10 books like The Arrival

By Shaun Tan,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like The Arrival. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Entangled Life

By Merlin Sheldrake,

Book cover of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

While studying wildlife, I often slept on a polythene sheet on the floor of a tropical rainforest. In the velvet blackness, I would look down on the tracery of glowing fungal threads everywhere in the leaf litter of the forest floor. In my memory they blend with night flights over human cities: bright trunk roads and byways among the packed ranks of houses, all in a wide and sparkling network. And so it is with the fungal kingdom described here. A vast aspect of life on Earth is revealed that is almost entirely invisible to the naked eye, yet makes life work in all its parts, including us. It's the rich but easy-read kind of book that makes you say, 'well I never!' on every page, from sheer wonder at seeing how fungi join things up in a living world of near-infinite complexity.

Entangled Life

By Merlin Sheldrake,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked Entangled Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems.

“Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday

When we think…


A Monster Calls

By Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd, Jim Kay (illustrator)

Book cover of A Monster Calls

This dark fantasy book had me sobbing more than once, thanks to some great writing and the personal resonance it had for me at the time of reading. It’s marketed as YA fiction, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s only for young adults—it’s for everyone, especially if they’re struggling with grief. Siobhan Dowd came up with the story while fighting cancer and sadly died before it could be written, but Patrick Ness has created something beautiful, melancholy, and strangely uplifting from her original idea, in which the young Connor befriends a monster who tells him three stories before forcing Connor to tell one of his own. It explores the complexities of grief with honesty and sensitivity. It’s also beautifully illustrated by Jim Kay.

A Monster Calls

By Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd, Jim Kay (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked A Monster Calls as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The bestselling novel and major film about love, loss and hope from the twice Carnegie Medal-winning Patrick Ness.

Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. Patrick Ness takes the final idea of the late, award-winning writer Siobhan Dowd and weaves an extraordinary and heartbreaking…


Klara and the Sun

By Kazuo Ishiguro,

Book cover of Klara and the Sun

Klara is not human she is an Artificial Friend. She possesses outstanding observational qualities, which she uses to learn the behavior of those who come to buy her. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon purchase her and take her home with them. However, when she is sold, she really begins to understand her new masters. This book is a thrilling look at our changing world and explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?

Klara and the Sun

By Kazuo Ishiguro,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

*The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller*
*Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021*
*A Barack Obama Summer Reading Pick*

'A delicate, haunting story' The Washington Post
'This is a novel for fans of Never Let Me Go . . . tender, touching and true.' The Times

'The Sun always has ways to reach us.'

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges…


Austerlitz

By W.G. Sebald,

Book cover of Austerlitz

I picked up a paperback copy of this book at an airport store around twenty years ago. I was flying out to southern Germany and read the story of five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz who is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents in Wales. There, as was often the case in those days, the parents felt it best to erase his difficult past. But the past can’t be erased and later in life Austerlitz sets off on an odyssey across Europe and finds the past revisiting him. In many ways this book tells the story of twentieth-century Europe and is epic in its reach. Reading it during my stay in central Europe was an incredibly moving and haunting experience.

Austerlitz

By W.G. Sebald,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This tenth anniversary edition of W. G. Sebald’s celebrated masterpiece includes a new Introduction by acclaimed critic James Wood. Austerlitz is the story of a man’s search for the answer to his life’s central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he…


The Beast Player

By Nahoko Uehashi, Cathy Hirano (translator),

Book cover of The Beast Player

This wonderful Asian fantasy (the first of a duology) is about a young woman who has the rare ability to control flying wolf-like creatures. This ability plunges her into the middle of political intrigue as forces push her to weaponize this ability and use the beasts as battle mounts. The most unique thing about the book is how it questions the ethics of humans using animals for their purposes. Most fantasies unquestioningly use animal mounts as weapons/vehicles or at most use an animal’s death to trigger a cheap emotional response. This book puts the ethics of using magnificent creatures for human concerns at its very heart. It demonstrates a respect for the natural world that seems consistent with Shinto teaching and that I find too rare in fantasy.

The Beast Player

By Nahoko Uehashi, Cathy Hirano (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Elin's family have an important responsibility: caring for the fearsome water serpents that form the core of their kingdom's army. So when some of the beasts mysteriously die, Elin's mother is sentenced to death as punishment. With her last breath she manages to send her daughter to safety.

