100 books like Peninsula Sinking

By David Huebert,

Here are 100 books that Peninsula Sinking fans have personally recommended if you like Peninsula Sinking. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of Friday Black

Steven Sherrill Author Of The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

From my list on short stories to send your mind into the sublime.

Why am I passionate about this?

Most of my public success has been as a novelist. My MFA, from the Iowa Writers Workshop, is in poetry. When I grow up, I want to be a short story writer. The dirty truth is, though, I’ve been making trouble with stories since I was a kid. During my first attempt in 10th grade, I wrote a story that got me suspended for two weeks. No explanation. No guidance. Just a conference between my parents, teachers, and principal (I wasn’t present), and they came out and banished me. I dropped out of school shortly after. I reckon that experience, both shameful and delicious, shaped my life and love of narrative.

Steven's book list on short stories to send your mind into the sublime

Steven Sherrill Why did Steven love this book?

Such a rule breaker. A complete disregard for the laws of nature. That can’t happen! I shouldn’t feel so for those characters! And yet, and yet! The characters that people these pages are real and convincing. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah takes us in and out of realities. His world is dark sibling to our everyday world, but even his most flawed characters resonate with dignity, and through skillful well-crafted revelation, the reader comes to understand why these characters struggle—often against societal forces larger/older/engrained—and even when his characters make bad decisions (lord knows a misbehaving character is what good fiction is about) a glimmer of the potential for human goodness is exposed. This a contemporary voice, fierce and fresh, and worth paying attention to.

By Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The instant New York Times bestseller
'An unbelievable debut' New York Times

Racism, but "managed" through virtual reality

Black Friday, except you die in a bargain-crazed throng

Happiness, but pharmacological

Love, despite everything

A Publisher's Weekly Most Anticipated Book for Fall 2018

Friday Black tackles urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and explores the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. In the first, unforgettable story of this collection, The Finkelstein Five, Adjei-Brenyah gives us an unstinting reckoning of the brutal prejudice of the US justice system. In Zimmer Land we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of…


Book cover of The Beggar's Garden: Stories, The

Chris Benjamin Author Of Boy with a Problem

From my list on contemporary North American short story collections.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a short story reader, reviewer, and writer. Short stories are a powerful form, combining the distilled intensity of poetry with the depth of character development. They allow enough space to get to know a character, feel the pain of their disappointments, to root for their ultimate success. Such moments reflect broader realities of a culture, a society, a people. A single-author collection gives great insight into a writer’s abilities and style. My own debut collection was a finalist for the Alistair MacLeod short fiction prize and is critically acclaimed, so hopefully, that means my careful reading of these collections has taught me a thing or two

Chris' book list on contemporary North American short story collections

Chris Benjamin Why did Chris love this book?

Christie’s stories are set in downtown eastside Vancouver, a neighbourhood notorious for junkies and homelessness. Of course, the realities are much more diverse. 

These stories focus not only on the down-and-out but also on shop owners and others trying to make a go there, the traumatic things they witness and experience, and the guilt of surviving there. In prose that is sharp and witty, yet evocative and illuminating, he shows every character to be struggling, regardless of their situation. 

It is a very real look at completely believable characters. And he sees them very clearly, shows their humanity, and finds compassion for all of them.

By Michael Christie,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize

Critically lauded, The Beggar’s Garden is a brilliantly surefooted, strikingly original collection of nine linked short stories that will delight as well as disturb. The stories follow a diverse group of curiously interrelated characters, from bank manager to crackhead to retired Samaritan to web designer to car thief, as they drift through each other’s lives in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. These engrossing stories, free of moral judgment, are about people who are searching in the jagged margins of life―for homes, drugs, love, forgiveness―and collectively they offer a generous and vivid portrait of humanity, not…


Book cover of Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush

Chris Benjamin Author Of Boy with a Problem

From my list on contemporary North American short story collections.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a short story reader, reviewer, and writer. Short stories are a powerful form, combining the distilled intensity of poetry with the depth of character development. They allow enough space to get to know a character, feel the pain of their disappointments, to root for their ultimate success. Such moments reflect broader realities of a culture, a society, a people. A single-author collection gives great insight into a writer’s abilities and style. My own debut collection was a finalist for the Alistair MacLeod short fiction prize and is critically acclaimed, so hopefully, that means my careful reading of these collections has taught me a thing or two

Chris' book list on contemporary North American short story collections

Chris Benjamin Why did Chris love this book?

