Love Room to Dream? Readers share 56 books like Room to Dream...

By David Lynch, Kristine McKenna,

Here are 56 books that Room to Dream fans have personally recommended if you like Room to Dream. 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 Kafka on the Shore

Dennis Danvers Author Of The Soothsayer & the Changeling

From my list on transform how we see ourselves in the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

My first true religion was being a boy alone in the woods and feeling a deep connection to nature in all its aspects. I felt a connection with all life and knew myself to be an animalā€”and gloried in it. Since then, I've learned how vigorously humans fight our animal nature, estranging us from ourselves and the planet. Each of these books invites us to get over ourselves and connect with all life on Earth. 

Dennis' book list on transform how we see ourselves in the world

Dennis Danvers Why did Dennis love this book?

What a weird and wonderful book. I've read and reread it several times now, and it always casts its spell. I've never been so willingā€”so eagerā€”to suspend disbelief. It's Murakami's special gift.

The novel creates its own wondrous world out of what seems to be the stuff of this oneā€”a young runaway, Colonel Sanders, alley cats, a beautiful librarian, a seashore painting, a demented old manā€”but the result is more magical than any fairy kingdom. I was completely carried along by the experience of an understanding beyond sense.

By Haruki Murakami,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Kafka on the Shore as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A stunning work of art that bears no comparisons" the New York Observer wrote of Haruki Murakami's masterpiece, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. In its playful stretching of the limits of the real world, his magnificent new novel, Kafka on the Shore is every bit as bewitching and ambitious. The narrative follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly overturned. Their parallel odysseys - asā€¦


Book cover of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

KC Grifant Author Of Shrouded Horror: Tales of the Uncanny

From my list on creepiest modern short story collections by women.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an award-winning writer based in Southern California who creates internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction, and weird West stories. Dozens of my short stories have appeared in podcasts, magazines, games, and Stoker-nominated anthologies, and Iā€™ve authored several books. I am the co-chair and founder of the Horror Writers Association San Diego chapter, a short story instructor, co-creator of the Monster Gunslingers game, and member of writing organizations, including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. I find speculative horror a fascinating lens by which to view challenges faced by underrepresented groups and women. I hope you enjoy these tales.

KC's book list on creepiest modern short story collections by women

KC Grifant Why did KC love this book?

I loved these unique takes and eerie, complex stories around womenā€™s bodies, violence, and society. Powerful, strange, and haunting, these short stories left me with a lot to contemplate. I especially appreciated the homage to certain cultural references; for example, The Husband Stitch is a brilliant retelling of The Green Ribbon, a classic tale from In A Dark, Dark Room And Other Scary Stories.

I needed to sit and think about some of these stories afterward, as many are more experimental, layered with meaning, and open to interpretation. This original, powerful collection is a heavy read but undoubtedly worth it.

By Carmen Maria Machado,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Her Body and Other Parties as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FICTION PRIZE 2017
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018

'Brilliantly inventive and blazingly smart' Garth Greenwell

'Impossible, imperfect, unforgettable' Roxane Gay

'A wild thing ... covered in sequins and scales, blazing with the influence of fabulists from Angela Carter to Kelly Link and Helen Oyeyemi' New York Times

In her provocative debut, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. Startling narratives map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited on their bodies, both in myth and in practice.

Aā€¦


Book cover of The New York Trilogy

Peter Guttridge Author Of City of Dreadful Night

From my list on quartets and trilogies with unreliable narrators.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m fascinated by long stories where things arenā€™t exactly as they seem. Most crime fiction is secrets and lies and their eventual uncovering but most ā€˜literaryā€™ fiction is too. For what itā€™s worth, I was a book reviewer for all the posh UK papers for about 15 years, including crime fiction critic for The Observer for twelve (so Iā€™ve read far more crime novels than is healthy for anyone!). Iā€™m a voracious reader and writer and I love making things more complicated for myself (and the reader) by coming up with stuff that Iā€™ve then somehow got to fit together.  

Peter's book list on quartets and trilogies with unreliable narrators

Peter Guttridge Why did Peter love this book?

This is post-modern crime fiction thematically linked and all with increasingly unreliable charactersā€”because theyā€™re each going insane.

In City of Glass private investigator, Daniel Quinn, goes mad sinking deeper into an investigation about identity. Who is telling his story and can they be relied on? Is it any of these characters who appear: ā€˜the author,ā€™ ā€˜Paul Auster the writer,ā€™ ā€˜Paul Auster the detectiveā€™?  Whoosh.

