100 books like Pigeon Feathers

By John Updike,

Here are 100 books that Pigeon Feathers fans have personally recommended if you like Pigeon Feathers. 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 High Fidelity

Bill Torgerson Author Of Love on the Big Screen

From my list on romantic comedy from the 80s.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the eighties, and that means I grew up watching movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Say Anything. Thirty years after watching those movies, some iconic scenes have stuck with me: the characters of The Breakfast Club sliding across the hallway to Simple Minds’ song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” John Cusack holding the boombox over his head while blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” and the Psychedelic Furs “Pretty in Pink” song playing on the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. The books in this list do a lot with those same ingredients of heartbreak, music, and hope that the characters who so often remind me of myself might find love. 

Bill's book list on romantic comedy from the 80s

Bill Torgerson Why did Bill love this book?

The actor John Cusack brought me to this movie, and I read the book after the movie and loved it. One of the key differences between the movie and the book is that the movie is set in Chicago, and the book in North London. As someone who grew up in the ’80s, I started with Cusack as the nerdy sidekick in Sixteen Candles and became obsessed with his Lloyd Dobler character in Say Anything; you know, the guy who dressed in a trench coat and held a boom box over his head outside a girl’s window.

The narrator of this novel is a record shop owner in London named Rob, and he starts off with his desert island, all-time, top five most memorable breakups, in chronological order. When we’re in the record shop that Rob owns, the guys are always making lists: top 5 guitar solos, top 5…

By Nick Hornby,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked High Fidelity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"I've always loved Nick Hornby, and the way he writes characters and the way he thinks. It's funny and heartbreaking all at the same time."—Zoë Kravitz

From the bestselling author of Funny Girl, About a Boy, A Long Way Down and Dickens and Prince, a wise and hilarious novel about love, heartbreak, and rock and roll.

Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a…


Book cover of Wonder Boys

Bill Torgerson Author Of Love on the Big Screen

From my list on romantic comedy from the 80s.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the eighties, and that means I grew up watching movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Say Anything. Thirty years after watching those movies, some iconic scenes have stuck with me: the characters of The Breakfast Club sliding across the hallway to Simple Minds’ song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” John Cusack holding the boombox over his head while blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” and the Psychedelic Furs “Pretty in Pink” song playing on the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. The books in this list do a lot with those same ingredients of heartbreak, music, and hope that the characters who so often remind me of myself might find love. 

Bill's book list on romantic comedy from the 80s

Bill Torgerson Why did Bill love this book?

This is a funny and dramatic book and movie in which Grady Tripp is a university writing teacher who makes a mess out of his relationships. He’s having an affair with the chancellor of the college he teaches at, his wife has moved out maybe for good, and one of the students he has in class and who rents a room from him is attracted to him.

Tripp’s life is like a train wreck you can't stop watching, but also somehow funny. This book also became a great movie of the same name, starring Michael Douglas as the professor, Robert Downey Jr. as his agent, Frances McDormand as the chancellor, and Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes as students. I mean, c’mon, doesn’t that sound great?!!!

By Michael Chabon,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A deft parody of the American fame factory and a piercing portrait of young and old desire, WONDER BOYS is a modern classic from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY.

Grady Tripp is an over-sexed, pot-bellied, pot-smoking, ageing wunderkind of a novelist now teaching creative writing at a Pittsburgh college while working on his 2,000-page masterpiece, WONDER BOYS. When his rumbustious editor and friend, Terry Crabtree, arrives in town, a chaotic weekend follows - involving a tuba, a dead dog, Marilyn Monroe's ermine-lined jacket and a squashed boa constrictor.

A novel of elegant imagination, bold…


Book cover of Girl in a Band: A Memoir

Bill Torgerson Author Of Love on the Big Screen

From my list on romantic comedy from the 80s.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the eighties, and that means I grew up watching movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Say Anything. Thirty years after watching those movies, some iconic scenes have stuck with me: the characters of The Breakfast Club sliding across the hallway to Simple Minds’ song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” John Cusack holding the boombox over his head while blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” and the Psychedelic Furs “Pretty in Pink” song playing on the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. The books in this list do a lot with those same ingredients of heartbreak, music, and hope that the characters who so often remind me of myself might find love. 

Bill's book list on romantic comedy from the 80s

Bill Torgerson Why did Bill love this book?

