Here are 100 books that Promenade fans have personally recommended if you like
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I believe that creativity and mindfulness are critical qualities for a well-lived life. This is something I learned through personal experience as a former lawyer who returned to my childhood dream of creating art and stories. Mindfulness—a kind, nonjudgmental awareness of what is happening in the present moment in and around you—helps people of all ages practice self-compassion, appreciate the world and others, and see life as an adventure. I write and illustrate picture books to share these concepts through storytelling, teach mindful creative classes, and am a certified meditation teacher through The Awareness Training Institute and the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
I love this book for its gentle, minimalist drawings reminding us to be present, to be brave, and to be compassionate.
It isn't a standard picture book, but a collection of vignettes that began as Charlie’s most popular Instagram posts. You can start on any page, but I read it straight through and loved the overall narrative as well.
This book is something that kids and adults can treasure for its beautiful ink drawings and timeless simplicity.
A book for all ages, a book for all time. Adapted into a short animated film, coming this Christmas.
Enter the world of Charlie's four unlikely friends, discover their story and their most important life lessons.
The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse have been shared millions of times online. They've also been recreated by children in schools and hung on hospital walls. They sometimes even appear on lamp posts and on cafe and bookshop windows. Here, you will find them together in this book of Charlie's most-loved drawings, adventuring into the Wild and exploring the thoughts and…
I have been a professional illustrator for 20 years. In all this time I have gathered a vast collection of picture books, animated movie artbooks, children's books... I use them as a source of inspiration for my work, but I really collect them because they are my treasure. I don't just look for books with beautiful illustrations, but that really give me something, that make me think, or that stay in my memory. They are timeless books, that are not aimed at any age, that anyone can enjoy, but that at the same time have deep meaning if you know how to look at them. Not all picture books are just for kids.
When my oldest son was little, he was so nervous that he began to stutter. I thought it would be a problem for him, but luckily it was just a phase. That is why the theme of the book, in which the author recalls his childhood as a stuttering child, caught my attention. Regardless of the problem, I think we can all identify with that child who feels vulnerable, who fights against himself, and who accepts himself. We have all felt this way in childhood. And now as adults, we can identify with that father, who serenely accompanies and supports his son. The illustrations are beautiful, they are fresh, expressive, and perfectly reflect the feelings of the protagonist.
My name is Jess, and I'm a writer, designer, and illustrator based in South Yorkshire, UK. I have always found navigating my feelings and emotions tricky, even from a very young age. Labeled as 'too sensitive,' I would often find that I felt and reacted to things more deeply than others did. In my mid 20s I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and began going to therapy, this is where I leant a wealth of things about myself and began to find ways to cope and better deal with how I travelled through life.
This is a gorgeous picture book that depicts living with depression so beautifully. Whilst there is some text it’s the pictures that really do the story telling.
It’s beautiful illustrations manage to get across how dark, all encompassing and lonely it can feel when living with depression but offers a sweet hopeful ending that is a comfort to read. I have always loved this book and it will forever be one of my favourites.
I have been a professional illustrator for 20 years. In all this time I have gathered a vast collection of picture books, animated movie artbooks, children's books... I use them as a source of inspiration for my work, but I really collect them because they are my treasure. I don't just look for books with beautiful illustrations, but that really give me something, that make me think, or that stay in my memory. They are timeless books, that are not aimed at any age, that anyone can enjoy, but that at the same time have deep meaning if you know how to look at them. Not all picture books are just for kids.
Through a Life is a book that won me over for its intelligence. The premise may not be new, since it presents the life of a man from his birth to his death. But the way it is presented is absolutely original: on the left page appears a specific fact of the protagonist's life and on the right appears what the protagonist sees at that moment. Or maybe it's what he remembers because that's what life is, what we build through our memories. The concise graphics and very intelligent use of color fascinate me, and I think they make it a marvel of graphic design. A beautiful and painful book at the same time, which leaves you thinking for hours.
Rodney spends his life looking through. Windows give way to screens as he comes to age dreaming of what lies beyond Earth's atmosphere...
This powerfully silent graphic novel by Tom Haugomat follows the saga of a boy who grows up to be an astronaut, just like he always wanted...until a fatal shuttle crash upends his life, and he begins to find solace in beauty here on earth. Told through a series of poignant vignettes, Through is a sweeping story of dreams, expectations, nature, and loss.
Growing up as a kid, I was obsessed with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumpsbooks, most of which took place in small-town settings. Horror could hide anywhere in those towns, whether out in the woods or on the shelf at the local general store. I loved those books to death because they taught me (or perhaps reminded me) that darkness existed within daily life. As I grew older, my passion for the subgenre led me to consume more stories and eventually write my own.
Long before Squid Game popularized the “Game” subgenre, Richard Laymon wrote a wildly fun tale of a young woman running around town completing bizarre requests for money. As the payouts increase, so too does the ridiculousness of each request. Laymon is a guilty pleasure and one of my favorite authors, andIn the Dark is one of his best.
'If you've missed Laymon, you've missed a treat' Stephen King
Nothing much happens in Donnerville. Then librarian Jane Kerry receives an envelope containing a fifty-dollar bill and a note from 'MOG' (Master of Games) instructing her to 'Look homeward, angel'. Jane pulls Thomas Wolfe's novel of that title off the shelf and finds a second envelope with more money and another clue...
This 'game' soon pushes Jane into crazy and immoral actions, but when she ties to quit, 'MOG' has other ideas.