I love this stuff but understand itā€™s an acquired taste!

By Paul Auster,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The New York Trilogy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Paul Auster's signature work, "The New York Trilogy," consists of three interlocking novels: "City of Glass," "Ghosts," and "The Locked Room" - haunting and mysterious tales that move at the breathless pace of a thriller."City of Glass" - As a result of a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Quinn, a writer of detective stories, becomes enmeshed in a case more puzzling than any he might hace written"Ghosts"Blue, a student of Brown, has been hired to spy on Black. From a window of a rented house on Orange street, Blue stalks his subject, who is staring outā€¦


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorā€”and only womanā€”on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route upā€¦

Book cover of The Natashas

John Biscello Author Of Broken Land, a Brooklyn Tale

From my list on mystery is given an existential makeover.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have long been an ardent admirer and student of works that transgress boundaries and extend the frontiers of literature. A blurring and subversion of genres, or fusion of forms and modalities, arouses my imagination and inspires me to see differently, to read differently, to travel to places within myself that otherwise might remain undiscovered and uncharted. To me, writing is an ongoing experiment, a series of progressions and adventures which ask me to stay open, supple, and curious. There is no set formulaā€”each book demands its own form, and both as writer and reader, I most desire to be engaged in what is a solitary ritual of interaction.  

John's book list on mystery is given an existential makeover

John Biscello Why did John love this book?

Ukrainian-born, Yelena Moskovich, is one of the most daring and radical stylists working in contemporary literature, and I was ā€œbewitched, bothered and bewildered,ā€ in the best possible ways, by her debut novel, The Natashas. Set in contemporary Paris, it is through the mirrored introversion of two protagonistsā€”Beatrice, a jazz singer, and Cesar, an actorā€”that the dramatic tensions between self and other, silence and voice, are played out, with ā€œthe Natashas,ā€ women resigned to a void, functioning as the novelā€™s haunted, nesting doll chorus. Moskovichā€™s book is an experiment that closes in on itself, and with claustrophobic intimacy produces a strange, brooding, and salacious form of music. 

By Yelena Moskovich,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Beatrice, a solitary young jazz singer from a genteel Parisian suburb, meets a mysterious woman named Polina. Polina visits her at night and whispers in her ear: 'There are people who leave their bodies and their bodies go on living without them. These people are named Natasha.'

Cesar, a lonely Mexican actor working in a call centre, receives the opportunity of a lifetime: a role as a serial killer on a French TV series. But as he prepares for the audition, he starts falling in love with the psychopath he is to play.

Beatrice and Cesar are drawn deeper intoā€¦


Book cover of Fellini

Yehuda Moraly Author Of Dream Projects in Theatre, Novels and Films

From my list on dream projects in theater and film.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became fascinated by dream projects after a series of remarkable discoveries throughout my career. In 1970, I found Genet's manuscripts for his unfinished work La Mort, which proved crucial to understanding his entire artistic vision. Later, I came across Claudel's incomplete On rĆ©pĆØte TĆŖte d'Or, which illuminated his lifelong struggle with the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. When I was given early access to Fellini's unfilmed Mastorna screenplay, I saw the same pattern emerging. These encounters led me to a profound realization: often, an artist's unfinished workā€”the project they struggle with but never completeā€”holds the key to understanding their entire creative output. This insight has guided my research ever since.

Yehuda's book list on dream projects in theater and film

Yehuda Moraly Why did Yehuda love this book?

I found Hollis Alpert's book refreshing because it cuts through all the myths about Fellini and shows us the real person. After watching Fellini's films for years, I was glad to finally read a biography that explains how he developed his unique style.

The book helped me understand his evolution from cartoonist to filmmaker and showed me how his early experiences influenced his later work. While other biographers sometimes get caught up in Fellini's larger-than-life personality, Alpert stays focused on helping us understand the director's creative process. This is a straightforward, honest look at one of cinema's most interesting figures.

By Hollis Alpert,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This biography, drawing on interviews with the filmmaker and his colleagues, investigates the man and the legend and defines the elusive boundaries between the two


Book cover of A Dance with Fred Astaire

Louis Menand Author Of The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War

From my list on memoirs from a wide array of people.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started my career as a graduate student studying the Victorian period, a great age for autobiography. And although autobiography is no longer taught much in English departments, I guess I retain my passion for the genre. The greatest, of course, is Rousseauā€™s Confessions.