The phrase “girl in a band” in the title got me to pick this book up off a table in the bookstore. I am the kind of guy who will pick up five or so books at a bookstore, take them over to the most comfortable spot I can find, and read the first few pages to see if I want to buy any of them.

The writer Kim Gordon was in an indie post-punk band called Sonic Youth, and I had just barely heard of them. After three years in Sonic Youth, Kim marries one of her fellow band members, and they stay married for 29 years. This book starts when the two of them take the stage together for the last time as they head for divorce and the band's breakup.

“They say when a marriage ends,” Gordon writes on the first pages, “that little things you never…

By Kim Gordon,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Girl in a Band as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A new edition, part of the Faber Greatest Hits series -- books that have taken writing about music in new and exciting directions for the twenty-first century.

In Girl in a Band Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth and role model for a generation of women, tells her story. She writes frankly about her route from girl to woman and pioneering icon within the music and art scene of New York City in the 1980s and 90s as well as marriage, motherhood, and independence.

Filled with the sights and sounds of a changing world and a remarkable life, Girl…


Book cover of Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

Bill Torgerson Author Of Love on the Big Screen

From my list on romantic comedy from the 80s.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the eighties, and that means I grew up watching movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Say Anything. Thirty years after watching those movies, some iconic scenes have stuck with me: the characters of The Breakfast Club sliding across the hallway to Simple Minds’ song “Don’t You Forget About Me,” John Cusack holding the boombox over his head while blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes,” and the Psychedelic Furs “Pretty in Pink” song playing on the soundtrack of a movie by the same name. The books in this list do a lot with those same ingredients of heartbreak, music, and hope that the characters who so often remind me of myself might find love. 

Bill's book list on romantic comedy from the 80s

Bill Torgerson Why did Bill love this book?

The cover of this book has a stack of mix tapes on it and that’s what got me first: that the writer was going to explain love using the metaphor of a mix tape. As a person who has made hundreds of mix tapes myself—and later burned CDs and after that arranged playlists on Spotify—that the phrase mix tape was in the title was enough for me to pick up the book. Plus, I remember back in the 80s when I sat around waiting for a song to come on the radio so I could record it, and that was how I made my first tapes.

Each chapter in this book starts with an image of a mix tape with the songs listed on it. The writer uses the songs on the tape to write about his relationships. The first chapter ends with this line: “I’m going to be up…

By Rob Sheffield,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Love Is a Mix Tape as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“The happiest, saddest, sweetest book about rock ‘n’ roll that I’ve ever experienced.”—Chuck Klosterman
 
Mix tapes: We all have our favorites. Stick one into a deck, press play, and you’re instantly transported to another time in your life. For Rob Sheffield, that time was one of miraculous love and unbearable grief. A time that spanned seven years, it started when he met the girl of his dreams, and ended when he watched her die in his arms. Using the listings of fifteen of his favorite mix tapes, Rob shows that the power of music to build a bridge between people…


Book cover of Woman of a Certain Rage

Sarah Lawton Author Of A Drowning Tide

From my list on featuring older protagonist.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a reader, I’ve always been attracted to novels that are character-driven, filling my shelves with books about people who seize the day and fight for what they want, who are interesting, relatable, and flawed but who don’t let those flaws define them. As a writer, I like to put my own flawed characters in situations that force them to face who they are and either come to terms with it or overturn themselves and their lives entirely, and all the novels I’ve listed have a hint of this, too. I hope you enjoy them!

Sarah's book list on featuring older protagonist

Sarah Lawton Why did Sarah love this book?

I love books that tackle less common characters and taboo subjects. In this case, it’s the usually overlooked ‘woman of a certain age’ and menopause. In this case, Eliza has ‘had enough’ and wants to rediscover what life has to offer—something a lot of us can relate to! It’s laugh-out-loud funny, full of drama and wisdom, and people of every age and gender should read it. 