Alone, far from home, Elin soon discovers that she can talk to both the terrifying water serpents and the majestic flying beasts that guard her queen. This skill gives her great powers, but it also involves her in deadly plots that could cost her life. Can she save herself and prevent her…


Moon Theater

By Etienne Delessert,

Book cover of Moon Theater

If you are anything like me, and of course you are, you’ll feel like you are dream-reading your way through this deliciously enchanting book. Mr. Delessert is a true master of this craft, and these pages are filled with soul food.

Moon Theater

By Etienne Delessert,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A young stagehand must complete a host of tasks before the moon can take center stage in the theater of night.


Little Nemo in Slumberland

By Winsor McCay,

Book cover of Little Nemo in Slumberland: 302+1 full-page weekly comic strips (October 15, 1905 - July 23, 1911)

Now c’mon, was this guy Winsor fer-real? This stuff is off the charts other-realm, lucid sleeping material. His work was done as comic strips, but can now be found in book form in a variety of volumes. It may be the century between us, but these images and text make me feel a little tilted, off-center, and in the best way possible.

Little Nemo in Slumberland

By Winsor McCay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Little Nemo in Slumberland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Little Nemo is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. Nemo was originally the protagonist of the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. The full-page weekly comic strip depicted Nemo having fantastic dreams that were interrupted by his awakening in the final panel. The strip is considered McCay's masterpiece for its experiments with the form of the comics page, its use of color, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, perspective, architectural and other detail.

Little Nemo in Slumberland ran in the New York Herald from October 15, 1905, until July 23, 1911 for…


Where the Sidewalk Ends

By Shel Silverstein,

Book cover of Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poems & Drawings

This is an absolute staple to this day! The pages are frayed because of my many rereads and trying to master Shel's whimsical and effortless drawings. Countless tales of silly adolescent nonsense but all with that hidden knowledge of greater wisdom. His words echo the innocence and rawness of childhood on an endless journey of ignorance and adventure.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

By Shel Silverstein,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Where the Sidewalk Ends as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shel Silverstein, the New York Times bestselling author of The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, and Every Thing On It, has created a poetry collection that is outrageously funny and deeply profound. Come in...for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins. This special edition contains 12 extra poems. You'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow…


In the Night Kitchen

By Maurice Sendak,

Book cover of In the Night Kitchen

The best book ever of all time, for instructing humans how to be more human is Where the Wild Things Are. I think you probably already know that those pages are complete perfection. So I will now turn your attention to Mr. Sendak’s other completely perfect pages of In the Night Kitchen. Maybe the second-best book ever of all time.

In the Night Kitchen

By Maurice Sendak,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Night Kitchen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the acclaimed author-artist Maurice Sendak comes a Caldecott Honor-winning tale of a fantastical dream world. This comic fantasy will delight readers of all ages with playful illustrations and an imaginative world only Sendak could create.

In the Night Kitchen is the classic story of Mickey's adventures in the bakers’ kitchen as they prepare our morning cake. "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake and nothing’s the matter!" the bakers sing.

The bakers in the night kitchen need more milk for their batter, but then Mickey falls into the cake! They decide to put him in…


Across the Nightingale Floor

By Lian Hearn,

Book cover of Across the Nightingale Floor: Tales of the Otori Book One

This book, the first in the rollicking The Tales of the Otori series, has been called “Shogun meets The Lord of the Rings.” The first book centers on a young man with some special abilities who is groomed to become an assassin due to one special talent — the ability to walk silently across a special floor composed of boards that chitter like birds when stepped on, which warlords sleep in the middle of as an alarm system. The series is one of the most gripping, wildly entertaining, and moving fantasies I’ve ever read. It is proof that it is possible for an artist to come to understand a culture deeply enough to honor its spirit, even if they weren’t born into that culture.

Across the Nightingale Floor

By Lian Hearn,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Across the Nightingale Floor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The most compelling novel to have been published this year' - Amanda Craig, "Observer". In his palace at Inuyama, Lord Iida Sadamu, warlord of the Tohan clan, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Its surface sings at the tread of every human foot, and no assassin can cross it. But 16-year-old Otori Takeo, his family murdered by Iida's warriors, has the magical skills of the Tribe - preternatural hearing, invisibility, a second self - that enable him to enter the lair of the Tohan. He has love in his heart and death at his fingertips...The stunningly powerful bestseller, "Across the Nightingale…


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