56 books like One Man's Meat

At the end of February 1942, British-born journalist Alistair Cooke set off upon a road trip across wartime America, to “see what the war had done to people.” His observations provide a series of fascinating snapshots of the home front in the early months of the war. Shortages of civilian goods showed up everywhere, from the West Virginia soda fountain with the forlorn sign over an orange-squeezer that read, “Regret. Out of Coca-Cola,” to Houston, where rubber and gas rationing led to overcrowding on city buses that threw whites and Blacks into unwonted jostling proximity.

On the West Coast, Cooke found that San Diego — flush with sailors on leave and recently-arrived workers in aircraft plants — was “the greatest boom-town since the Klondike”: “In the evening, roaming the bars and saloons, you see, alongside much healthy ribaldry among sailors and Marines fresh from the Pacific, plenty of saddening adult… show more.

Largely forgotten today, Ray Clapper was perhaps the most highly respected American newspaper columnist and radio personality of the 1930s and 1940s. Especially adept at sketching the domestic political scene, Clapper restores the nation's wartime leaders to life for modern readers in this collection of excerpts from his columns. President Franklin Roosevelt was "always supremely self-confident, sometimes angry, eager to exchange gossip, quick to make a humorous dig at the expense of some opponent or critic, and especially of a stuffed shirt." By contrast, Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, who ran against Roosevelt in the presidential election of 1944, was "too slippery with words to inspire any confidence." Clapper reserved his harshest judgment for the wartime Congress, which he deemed "a collection of 2-cent politicians who could serve well enough in simpler days," but whose "ignorance and provincialism" rendered them "incapable of meeting the needs of modern government."

Reading Dos Passos’ account of his own travels across wartime America is a valuable corrective to the long-standing myth of a united home front, with civilians cheerfully sacrificing for the boys overseas. Instead, Dos Passos found rising rates of worker absenteeism in defense plants, management executives turning blind eyes to defects in airplanes in the name of profits, and lonely wives of defense workers living in makeshift housing going “trailerwacky” for lack of companionship. And when coal miners walked out on strike in 1943, imperiling war production, one miner explained to Dos Passos that “it’s the tough guys make themselves respected in this man’s country, the tough guys an’ the big winds.”

A former philosophy professor who joined the staff of the illustrious New York newspaper PM following Pearl Harbor, Lerner provides a scholarly perspective on home front developments. “America at war,” he decided, “is an America torn from many of its moorings, in which everything is having to move at a quicker pace.” Among Lerner’s subjects are juvenile delinquency, especially the rise of teenage amateur prostitutes; women in wartime (“the men make war happen, but it happens to women”); and the increase in racial intolerance — not only against Japanese-Americans, but Mexicans and Jews as well.

I love a good sisters novel—maybe because I always wished for a sister of my own? This cast of unique and engaging characters quickly drew me into their lives as these young women with very different personalities found ways to accept their widowed dad's plans to reopen the summer camp where he’d met their mother. I also enjoy a good plot twist, and the one at the end of this book was just right, a touching way to tie everything together. This book was primarily the eldest sister Cam's story, which means more books to follow with insights into the other sisters’ lives. Have I mentioned I love sequels? Once I connect with a set of characters, it’s hard to let them go!

Reading a book by Barbara Ross is like taking an actual trip to a charming coastal Maine town.

Loaded with lobster, seafood dishes, and desserts with blueberries in almost every chapter; my mouth was watering for the east coast. The interesting plot line on a lobster boat held my interest and led me to investigate the other books in the series as well. 

While I love Parker’s Spenser series, I love the stronger emotional payoff I often get more of in stand-alone books, which this book is. Plus, Parker brings some of his humor to the table. (To me it’s a very rare book that can’t carry some humor along with life-and-death stakes.)

While I loved the whole idea of a married couple working together to extricate themselves from big trouble, the confrontation with the cops at the end of the book was a terrific cherry on top.

If I looked up “curmudgeon” in the dictionary, I’d half expect to find Olive’s picture. Perpetually grumpy and disappointed that the people around her don’t live up to her expectations (something I can relate to!), Olive is difficult, demanding, and often outrageous.

Yet her quirky charm has caused millions of readers—including me—to fall under her spell. I followed Olive’s journey with interest, hoping she’d find peace if not happiness.

The highly original, unconventional structure of this book has also made it one of my favorites. I love how Strout weaves Olive in and out of the action in this novel of connected stories, sometimes as a minor character and sometimes as the star.

The fascinating thing about this book is the overall lack of a plot.

It pairs McCloskey’s crisp pen-and-ink drawings with simple prose to evoke the bucolic feeling of life on the coast of Maine. Although not as universally known as McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings or Blueberries for Sal, this entry can bring one to a calm place and let them breathe for a while.

Ketchum’s classic survival horror novel about cannibals attacking a cabin of vacationers is pure 80s slasher goodness. It was perhaps the darkest book of its kind for a long time and pulls no punches with the intensity of its chase scenes. Ketchum’s economical writing style makes it a very easy read, one where you will root for the good guys, and be left emotionally drained by the end.