Louis' book list on memoirs from a wide array of people

Louis Menand Why did Louis love this book?

Mekas was a Lithuanian ƩmigrƩ who became an impresario of experimental cinema. He lived a long and eventful life, and this eccentric book is a fascinating account of it.

By Jonas Mekas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Dance with Fred Astaire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Dance with Fred Astaire is an extraordinary collection of anecdotes and rare ephemera featuring a dizzying cast of cultural icons both underground and mainstream, both obscure and celebrated. Memories and diary entries, conversations and insights into his work sit alongside collages of beautifully reproduced postcards, newspaper cuttings, film negatives, lists, posters and photographs, envelopes and letters, book covers, telegrams, cartoons and doodles. Mekas has kept and archived the artifacts of his life as a cultural touchstone down to the minutiae, all of which is brought together here in the form of a unique and fascinating scrapbook of a lifeā€¦


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. BrenƩ Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,ā€¦

Book cover of The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper

Shawn Levy Author Of The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont

From my list on Hollywood glamour and sleaze.

Why am I passionate about this?

Shawn Levy is the author of 11 books of biography and pop culture history, including The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont, Paul Newman: A Life, Rat Pack Confidential, and Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London. He was the longtime film critic of The Oregonian newspaper and KGW-TV in his beloved home city of Portland. He has written a history of the women pioneers of standup comedy which will be published by Doubleday in 2022 and at work on a podcast about the dark connections of politics and show business.

Shawn's book list on Hollywood glamour and sleaze

Shawn Levy Why did Shawn love this book?

Before he became a writer of potboiler novels and true-crime journalism, Dominick Dunne was a film and television producer and a social butterfly who also happened also to be an avid amateur photographer. This memoir of his Hollywood days, which resulted in a crash-and-burn from which he emerged as a writer, is filled with intimate, candid images of such friends (not all faithful) as Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Paul Newman, and Frank Sinatra, as well, of course, as Dunne and his family. There are dreamy and even eye-popping tales throughout, and if you're at all familiar with Dunne's books or magazine writing, you'll marvel at how so much of it so neatly dovetails with the life he actually lived and, thankfully, captured on film and in these frank and candid pages.

By Dominick Dunne,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Mesmerizing, revelatory text combines with more than two hundred photographs -- most of them taken by the author -- in a startling illustrated memoir that will both astonish and move you.

When Dominick Dunne lived and worked in Hollywood, he had it all: a beautiful family, a glamorous career, and the friendship of the talented and powerful. He also had a camera and loved to take pictures. These photographs, which Dunne carefully preserved in more than a dozen leatherbound scrapbooks -- along with invitations, telegrams, personal notes, and other memorabilia -- record the parties, the glittering receptions, the society weddings,ā€¦


Book cover of You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

Maureen Callahan Author Of American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

From my list on American pop culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

Maureen Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning investigative journalist, columnist, and commentator. She has covered everything from pop culture to politics. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York, Spin, and the New York Post, where she is Critic-at-Large. She lives in New York. For Shepherd, Callahan has selected her favorite books about American pop culture, which is currently dominated by her favorite subgenre, true crime.

Maureen's book list on American pop culture

Maureen Callahan Why did Maureen love this book?

The New York Times called this memoir ā€œThe Hollywood Chainsaw Massacre!ā€ and it still stands as one of the best. Phillips, who died New Yearā€™s Day 2002, was a self-described ā€œnice Jewish girl from Great Neck,ā€ Long Island who loved the movies, movie stars ā€” and books. She was sharp, unsparing, and became the first female producer to win an Oscar for Best Picture. The closest comp title, I think, is The Kid Stays In The Picture by the late Robert Evans, but Phillips does him better in eviscerating no one so much as herself. And this is someone who describes Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood as ā€œvery sweet, but . . . smells terrible,ā€ before asking, ā€œWhy donā€™t the English like to bathe?ā€ An observation that could get one canceled today.

By Julia Phillips,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ā€œThe Hollywood memoir that tells all . . . Sex. Drugs. Greed. Why, it sounds just like a movie.ā€ā€”The New York Times
 
Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillipsā€™s actually does. This is an addictive, gloves-off exposĆ© from the producer of the classic films The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kindā€”and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Pictureā€”who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale. Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, Youā€™ll Never Eat Lunch in Thisā€¦


Book cover of Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker

Robert P. Kolker Author Of Kubrick: An Odyssey

From my list on books about Stanley Kubrick.

