100 books like Permafrost

By SJ Norman,

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

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Book cover of Ilustrado

Tiffany Tsao Author Of The Majesties

From my list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I started writing The Majesties, I wanted the narrative to be a continual excavation of secrets, one after the other. This sort of multi-layered story has always intrigued me and my fascination with it has influenced all my written work so far. I am particularly fascinated by books where characters unconsciously keep secrets from themselves, and where the line between the “real” and the fantastic is blurred beyond recognition. Sometimes it’s not just about solving a mystery, but articulating its mysteriousness—giving it flesh and bone, stitching its parts together, and bringing it to life through words.

Tiffany's book list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima

Tiffany Tsao Why did Tiffany love this book?

A multi-level work of genius. On the surface, this book is about someone trying to solve a murder. But Ilustrado is so much more than just your usual murder mystery. The book does more than use Philippine colonial and contemporary history as the backdrop; it weaves this history into the fabric of the narrative itself. As the protagonist uncovers buried facts about his late mentor and as well as his own past, he also discovers just how inseparable Art is from the political intrigue and social violence in which it is birthed. And the twist at the end explodes the whole book.

By Miguel Syjuco,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'A dazzling and virtuosic adventure' Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the Sea

Internationally Bestselling Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008

'With Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco obliges us to remake the canons of our great classics of contemporary literature. Ilustrado is, literally, a masterpiece' Alberto Manguel

It begins with a body. One anonymous winter day, the corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River. Gone is the controversial giant of Asian literature. And missing is the only manuscript of his final book, an expose of the corrupt roots of the ruling Filipino families, meant to restore his…


Book cover of Cursed Bunny

Tiffany Tsao Author Of The Majesties

From my list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I started writing The Majesties, I wanted the narrative to be a continual excavation of secrets, one after the other. This sort of multi-layered story has always intrigued me and my fascination with it has influenced all my written work so far. I am particularly fascinated by books where characters unconsciously keep secrets from themselves, and where the line between the “real” and the fantastic is blurred beyond recognition. Sometimes it’s not just about solving a mystery, but articulating its mysteriousness—giving it flesh and bone, stitching its parts together, and bringing it to life through words.

Tiffany's book list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima

Tiffany Tsao Why did Tiffany love this book?

I read this book late at night while recovering from jetlag, and it was either the perfect book to read late at night while my mind’s guard was down or the worst book to do this with. The stories are hilarious, but also often horrifying, and ingeniously fantastic. A bunny lamp that curses whoever touches it; a woman who gets pregnant from taking birth control pills; a boy who bleeds gold when he drinks his sister’s blood—these stories are sure to keep your brain lit up long after your head has hit the pillow. 

By Bora Chung, Anton Hur (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.

Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung.

Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

Anton Hur's translation skilfully captures the way Chung's prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous.


Book cover of Hellfire

Tiffany Tsao Author Of The Majesties

From my list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I started writing The Majesties, I wanted the narrative to be a continual excavation of secrets, one after the other. This sort of multi-layered story has always intrigued me and my fascination with it has influenced all my written work so far. I am particularly fascinated by books where characters unconsciously keep secrets from themselves, and where the line between the “real” and the fantastic is blurred beyond recognition. Sometimes it’s not just about solving a mystery, but articulating its mysteriousness—giving it flesh and bone, stitching its parts together, and bringing it to life through words.

Tiffany's book list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima

Tiffany Tsao Why did Tiffany love this book?

This novel starts out in an almost Mrs. Dallowayish way—Lovely has gone out for the day to buy something. Then you realise that Lovely at the age of forty has never gone out by herself for a day. Then, as the day unfolds, the novel brings you backward into the past as you find out about Lovely and Beauty’s paranoid and controlling mother, the oppressiveness of their home life, the dark secret at the heart of their parents’ marriage…

By Leesa Gazi, Shabnam Nadiya (translator),

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Transmutation: Stories

Tiffany Tsao Author Of The Majesties

From my list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I started writing The Majesties, I wanted the narrative to be a continual excavation of secrets, one after the other. This sort of multi-layered story has always intrigued me and my fascination with it has influenced all my written work so far. I am particularly fascinated by books where characters unconsciously keep secrets from themselves, and where the line between the “real” and the fantastic is blurred beyond recognition. Sometimes it’s not just about solving a mystery, but articulating its mysteriousness—giving it flesh and bone, stitching its parts together, and bringing it to life through words.

