiction, especially novels centered on complex and multi-layered power dynamics. To me, relationships between women are particularly ripe for this kind of exploration – my own friendships with other women have been influential and formative, but not always easy! My interest in these darker and more complex dynamics of close friendship eventually led me to write my own novel on the topic. I’ve also published a range of essays, reviews, criticism, and creative nonfiction.
While many novels about female friendship focus on young women, The Weekend follows three women in their seventies, whose decades-long friendship has sustained them through illness, infidelity, divorce – and recently the death of their fourth close friend, Sylvie.
Drawn together over a weekend to clear out Sylvie’s house, the remaining women must grapple with their shared past and uncertain future. I loved this glimpse into the lives of older women – a reality not often portrayed in fiction – and admired Wood’s ability to make each of her three narrators flawed, relatable, and human.
If you like immersive character-driven novels, this book won’t disappoint.
People went on about death bringing friends together, but it wasn't true. The graveyard, the stony dirt - that's what it was like now . . . Despite the three women knowing each other better than their own siblings, Sylvie's death had opened up strange caverns of distance between them.
Four older women have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Can they survive together without her?
They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur, Wendy, an acclaimed public…
I’m an Australian writer with a passion for literary fiction, especially novels centered on complex and multi-layered power dynamics. To me, relationships between women are particularly ripe for this kind of exploration – my own friendships with other women have been influential and formative, but not always easy! My interest in these darker and more complex dynamics of close friendship eventually led me to write my own novel on the topic. I’ve also published a range of essays, reviews, criticism, and creative nonfiction.
If you like lushly written literary fiction about art, desire, friendship, and ambition, you’ll loveThe Strays.
Lily and Eva meet as children, and Eva – the daughter of a famous modernist artist – soon draws solitary Lily into her avant-garde family life. As the years pass and the two begin to leave childhood behind, their relationship makes new demands of them both.
Although The Strays features a large cast of characters in its makeshift family of artists, the connection between Eva and Lily is the beating heart of the novel, and is by turns tender, destructive, and tragic.
"Disturbing and magical....with a grace and eloquence." - NPR Books
"Full of lush, mesmerizing detail and keen insight into the easy intimacy between young girls which disappears with adulthood." -- The New Yorker
"The Strays is a knowing novel, and beautifully done." -- Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Interestings
For readers of Atonement, a hauntingly powerful story about the fierce friendship between three sisters and their friend as they grow up on the outskirts of their parents' wild and bohemian artistic lives.
On her first day at a new school, Lily befriends Eva and her sisters…
I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and am the middle daughter of three. My sisters and I were close in age, and, of course, our home was girl-centered. The three of us attended the same all-girls Catholic high school, though we each had our own friends. Because of my childhood, I love books that explore how women make friends and keep them, how we let them go, and why. The genesis of friendships interests me, whether childhood, high school, college or motherhood. I love to read books by women where girlfriendships are not an afterthought or window dressing but central to the characters’ inner lives and the story being told.
I recommend The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez because I found it an absorbing portrait of a friendship in which I wasn’t sure if the two people in it even liked each other. Georgette, called George, is from a working-class family, and Ann is her wealthy college roommate. It is the late 1960s. For me, the book had a fresh angle on the protest movements. George’s focus in college is trying to pull herself up.
To me, George and Ann’s friendship is like a house on a cliff–dangerous, depending on what door you open. This book has stayed with me because it explores why people remain friends, even if the relationship is difficult to the point of pain.
It is Columbia University, 1968. Ann Drayton and Georgette George meet as roommates on the first night. Ann is rich and radical; Georgette, the narrator of "The Last Of Her Kind", is leery and introverted, a child of the very poverty and strife her new friend finds so noble. The two are drawn together intensely by their differences; two years later, after a violent fight, they part ways. When, in 1976, Ann is convicted of killing a New York cop, Georgette comes back to their shared history in search of an explanation. She finds a riddle of a life, shaped…
I have always been a passionate music lover. Music–especially rock–and its creators have always fascinated me. My many adventures include becoming a music journalist, attending hundreds of concerts since the 1970s, and meeting many of my heroes who have since become legendary. This is why I love books that conjure memories or take me to musical moments in time that I have missed. Especially wonderful are the biographies written by or about bands, superstars and people who adore them.