Kerry Lee Powell writes some of the best sentences I’ve ever read. A lot of her opening lines (“Today's the day Mitchell Burnhope gets the royal shit kicked out of him” ... “I took my kung fu instructor off speed-dial today” ... “A dozen of us were dressed up as low-budget ghosts outside Earl’s Court tube station”) are arresting, instantly grabbing my attention, while hinting at something more, posing a question and inviting me to read on. 

What was happening was usually much deeper than first expected. She's economic with her words, but in a few pages I came to care about the characters and I miss them now, feel like they're still out there somewhere wheeling and dealing to keep their head above water.

By Kerry Lee Powell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ranging from an island holiday gone wrong to a dive bar on the upswing to a yuppie mother in a pricey subdivision seeing her worst fears come true, these acclaimed, deftly written stories are populated by barkeeps, good men down on their luck, rebellious teens, lonely immigrants, dreamers and realists, fools and quiet heroes. In Kerry Lee Powell’s skillful hands, each character, no matter what his or her choices, is deeply human in their search for connection. Powell holds us in her grasp, exploring with a black humour themes of belonging, the simmering potential for violence, and the meaning of…


Book cover of A Visit from the Goon Squad

Kevin Clouther Author Of Maximum Speed

From my list on literary fiction about the passage of time.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live in the past, even as the wellness industry tells me to be present. I try to be present! Of course, I also worry about the future. Time for me, inexorably, moves both backward and forward. I’m always writing things down, scared of forgetting. How do other people do it? That’s why I read fiction (or one of the reasons). As Philip Roth said of his father in Patrimony, “To be alive, to him, is to be made of memory—to him if a man’s not made of memory, he’s made of nothing.”

Kevin's book list on literary fiction about the passage of time

Kevin Clouther Why did Kevin love this book?

When Jennifer Egan published “Found Objects” “Safari,” and “Ask Me If I Care” in The New Yorker I knew she was onto something, but I wasn’t prepared for the cumulative effect of A Visit from the Good Squad, which bounces between past and present (and, occasionally, into the future).

One character asks, “Time’s a goon, right?” Time is, though I hadn’t considered how until surrendering to Egan’s vision, which spans from NYC to Africa to PowerPoint. Whether this is a collection of linked stories or novel or some other hybrid form is irrelevant; the book is pure sorcery.

It was one of the thrills of my career to bring Egan to Omaha in 2019 to lecture to the University of Nebraska MFA in Writing.

By Jennifer Egan,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked A Visit from the Goon Squad as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2010

Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in…


Book cover of Pearly and Pig and the Great Hairy Beast

Debra Williams Author Of Ah-Fur, Super Sleuth: The Case of The Missing Moggies

From my list on mystery and action for young readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an Australian author and have been an avid reader all of my life. One of the topics I particularly enjoy is mystery and adventure. I became a writer to engage children’s imaginations and encourage them in their reading. So many struggle, as I discovered whilst assisting in classrooms over many years. Children love secrets and mysteries, and this is a great way to draw them in. Other themes such as teamwork and friendship are just as important, so I try to cover all bases. I hope you and your young readers enjoy my recommendations.

Debra's book list on mystery and action for young readers

Debra Williams Why did Debra love this book?

A fast-paced, action-adventure tale for young readers. 10-year-old Pearly is concerned after receiving a strange phone call from her parents. They belong to a top-secret group. She believes her parents are being held on a ship bound for Antarctica but realises that they are not there, and she becomes the one in trouble. How will this young adventurer solve what is happening? It's something to do with a great hairy beast that is believed to dwell in the icy landscape-a creature her parents would have liked to prove exists. Whilst Pearl is a worrier, she steps into the frame and exhibits newfound bravery and nerve, doing what she can to find her parents. An encouraging example to be brave in difficult circumstances.

By Sue Whiting, Rebecca Crane (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pearly and Pig and the Great Hairy Beast as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

The Antarctica awaits in this fast-paced adventure starring a plucky new heroine. Pearly must face her fears to save her parents, her pet pig, and the day!