Tiffany's book list on riddles, wrapped in a mystery, inside an engima

Tiffany Tsao Why did Tiffany love this book?

I picked up Transmutation when it was very difficult for any book to hold my interest—during the constant low-level depression that colored the seemingly endless extended lockdown in Sydney in 2021. It held me spellbound. I had an inkling it would: I adored DiFrancesco’s earlier work, Psychopomps, which I read in 2019. The stories of Transmutation are electric and warm and sad. Like the other stories and novels on this list, they never fully answered my questions, never wrapped anything up in a neat bow. They left me immensely satisfied.

By Alex Difrancesco,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Transgressive, transformative short stories that explore the margins of trans lives.

Building on the success of All City, here is a wry, and at the same time dark and risk-taking, story collection from author (and baker) Alex DiFrancesco that pushes the boundaries of transgender awareness and filial bonds. Here is the hate between 16-year-old Junie, who is transitioning, and their mom's boyfriend Chad when the family moves into Chad's house on Lake Erie. And here is the love being tested between Sawyer and his dad, who named his boat after his child and resists changing it from Sara to Sawyer…


Book cover of Big Pickle

Cat Johnson Author Of Between a Rock and a Hard Cowboy

From my list on feel-good romance when the world is a dumpster-fire.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a romance reader long before becoming an author. 89 published books later, including 2 New York Times and 9 USA Today bestsellers, I feel justified in claiming some knowledge on the subject. I believe you must be a book lover, an avid reader, to be a successful writer. That said, everyone has diverse tastes, and I think taste and what a person needs in a book, changes with time and circumstances. Luckily there have never been more books available. You just have to find them. Whether you read my recommendations and said, “Yes!” or “Hell, no!”, I hope you're one step closer to your next best read.

Cat's book list on feel-good romance when the world is a dumpster-fire

Cat Johnson Why did Cat love this book?

The hero, who is a really big ‘dill’ (see what I did there? LOL) is the heir to a deli dynasty famous for their pickles. The heroine is an overworked deli manager tested by her new employee (who she doesn’t realize is actually the big boss undercover). It’s a comedy of errors punctuated by steamy moments. Don’t think too hard about it. Big Pickle is a pure escapist romp.

By JJ Knight,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A Top 100 Book on Amazon!
I've got a picklish problem.
I own a family deli. All my brothers do.

But even though I'm the oldest and most experienced Pickle, my restaurant is the one that's failing.

I hightail it to Texas to see what the hell is going on at Austin Pickle, only to find a sassy little spitfire named Nova Strong in charge.

She’s amazing. She's funny. She runs our deli like she owns it.

But despite the way we nearly melt the permafrost in the industrial freezer, I have to control myself. Nova thinks I'm a new…


Book cover of This Delicious Death

Nicole M. Wolverton Author Of A Misfortune of Lake Monsters

From my list on YA books to launch you into the autumn spooky season.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Pushcart-nominated writer of (mostly) young adult and adult horror and suspense. I primarily write about the fear of isolated and sparsely populated places, which makes sense: I grew up in the rural hinterlands of northeast Pennsylvania, steeped in dark cornfields, eerie quiet, and weird characters. I now live in the Philadelphia area with my husband and rescue dog in a creaky, century-old house, giving myself agita about the creepy crawlspace in the basement. I’m the author of two novels: A Misfortune of Lake Monsters (YA horror, July 2024) and The Trajectory of Dreams (adult psychological suspense, 2013).

Nicole's book list on YA books to launch you into the autumn spooky season

Nicole M. Wolverton Why did Nicole love this book?