Cherry’s book is so delicious that I devoured it in one day. I was fascinated when I read about the early 70s New York City, when Cherry lived and worked in the best of both worlds. She was among Andy Warhol’s factory superstars and was also present at the beginning (and instrumental in the climax) of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust fame as his publicist and lover. When worlds collide, fabulous things happen! Cherry’s mission statement: ‘…the passion of the groupie is probably the purest, holiest thing in all of rock and roll.’
This was a long-awaited tome (in 2010) from someone in the midst of the mayhem—a fearless, sweet, vivacious 1970s groupie who became a “superstar.” Her first UK touring band included Sting of the Police. She released some albums and was a part of London’s early Punk scene.
Cherry Vanilla’s memoir takes us from the birth of rock to the explosion of punk, with memorable detours through the sexual revolution, the women’s lib movement, and the Theater of the Ridiculous. A wunderkind on Madison Avenue in the swinging sixties, Cherry found fame as a DJ in clubs in Manhattan and on the French Riviera, starred in Andy Warhol’s Pork in London, and gained notoriety as a groupie. Working as David Bowie’s PR rep (and occasional lover), she played a major part in introducing him to the US market. She was one of the few successful women in punk;…
I’ve always been interested in creators who convey intensely personal stories through dynamic visuals, whether it be animation, illustrations, or comics. And even better: tales of people who lived in the past! Although trained in screenwriting and creative writing, I started making art twenty years ago–and that gave me a newfound respect for those folks who combine great stories and memorable drawings. Nowadays, I can’t read enough graphic novels!
Basquiat is one of my heroes, and although this book is a bit disjointed at times, I give it full credit for visually representing his creative genius (and torment) in dynamic and interesting ways. The Downtown New York art scene of the 1980s was nuts–and this book takes you there!
The dazzling, provocative work of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) would come to define the vibrant New York art scene of the late '70s and early '80s.
Punk, jazz, graffiti, hip-hop: his work drew heavily on the cultural trappings of lower Manhattan, to which he fled-from Brooklyn-at the age of 15. This stunning graphic novel captures the dramatic life and exhilarating times of this archetypal New York artist, covering everything from the SAMO graffiti project to his first solo show, from his relationship with Andy Warhol to the substance abuse that would cost him his life.
My husband of 35 glorious years died of Pancreatic cancer in 2020. In two months, as COVID slammed, we had to put our beloved dog down, my husband’s lesson horse went hooves up, my husband died, I replaced two HVAC units and a water heater. I am a writer/journalist whose style is conversational. Writing about my grief maelstrom as if telling a friend focused me on the dark humor. My book Horse Sluts and articles in Horse Nation and other equine and/or mature-focused magazines are written in the same, “I’m no expert, but this is my experience” POV. I know the tone that helps.
“Bat shit is patient.” Simple, clear, dead on to describe the crazy life-clowns that leap from dark corners as I fend off grief... loss.
I Was Better... may not be a “grief” book, per se, but Fierstein dances us through the fears, struggles, and losses in his journey to live a life he wants. His quote, “Look back, but don’t stare” felt as though he quoted it for me to help deal with many joyous and painful memories of my husband.
I Was Better... is a tropical island where I could escape the squalls of my life of loss. I relished his musicals, strode the flamboyant streets of New York, and was embraced by Fierstein’s poignant and dearly funny honesty. His rage against the night was mine too. He and I kept dog paddling – together.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A poignant and hilarious memoir from the cultural icon, gay rights activist, and four-time Tony Award–winning actor and playwright, revealing never-before-told stories of his personal struggles and conflict, of sex and romance, and of his fabled career
Harvey Fierstein’s legendary career has transported him from community theater in Brooklyn, to the lights of Broadway, to the absurd excesses of Hollywood and back. He’s received accolades and awards for acting in and/or writing an incredible string of hit plays, films, and TV shows: Hairspray, Fiddler on the Roof, Mrs. Doubtfire, Independence Day, Cheers, La Cage…
As someone who lived through the very interesting and tumultuous 1960s and 70s, I am fascinated by details of other’s experiences of the same time frame. I inhabited the early 70s fully, going to so many once-in-a-lifetime cultural events: poetry readings, music performances, avant-garde theater, and ‘be-ins’ or ‘happenings.’ With a Masters degree in Creative Writing, I have been an observer of culture and art for several decades. I am the author of three collections of poetry, a book of short fiction, a novel, and a book for writers.