By Georgie Hall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Woman of a Certain Rage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Made me laugh and flinch in equal measure' Sophie Kinsella Eliza is angry. Very angry, and very, very hot. Late for work and dodging traffic, she's still reeling from the latest row with husband Paddy. Twenty-something years ago, their eyes met over the class divide in oh-so-cool Britpop London, but while Paddy now seems content filling his downtime with canal boats and cricket, Eliza craves the freedom and excitement of her youth. Fifty sounds dangerously close to pensionable: her woke children want to cancel her, a male motorist has just called her a 'mad old bat' and to cap it…


Book cover of The Complete Novels of Jane Austen

Gillian Dooley Author Of She Played and Sang: Jane Austen and Music

From my list on reveal the real Jane Austen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love Jane Austen’s novels. I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was about 14, but it’s far too long ago to remember when I first read the others, and I’ve now read them all many times. I’ve also always been a singer, and I learned the piano when I was young, so I immediately noticed the music in the novels. I started writing about it seriously in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2007 that I realized that her music collection was still around and started making concert programs out of it. The new book brings all these things together.

Gillian's book list on reveal the real Jane Austen

Gillian Dooley Why did Gillian love this book?

I love every one of Jane Austen’s novels. I have no favorites, so I can’t recommend only one. They are so funny, but they’re also full of life, love, sadness, loss, families, friends, disappointments, and surprises.

They all end in a marriage, but so do Shakespeare’s comedies–it’s just what happens in a comedy, along with many other things. I’ve read them all more times than I can count but I always find something new to love every time I reread any of them.

By Jane Austen,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Jane Austen revolutionized the literary romance, using it as a platform from which to address issues of gender politics and class consciousness among the British middle-class of the late eighteenth century. The novels included in this collection from the elegant Knickerbocker Classics series-Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan-represent all of Austen's complete novels, and provide the reader with an entrance into the world she and her memorable characters inhabited.

With witty, unflinching morality, Austen portrays English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close and the nineteenth century began.…


Book cover of Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction

Elisa Pezzotta Author Of The Prison of Time: Stanley Kubrick, Adrian Lyne, Michael Bay and Quentin Tarantino

From my list on timeless books about time.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a baby, I was fascinated by shadows, how they lengthened and shortened till they disappeared, and how they moved their position around me and objects. I used to play with Barbies; I invented stories that lasted for days, progressively postponing the main events in favor of their preparation. Progressively, I became accustomed to my relatives’s death and their funerals. I realized that time connected these observations and games as much as the novels and films that I loved. In my list, you can find stimulating books where Time shyly shows itself on a stage.         

Elisa's book list on timeless books about time

Elisa Pezzotta Why did Elisa love this book?

I adore how the scholar Sternberg analyses how some of the greatest authors of all time create and play with time. His work is the example par excellence of how a comprehensive theory about time in literature should be written.

He discusses different epochs and genres, linking them to a coherent history. Sternberg’s brilliance charms me.    

By Meir Sternberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

.."". this is one of the few books on narrative worth reading and rereading, a study that will make -- or should make -- a difference in the way we read narrative."" -- Nineteenth Century Fiction

""This is a remarkable book: original, clear-sighted, and luminously focused on a subject that has never been explored nearly so systematically or intensively.""A -- Dorrit Cohn, Harvard University

This book, long out of print, is now available in a paperback edition, providing another window into one of the most exciting minds working in the areas of literary and biblical literary criticism.


Book cover of The Bangalore Detectives Club

Jinny Alexander Author Of Claude, Gord, Alice, and Maud

From my list on an unusual take on traditional cozy mystery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always adored mysteries. My dad has the entire collection of Agatha Christie books, but even before I read those, I worked through his ancient original hardbacks of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books and the less well-known Malcolm Saville Lone Pine series. I love getting totally engrossed in a series, so I really get to BE the main character–I am one of four siblings, and when I wasn’t too busy reading, we were the Famous Five. I was George. I think I still am, to be perfectly honest–she was fiery, passionate, loved her dog, and wanted to serve justice and out the bad guys. What a role model!

Jinny's book list on an unusual take on traditional cozy mystery

Jinny Alexander Why did Jinny love this book?

A year or so ago, I read a lot of factual books about India, so I was delighted to find this Golden Age cozy mystery set in a land I was falling in love with through books. This book took me back to a pre-partition India still under British rule, with a realistic glimpse of life under colonialism alongside a hefty–hopefully less realistic–dose of murder and mystery.

I adored how Harini Nagendra created a strong, independent female character who still feels genuine and believable in the time and place in which the book is set–a time when most women were stifled, submissive, and governed by their husbands–and how the observations of colonization feel true to life while remaining both sympathetic and observant to the Indian culture and ways of life.