Just after high school graduation, during the summer in which their adult lives begin, three girls who now require human flesh to survive (thanks, pandemic!) hit a music festival. But don’t worry; the world has found a way to satisfy their dietary requirements without anyone getting hurt…until someone at the festival starts dosing ghouls with an appetite stimulant, that is.

This book is a fun and campy mystery that gives me queer post-Mean Girls meets Scooby vibes and a fair amount of gore. Even though the book is light-hearted with a very sweet romance (hey, even horror fans like me get schmoopy now and then), it speaks to the heart of guilt and the trauma of recovery from substance use disorders (if cannibalism can be a stand-in for drugs and alcohol)—particularly when you’ve done something under the influence that has hurt or killed others, and that’s what made it so…

By Kayla Cottingham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked This Delicious Death 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?

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Dearest Darkest comes another incredible sapphic horror. When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.

Five years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able…


Book cover of The Fate of the Mammoth: Fossils, Myth, and History

Simon J. Knell Author Of The Great Fossil Enigma: The Search for the Conodont Animal

From my list on extinct animals.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write about those people (geologists, art historians, historians, and curators), places (museums, universities, and societies), and things (fossils, paintings, and historical artifacts) that shape our understanding of the world. I am not so much interested in the history of ideas as in the very nature of art, geology, history, and the museum. And like my recommended authors, the approach I take to my subjects is, I hope, always rather novel. In The Great Fossil Enigma, for example, I felt that the tiny, suggestive, but ultimately ambiguous, nature of the fossils permitted me to see into the scientific mind. This tends to be where extinct animals live after their demise. 

Simon's book list on extinct animals

Simon J. Knell Why did Simon love this book?

Reviewers of The Great Fossil Enigma thought that book strange. If they tried to think of a book like it, then they alighted on this one. I don’t see much similarity, but I do think Cohen’s book is strange. Her first paragraph is a single sentence of just seven words. It is: ‘This is not a book about mammoths.’ That sentence isn’t quite true because the book is about mammoths, but Cohen uses these animals as a pretext for a much grander history of science. The approach couldn’t be more different from the other books on my list. 

By Claudine Cohen, William Rodarmor (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From cave paintings to the latest Siberian finds, woolly mammoths have fascinated people across Europe, Asia and North America for centuries. Remains of these enormous prehistoric animals were among the first fossils to be recognized as such, and they have played a crucial role in the birth and development of paleontology. In this lively, wide-ranging look at the fate of the mammoth, Claudine Cohen reanimates this large mammal with heavy curved tusks and shaggy brown hair through its history in science, myth and popular culture. Cohen uses the mammoth and the theories that naturalists constructed around it to illuminate wider…


Book cover of Animals Strike Curious Poses

Jess Bowers Author Of Horse Show

From my list on animal lovers who are also history geeks.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a fiction writer and animal studies scholar, I’m always looking for strange historical anecdotes about human/animal relationships and literary works that help me view humanity’s complex historical relationship with our fellow creatures through fresh eyes. As these books show, whenever humans write about animals, we also write about personhood, bodily autonomy, coexistence, partnership, symbiosis, spectacle, sentience, and exploitation—themes perpetually relevant to what it means to be human!

Jess' book list on animal lovers who are also history geeks

Jess Bowers Why did Jess love this book?

This book immediately caught my eye with its cheeky Prince quote-as-title, then blew me away with Passarello’s meticulously researched, elegantly crafted essays, each centering around a different animal from world history.

Passarello’s prose is lyrical, whether she’s dramatizing Mozart’s creative correspondence with his pet starling, introducing us to “Mike, the headless chicken,” or whimsically “finishing” Christopher Smart’s famed 18th-century paean to his beloved cat Jeoffry.

Reading this book feels like visiting a combination zoo/museum with my smartest animal-loving friend.

By Elena Passarello,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Animals Strike Curious Poses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Beginning with Yuka, a 39,000 year old mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, each of the 16 essays in Animals Strike Curious Poses investigates a different famous animal named and immortalized by humans. Modeled loosely after a medieval bestiary, these witty, playful, whipsmart essays traverse history, myth, science, and more, bringing each beast vibrantly to life.