Pearly Woe is a worrier. She worries about everything, especially that she'll never be brave enough to become a member of the top-secret group of stealth adventurers - The Adventurologists' Guild. Pearly also has a special talent - she can talk to animals. Her favourite animal to talk to is her pet pig, called Pig. But with her parents missing, Pig pig-napped and Pearly a stowaway on an icebreaker heading for Antarctica, Pearly's…


Book cover of South with Endurance: Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition 1914-1917

John Wilson Author Of Places not Paisley: Photographic Peregrinations: Book 3, The Ruined World

From my list on travel photography books that make the past come alive.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an author of 50+ books of historical fiction and non-fiction for kids, teens, and adults I am handicapped by being unable to travel in time or go to the places I set my stories. I have long used photography as an attempt to capture a sense of places and the people who inhabit them, but I gradually realized that my images were not simply an adjunct to the stories I was telling but that the best of them had their own tales to tell. Through photographs, jumbled piles of stone became a gateway to a lost, magical past and a trigger for my imagination.

John's book list on travel photography books that make the past come alive

John Wilson Why did John love this book?

Antarctica is the one continent I have never taken a photograph in. It has barely changed in the past 100 years, but Hurley’s images still take me to an unknown world and how people have struggled to survive there.

I love the way he can capture the majesty of a landscape that is mostly just one colour and how his photographs give a sense of the puny humans grappling with the harshness of the environment.

By Frank Hurley (photographer),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

pp.244, b/w illustrations, heavy book additional postage will apply


Book cover of Skating To Antarctica

James Withey Author Of How To Tell Depression to Piss Off: 40 Ways to Get Your Life Back

From my list on manage bloody depression.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Brighton based writer. I’ve lived with bloody depression and frigging anxiety, since a child. I’m the founder of The Recovery Letters project, which publishes online letters from people recovering from depression, addressed to those experiencing it. It was published as a book in 2017 and Cosmopolitan named it "One of the 12 mental health books everyone should read". I also edited What I Do to Get Through: How to Run, Swim, Cycle, Sew, or Sing Your Way Through DepressionMy fourth book, How to Tell Anxiety to Sod Off, is due out in 2022.

James' book list on manage bloody depression

James Withey Why did James love this book?

This isn’t a traditional travel book and not a traditional memoir about depression, but a combination of both. Her journey to Antarctica becomes a metaphor for her mental health struggles throughout her life, starting from childhood. 

What I love about this book, and her writing in general, is the dark humour, her acerbic observations and true understanding of how paralysing and perilous depression can be. She understands how painful depression is, the depths it can take you to and seeing your own darkness reflected by someone else is both comforting and validating.

By Jenny Diski,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'I was so absorbed by her writing it was unreal . . . I find myself hungry to find the next morsel of who Jenny was and what her life was like' EMILIA CLARKE (on Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told?)

This strange and brilliant book recounts Jenny Diski's journey to Antarctica, intercut with another journey into her own heart and soul . . . a book of dazzling variety, which weaves disquisitions on indolence, truth, inconsistency, ambiguousness, the elephant seal, Shackleton, boredom and over and over again memory, into a sparse narrative, caustic observation and vivid…


Book cover of The Atlantis Gene

Monica Chase Author Of Broken Code: The Genesis of Rebellion

From my list on Sci-fi thrillers that unravel humanity’s secrets.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the razor-thin line between innovation and disaster—where progress often conceals a darker potential. As a Gen-Xer who grew up questioning authority, speculative fiction became my outlet for exploring these precarious themes. Now, as an author, I channel that curiosity into stories that push the boundaries of ethical ambition, forcing us to confront the unsettling truths behind our technological dreams. This list reflects my deep love for sci-fi thrillers that don’t just entertain but challenge us to examine the hidden costs of our relentless pursuit of progress.

Monica's book list on Sci-fi thrillers that unravel humanity’s secrets

Monica Chase Why did Monica love this book?

This book blindsided me with its explosive blend of ancient mysteries and cutting-edge science. I was captivated by how Riddle wove together seemingly disparate elements—a structure in Antarctica, autism research in Jakarta—into a thrilling quest that challenges everything I thought I knew about human origins.

The ethical implications of these discoveries drove me to research and question long-held beliefs. This thriller didn’t just keep me up all night reading; it left me eager for the sequel.