My first foreign language was French, so beautiful, but when I began studying Slavic languages I was drawn deeply into their rich vocabulary and marvelous word formation, which makes it possible to do all sorts of things with poetry. (Not to mention the richness of Estonian, which I have so far studied only a little bit.) I write and translate poetry myself, and I hugely admire the translators who bring poems into muscular or enchanting versions in English, whose prosody and word order are so very different. Eastern European poetry has had booms in the Anglophone world (Vasko Popa’s crow!), but it’s never too soon to mention some new wonderful examples in translation.
Aco Šopov (1923-1982) is one of the fundamental poets of Macedonia, and indeed the first poet ever to have a whole book of his verse published in Macedonian, a language that had been suppressed for generations.
This book will appear in fall of 2023, but I have already seen some of the translations by Rawley Grau and Christina Kramer online—and they’re dynamite, full of hard-won versions of the thoughtful, deep-dwelling originals. Šopov is not the only brilliant poet of his generation, but he alone can prove that a small nation can produce big poets.
And how are we to know, unless we read them in translation?
A collection celebrating the Centennial of seminal modernist Macedonian poet Aco sopov. This substantive collection represents Sopov's creative career, starting with his first book of poetry in 1944, when he was fighting in the Yugoslav resistance to the German occupation. In the early 1950s, he published two collections that signaled a new direction for Macedonian poetry as a whole, announcing the arrival of new form "intimate lyricism". Over the next 25 years, Sopov's work deepened further, acquiring a philosophical cosmic dimension and at times venturing into surrealism. The Long Coming of the Fire shares the work of a consummate craftsman…
I’ve been a lifelong lover of short fiction, novels, and comic books since I can remember. Ideas were always king, leading me to a career in the creative arts as a graphic designer with years of experience in the world of advertising. Much of the core of what I did for advertising—crafting brief tales to engage with an audience in a creative/unique way—translated over well to when I began writing my own short stories. And all of the book recommendations here directly inspired me to writeWhite Space.
This collection of short stories left me a bit depressed but in a good way. Cook writes with pure beauty and poetry. The ideas of this collection were, at times, odd and uncomfortable, but they succeeded in making me consider the darker elements that exist within all of us as humans. These stories kept me engaged through their balance of settings as well. Some stories felt present, while others crafted bleak futures that were all too believable. A few of the stories had some racy elements too, so if you’re into that kind of thing, you won’t be disappointed.
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2015*
SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOKS PRIZE 2015
A SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE NOTABLE BOOK OF 2014
A BOSTON GLOBE BEST FICTION OF 2014
ROXANE GAY'S TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2014
AN AMAZON BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION OF 2014
AN iBOOK BEST OF 2014
Perfectly pitched and gorgeously penned, this astonishingly bold collection of stories explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized. Pitting human beings against the extremes of nature, Diane Cook surgically peels back the layers of civilization to lay bare our vulnerabilities and the ease with which our darker,…
I’ve been a lifelong lover of short fiction, novels, and comic books since I can remember. Ideas were always king, leading me to a career in the creative arts as a graphic designer with years of experience in the world of advertising. Much of the core of what I did for advertising—crafting brief tales to engage with an audience in a creative/unique way—translated over well to when I began writing my own short stories. And all of the book recommendations here directly inspired me to writeWhite Space.
I loved this collection of short stories primarily for the characters that Kevin Wilson created. The humanity and eclectic traits that he puts into them connected with me on a personal level. It’s almost as if the characters could live in a Wes Anderson film. While the people shine in these stories, the plots still have that inventive odd twist that left me smiling. And the story from which the collection takes its name was a melancholic surreal tale that left me thinking about its layers of meaning long after I finished reading it.
A debut short story collection in the tradition of writers like Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders—strange, imaginative, and refreshingly original—now back in print as part of Ecco’s “Art of the Story” Series, and with a new introduction from the author
Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up On the Spot,” a story singled out…
I have been a surrealist since I discovered Salvador Dali and David Lynch at the age of 14. I have been on a path to combine the art world’s depth in style; symbols and metaphors with storytelling. Becoming a comic artist was a natural path and the media is great for expressing the many complex questions in life; what it is to be human and a woman in this world. I have become an artist who revolves around feminism and surrealism, eros and doubt.
This comic is a 1:1 dream story. It has the weirdness and absurdity of dreams. It is about Juliet herself and is an autobiographical classic. And it made me wonder how very personal feelings in your dreams are actually universal. It also has feministic potential, being very honest with all its dreamy gender chaos and strangeness.And it’s funny.
Doucet has transcribed her intimate dreams i nto intensely drawn comic book stories, remembering everythi ng from tormenting nightmares to her most secret desires. Th e widely acclaimed young cartoonist offers us a unique psych edelic trip. '
I’ve been a lifelong lover of short fiction, novels, and comic books since I can remember. Ideas were always king, leading me to a career in the creative arts as a graphic designer with years of experience in the world of advertising. Much of the core of what I did for advertising—crafting brief tales to engage with an audience in a creative/unique way—translated over well to when I began writing my own short stories. And all of the book recommendations here directly inspired me to writeWhite Space.
Post-apocalypse and gritty science fiction doesn’t get any better than this collection. Harlan Ellison writes in a rough and unflinching style that, to me, was like watching a classic 80s action/sci-fi movie. And the novella in this book,A Boy and His Dog, is another favorite of mine. It’s bloody and raw and felt ahead of its time for its prose and structure. After reading it, I saw this was published over fifty years ago, yet it still resonated as something fresh and new.