I love this book because it describes a closed world; an underground scene that was glamorous and edgy. The world of Andy Warhol attracted writers, artists, models, fashion designers, and other ‘beautiful people.’ Warhol helped many of his minions achieve great fame.
I love that the author is a budding writer and also, for all intents and purposes, fatherless. Many of his experiences resonated deeply with my own. This book has the detailed descriptions and self-reflection of a great memoir.
An evocative coming-of-age memoir—the story of the education of a wayward wild child and acidhead who, searching for meaning and purpose, found refuge in the demimonde of the ruined but magical metropolis that was New York City in the 1970s.
“In his beautiful memoir, Do Something, Guy Trebay paints a picture of a vanished, pre-AIDS Gotham that’s both gritty and dazzling.” —The New York Times Book Review
Born in the Bronx, Guy Trebay was raised in an atmosphere of privilege on Long Island’s North Shore after his entrepreneurial father struck business gold with Hawaiian Surf, a wildly successful cologne company…
I’m the descendant of three generations of visual artists, a gene I thought had skipped me. However, art popped up in many of my stories when I started writing fiction. In 2012, I published The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob, and to promote it, I launched a street art campaign that included putting plaster blobs on the streets of Washington, D.C. This blossomed into several other street art projects and earned attention from The Washington Postand several D.C. TV news stations. My next two books centered around Frida Kahlo and Edvard Munch.
This posthumously published novel is the last offering from the punk rocker, poet, and writer Jim Carrol. Carrol was a friend of Patti Smith and Andy Warhol and a product of the New York City art scene in the 1970s and 1980s.
The central character is Billy, a successful painter with such deep artistic sensitivities that navigating small things like relationships, his health, and earning money is crushingly difficult. The book reads like an allegory as much novel as moving characters through action seems a secondary aim. In this way, it reminds me of Franz Kafka’s A Hunger Artist.
A moving, vividly rendered novel from the late author of The Basketball Diaries.
When poet, musician, and diarist Jim Carroll died in September 2009, he was putting the finishing touches on a potent work of fiction. The Petting Zoo tells the story of Billy Wolfram, an enigmatic thirty- eight-year-old artist who has become a hot star in the late-1980s New York art scene. As the novel opens, Billy, after viewing a show of Velázquez paintings, is so humbled and awed by their spiritual power that he suffers an emotional breakdown and withdraws to his Chelsea loft. In seclusion, Billy searches…
It took eight years to write New York, New York, New York, and reading hundreds and hundreds of books about all different aspects of New York past and present. There were lots of brilliant ones along the way, but these five changed how I think about New York, flipped assumptions, created entirely new maps and narratives.
This is the primer for everything Downtown during arguably Downtown’s greatest era. The contributions are first-rate, by people who were on the scene, and it’s a handsome book to hold. If you’re interested in anything from Punk and Patti Smith to Haring, Basquiat, and Afrika Bambaataa, this is the place to start, without nostalgia, agenda, or hype.
Downtown is more than just a location, it's an attitude--and in the 1970s and '80s, that attitude forever changed the face of America. This book charts the intricate web of influences that shaped the generation of experimental and outsider artists working in Downtown New York during the crucial decade from 1974 to 1984. Published in conjunction with the first major exhibition of downtown art (organized by New York University's Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library), The Downtown Book brings the Downtown art scene to life, exploring everything from Punk rock to performance art. The book probes trends that arose in…