By A.G. Riddle,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Atlantis Gene as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE BATTLE TO SAVE HUMANITY HAS BEGUN.

Off the coast of Antarctica, a research vessel discovers a mysterious structure buried deep within an iceberg. Entombed for thousands of years, it can't possibly be man-made. But a secretive and ruthless cabal think they know what it is... and what it means.

The Immari have spent millennia preparing for the return of humanity's ancient enemy. Faced with an extinction-level threat, they believe mankind's only chance of survival will mean sacrificing 99.9% of the planet's population. It's a price the Immari are prepared to pay.

Geneticist Kate Warner and intelligence agent David Vale…


Book cover of South!: The Story of Shackleton's, 1914-1917

Brenda Clough Author Of Revise the World

From my list on British explorers freezing to death in Antarctica.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a science fiction writer. If you write about time travel, one of the things you have to worry about is changing the past, the ‘gun for a dinosaur’ effect. If you go to the past and kill that dinosaur, will it affect the present? Maybe that dinosaur was the ancestor of all mammals. So, if you want to steal something from the past and bring it to now, you have to choose carefully. Something that has left no biological footprint. When I got that far, I remembered that Titus Oates walked off into the storm in Antarctica, never to be seen again, to save his companions. His body is still out there, frozen in a glacier … or is it?

Brenda's book list on British explorers freezing to death in Antarctica

Brenda Clough Why did Brenda love this book?

Ernest Shackleton was Scott’s rival and companion, the one who was smart enough not to die. A later Antarctic explorer, Sir Raymond Priestly, famously said, “For scientific discovery give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen. But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.” Shackleton’s last expedition was the stuff of legend. His ship the Endurance was trapped in the ice for ten months, and finally crushed by the ice and sunk. Shackleton marshalled his men to march across the floes dragging their boat, and then they sailed across the polar seas to Elephant Island where they finally were rescued more than two years after they set out. It’s an almost unbelievable feat.

By Ernest Shackleton,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

After the conquest of the South Pole by Amundsen, who, by a narrow margin of days only, was in advance of the British Expedition under Scott, there remained but one great main object of Antarctic journeyings—the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea. When I returned from the Nimrod Expedition on which we had to turn back from our attempt to plant the British flag on the South Pole, being beaten by stress of circumstances within ninety-seven miles of our goal, my mind turned to the crossing of the continent, for I was morally certain that either…


Book cover of The Coldest March

Brenda Clough Author Of Revise the World

From my list on British explorers freezing to death in Antarctica.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a science fiction writer. If you write about time travel, one of the things you have to worry about is changing the past, the ‘gun for a dinosaur’ effect. If you go to the past and kill that dinosaur, will it affect the present? Maybe that dinosaur was the ancestor of all mammals. So, if you want to steal something from the past and bring it to now, you have to choose carefully. Something that has left no biological footprint. When I got that far, I remembered that Titus Oates walked off into the storm in Antarctica, never to be seen again, to save his companions. His body is still out there, frozen in a glacier … or is it?

Brenda's book list on British explorers freezing to death in Antarctica

Brenda Clough Why did Brenda love this book?

Author Susan Solomon is a senior scientist with the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. She has uncovered what I believe is the real reason why Scott’s party couldn’t stagger back to safety. In the polar regions, the reason is always the climate. Even if you prepare carefully and well, sometimes it’s just too cold for human life. Scott and four companions were fighting an unbeatable foe, and they knew it. They died gallantly anyway, which is why a hundred years later we haven’t forgotten them. Solomon’s book came out in 2001, and she brings the tools of modern climate science to bear on Scott’s fate.

By Susan Solomon,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale." So penned Captain Robert Falcon Scott in 1912 as he confronted defeat and death in the crippling subzero temperatures of Antarctica. In this riveting book, Susan Solomon finishes the interrupted tale of Scott and his British expedition, depicting the staggering 900-mile trek to the South Pole and resolving the debate over the journey's failure.

"An absorbing, fascinating read . . . a book that will appeal to the explorer in everyone."-Sally Ride

"Solomon argues her case well, in exact and graceful prose."-Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World

"Persuasive. .…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Antarctica, North America, and presidential biography?

Antarctica 53 books
North America 68 books