The setting is vividly portrayed, and the sights and sounds of 1920s India are an absolute delight. The main characters…

By Harini Nagendra,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'The first in an effervescent new mystery series. . . a treat for historical mystery lovers looking for a new series to savour (or devour)' NEW YORK TIMES

'A gorgeous debut mystery with a charming and fearless sleuth . . . spellbinding' SUJATA MASSEY

'Told with real warmth and wit. . . A perfect read for fans of Alexander McCall Smith and Vaseem Khan' - ABIR MUKHERJEE

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2022

Murder and mayhem . . . monsoon season is coming.
_____________________________

Solving crimes isn't easy.

Add a jealous mother-in-law and having to wear a flowing…


Book cover of The Trio

Freddie Gillies Author Of Because All Fades

From my list on love and friendship set in Europe.

Why am I passionate about this?

The best fiction explores complex relationships between friends and lovers. I’ve been fascinated by this for as long as I can remember because love and friendship are the cornerstones of human existence. As concepts, they give life meaning yet can also take it away. They bring us together but can also leave us estranged. The sun-soaked cities of Europe have for so long been playgrounds for young lovers and friends, enjoying both the best of life and the most melancholy. I love traveling Europe–the grandeur, the romance, the happy-sad sentiment of it all. It embodies the topic and makes for the most beautiful setting.

Freddie's book list on love and friendship set in Europe

Freddie Gillies Why did Freddie love this book?

The Trio captures the essence of friendship and love and the coexisting yet diametrically opposed social anxieties that can accompany them. This is why I love this book–love is presented as complex, challenging, and fraught with more that is unsaid than actually expressed.

I also love this book because it expresses love as a real feeling, something that is experienced but not always easy to explain (or get along with). The characters are relatable, honest, and flawed, yet likable. The book is also set in beautiful locations–Stockholm, Paris, London–which makes it beautiful to read.

By Johanna Hedman, Kira Josefsson (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BERNARD SHAW PRIZE 2023

Elegant, mature and richly atmospheric, a bittersweet love story glimpsed through the veil of memory

'The love child of Normal People and Brideshead Revisited... Sublime and elegiac' Francesca Reece

'[A] heady mix of hope and nostalgia, of desire and regret, of new love and lost love' Sunday Times

Thora, August and Hugo come from different worlds. One is an art school dreamer, one a wealthy scion of the old-world elite, and one an ordinary boy from out of town. But over the course of two sky-blue summers in Stockholm, they are drawn together…


Book cover of Standing Dead

Kathleen Donnelly Author Of Chasing Justice

From my list on K-9 books that take a bite out of crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

For the last 19 years, I have worked narcotics K-9s for a private company called Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines. I recently retired from the K-9 work, but over the years, I loved seeing how dogs solve crimes in real life. Not only do they help us solve crimes, but dogs have a way of reaching people and changing lives. Dogs are quite literally “man’s (or woman’s) best friend,” and because of that, they become the best partners for many characters in books. There’s nothing better than discovering a new K-9 series that depicts the real-life love and bond between K-9 and handler. 

Kathleen's book list on K-9 books that take a bite out of crime

Kathleen Donnelly Why did Kathleen love this book?

I love the Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series and Mizushima’s latest book was one of my favorites. As a retired K-9 handler, sometimes books with working dogs get facts wrong. I could tell that Mizushima put a lot of research time into each of her books. I love the fictional K-9, Robo, and Mizushima’s accurate portrayal of the bond between handler and dog. 

Mattie Cobb, the main character, is intriguing and makes the reader cheer for her. The dashing veterinarian, Cole Walker, adds a little romance to the storyline. I would recommend starting with the first book, Killing Trail. While each book stands on its own, reading about the mystery of Mattie’s family makes the conclusion of Standing Dead even more thrilling. 

By Margaret Mizushima,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From critically acclaimed, master thriller author Margaret Mizushima, comes the eighth installment of the award-winning Timber Creek K-9 mysteries.

“Tense and satisfying,” (JA Jance) Standing Dead is the perfect read for fans of CJ Box and Longmire.

Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother, but when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country.
 
The sheriff’s department springs into…


Book cover of High Fidelity
Book cover of Wonder Boys
Book cover of Girl in a Band: A Memoir

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