Elena Passarello is an actor, a writer, and recipient of a 2015 Whiting Fellowship in nonfiction. Her first collection with Sarabande Books, Let Me Clear My Throat, won the gold medal for nonfiction at the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards. She lives…


Book cover of Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan

Amy Chavez Author Of The Widow, The Priest and The Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island

From my list on Japan’s countryside.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have lived on a small island in Japan for over 25 years. I moved into my aging and empty Japanese abode before akiya—empty housesbecame a phenomenon, and I described my experiences in a regular column for The Japan Times from 1997 to 2020. I love Japan’s countryside and wish more tourists would visit places outside Japan’s major cities. The living is simple, the Japanese people are charming and Japan itself is one of the most unique places in the world. These books are written by people who have taken the leap and chosen the tranquil existence of the pastoral Japanese countryside. 

Amy's book list on Japan’s countryside

Amy Chavez Why did Amy love this book?

This is a diverse collection of stories told by ex-pats living in “inaka," the Japanese word for the countryside. An array of ex-pat authors describe their experiences: Some came to Japan as English teachers, journalists, or spouses, one cycled through Japan, another walked in the footsteps of haiku poet Basho, and another became a Buddhist priest.

The collection starts in Okinawa and moves up the archipelago to Hokkaido. For me, it’s the most diverse collection of voices on the topic of countryside living. 

By John Grant Ross,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan is an affectionate but unsentimental immersion into the Japanese countryside ("inaka"). In eighteen chapters we undertake an epic journey the length of Japan, from subtropical Okinawa, through the Japanese heartland, all the way to the wilds of Hokkaido. We visit gorgeous islands, walk an ancient Buddhist pilgrimage route, share a snow-lover's delight in the depths of record snowfall, solve the mystery of an abandoned Shinto shrine, and travel in the footsteps of a seventeenth-century haiku master. But above everything, Inaka answers the question of what it's like to be a foreigner living in…


Book cover of The Roads to Sata: A 2000-mile walk through Japan

Jonathan DeHart Author Of Moon Japan: Plan Your Trip, Avoid the Crowds, and Experience the Real Japan

From my list on evoking a deep, personal discovery of Japan.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Tokyo-based writer who first came to Japan during university to live with a host family and study the language. After a stint in Shanghai, Japan brought me back in 2012 and I’ve lived here ever since. I’ve cycled across remote Okinawan islands, wandered Kyoto’s cobblestone lanes, and trekked to mountaintop temples in heavy snow. But some of my best memories have happened over homemade plum wine at a friend’s dinner table. I’ve written two books published by Moon Travel Guides and countless articles on Asia, with some being chosen for “best of” lists by The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and Real Clear World

Jonathan's book list on evoking a deep, personal discovery of Japan

Jonathan DeHart Why did Jonathan love this book?

This travelogue brilliantly narrates Alan Booth’s southward trek across Japan, end to end, from Cape Soya in Hokkaido to Cape Sata in Kyushu. The book’s subtitle, A 2,000 Mile Walk Through Japan, speaks volumes. The journey, which some would call masochistic, is practically measured in blisters. We see Booth, fluent in Japanese, trudge through rain and shine along backcountry roads, from greasy spoons to lonesome karaoke bars, collapsing into countless futons along the way. His journey comes to life with colorful characters, boozy local festivals, and pithy realizations about his adopted homeland, at turns entertaining, illuminating, and hilarious. For me, this book captures the joy of discovering the salty, unexpected side of Japan. It also cements Booth’s status as one of the (unsung) travel writing greats.  

By Alan Booth,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Roads to Sata as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A memorable, oddly beautiful book' Wall Street Journal

'A marvellous glimpse of the Japan that rarely peeks through the country's public image' Washington Post

One sunny spring morning in the 1970s, an unlikely Englishman set out on a pilgrimage that would take him across the entire length of Japan. Travelling only along small back roads, Alan Booth travelled on foot from Soya, the country's northernmost tip, to Sata in the extreme south, traversing three islands and some 2,000 miles of rural Japan. His mission: 'to come to grips with the business of living here,' after having spent most of his…


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