Why am I passionate about this?

Kubrick has fascinated me since I watched Paths of Glory at MoMA, one of Stanleyā€™s old haunts, in the early 1960s. I first saw 2001 in London and then once a year after that back home in New York. I taught courses devoted to Kubrick, and when I taught the course online at the University of Virginia, welcomed his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, to talk to us long distance. With each move, I drew closer and closer to our subject. I visited the Manor at Childwickbury and had lunch with Kubrickā€™s wife, Christiane. I studied documents in the Kubrick Archive in London. There became a point of recognizing myself in Kubrick himself and his films. A biography was inevitable. 

Robert's book list on books about Stanley Kubrick

Robert P. Kolker Why did Robert love this book?

Until David wrote his book, there hadnā€™t been a biography of Kubrick in over twenty years. While his book is short, it is very readable, and I found it the most intriguing of the short biographies.

Mikics conducted new interviews and visited Kubrickā€™s archive in London. His readings of Kubrickā€™s films are precise and elegant.

By David Mikics,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An engrossing biography of one of the most influential filmmakers in cinematic history

"A cool, cerebral book about a cool, cerebral talent. . . . A brisk study of [Kubrick's] films, with enough of the life tucked in to add context as well as brightness and bite."-Dwight Garner, New York Times

"An engaging and well-researched primer to the work of a cinematic legend."-Library Journal

Kubrick grew up in the Bronx, a doctor's son. From a young age he was consumed by photography, chess, and, above all else, movies. He was a self-taught filmmaker and self-proclaimed outsider, and his films existā€¦


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Book cover of Straitjackets and Lunch Money: A 10-year-old in a Psychosomatic Ward

Straitjackets and Lunch Money by Katya Cengel,

Katya Cengel became a patient at the Roth Psychosomatic Unit at Children's Hospital at Stanford in 1986. She was 10 years old. Thirty years later Katya, now a journalist, discovers her young age was not the only thing that made her hospital stay unusual. The idea of psychosomatic units themselves,ā€¦

Book cover of Be Cool

Gary Ponzo Author Of A Touch of Terror

From my list on thrillers with an international villain.

Why am I passionate about this?

From a very early age, writing has always been my one true passion. Ever since I was in eighth grade and my teacher would pass out copies of my journal assignment for that week, I was hooked on the idea of writing. I could create my own world where no one could tell me how my characters should behave. Well, two Pushcart Prize nominations and many awards later, Iā€™m grateful I pursued my dream to become a writer. I hope youā€™ve enjoyed the list I provided and please feel free to pick up one of my Nick Bracco thrillers about a Sicilian FBI agent who uses his Mafia-connected cousin to track terrorists. 

Gary's book list on thrillers with an international villain

Gary Ponzo Why did Gary love this book?

Iā€™ll admit, the Russian villain in this thriller is a very bit part, but I canā€™t have a top 5 list of any thriller without including Elmore Leonard. I read one of Leonardā€™s first urban thrillers, Glitz, back in ā€˜80ā€™s and was blown away with how gritty it was. Iā€™d never heard dialogue coming out of characterā€™s mouths like that before. He wrote dialogue like people actually spokeā€”not with perfect dialect, but street language. Itā€™s the reason he was dubbed the Dickens of Detroit. If youā€™ve read Elmore Leonard and liked him, then pick this up and read it. Itā€™s a quasi-sequel to Get Shorty with shylock Chili Palmer moving from the movie industry to the music business. 

If youā€™ve never read Leonard, then start with this one. My writing career would never have flourished like is has without reading Leonard, so this on is near to my heart. Enjoy.  

By Elmore Leonard,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The sequel to Chili Palmer's hit movie tanked and now Chili's itching for a comeback. So when a power lunch with record-label executive and former associate Tommy Athens ends in a mob hit, he soon finds himself in an unlikely alliance with organized-crime detective Darryl Holmes and the likely next target of Russian gangsters. But where others see danger, Chili Palmer sees story possibilities.

Enter Linda Moon, a singer with aspirations that go further than her current gig in a Spice Girls cover band. Chili takes over as Linda's manager, entering the world of rock stars, pop divas, and hip-hopā€¦


Book cover of Kafka on the Shore
Book cover of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Book cover of The New York Trilogy

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