Here are 100 books that The Castle fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have long been fascinated by what makes us human. Great art is about the human condition. We are very quick to reject art that gets that human condition wrong. I’m a poet, a playwright, and a scientist. While my science has found itself at the center of fields such as computational psychiatry and neuroeconomics, I find myself turning again and again to the insights from great novels to understand the subtleties of the human condition. So to complement the scientific questions of morality (because morality is all about the human condition), one should start with great novels that ask who we are and why we do what we do.
Marco Polo at the court of Kublai Kahn tells of the fantastical cities that he has seen on his journey.
Each city, told in a vignette of a page or two, each more amazing than the last is another reflection on the universal city – the way humans come together to build something larger than themselves. And through these views, one comes to see how we construct societies and the bonds that hold us together.
In Invisible Cities Marco Polo conjures up cities of magical times for his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, but gradually it becomes clear that he is actually describing one city: Venice. As Gore Vidal wrote 'Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvellous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant.'
I grew up in a culture that both fears and embraces spirits or outrightly rejects the idea that spirits live on beyond death. I grew up on stories of rolling calves and duppies that caused havoc among the living. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by what haunts us—whether it be our familial spirits that float among the living and continue to play a role in our lives, our memories, or our past actions. I’ve written three books that play with this idea of past actions lingering long into the characters’ lives and returning in unexpected ways.
This book is a longtime favorite of mine. Toni Morrison was a master at blending the personal story and the political, and in this book, she blends the true story of a mother who kills her child to prevent slave catchers from returning the baby to life as a slave.
Morrison’s fictional Sethe is haunted by the ghost of the baby she killed and the memories of her difficult life as a slave. This is one of the novels I return to time after time, both for the beauty of the writing and the portrayal of a mother’s love, guilt, and the lingering impact of slavery.
'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times
Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved
It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her…
There's no particular reason why I'm the right person to talk about intrusive narrators. I studied math, not literature, in school, though variables can be as tricky as any imaginary character. As an unpopular child, I read a developmentally unhealthy number of books, but tragic backstories are a dime a dozen. I pepper my life with ironic asides to the Reader, but anyone with a devoted Reader (better yet, a dozen of them) can do that. To be honest, you'd probably have come up with a better list than I did. You should give it a shot.
This book lives in my Brain rent-free, ironic since my brain is also not a space in which anyone should take Up residence.
I love the layers of narraTors, Johnny, Zampanò, and Navidson, all of Them unreliable, telling lies from cOnscious design, from iNability to face the truth, from shifting realities. Maybe one day I'll find my way through to someone who loves my ironieS.
“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,…
To be honest, and this will sound strange, but suspense is the air I breathe. I’m a pretty calm, boring human being, and the only thing that gets my heart pumping are films, TV, books, and video games in this genre. Suspense and thrillers are genres that make up ninety percent of the entertainment that I consume, and one hundred percent of the entertainment that I write.
What can I say about Annihilation? It’s a novel where the reader isn’t quite sure what is going on, nor can any two readers agree on what they just read and that’s the amazing part about it.
Hypnosis, genetic deviation, and something utterly alien make this such an intense read. And that suspense is heightened because there is a level of mystery and weirdness in Jeff VanderMeer’s world, where things aren’t quite grounded in the reality that we are used to.
THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC
For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.
The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.
I’ve been told I’m a visionary, but labels are of little significance to me. What I know for sure is that I’m a storyteller of the visionary variety, who has won numerous awards in that genre. Dating back to cave dwellers, myth-tellers, and folk minstrels, visionary authors have been consciously or unconsciously laying paths and building bridges between paradigms for eons. Such bridges are constructed of new language, perilous journeys, and transformative visions. My particular stories connect the path of perceived human limitations to true, unlimited potential. My characters are quirky, endearing, and often funny. They are each of us stumbling through an infinite, low-lying thicket for higher purpose. Until one day, we look up.
This is a timeless visionary tale of the power of otherness.
Its hero, Moojie Littleman, struggles through life with physical handicaps that pale in comparison to the social handicaps of the grownups who are supposed to be caring for him. His is a hero’s journey about light and love, the power to heal, and the moral convictions that are only revealed in solitude.
Young Moojie, a disappointment even to himself, must look beyond his life circumstances for the answers he seeks. He must be open to new friends, new dimensions, and new possibilities. He must learn to employ his otherness as a tool, not only of survival, but of abundance.
The lyrical prose and unique voice of this tale enhance the strong character and storylines that are sure to inspire generations of young adults and older readers alike. Author, Robin Gregory, is an exceptional storyteller in the classical style…
Moojie Littleman is not just another disabled orphan, he is not just a kid who falls into a series of magical, mystical adventures involving goats, bees, and watermelons. He is, above all, the most unlikely hero ever known. Through friendship with alien outcasts, Moojie discovers his healing powers and a surprising destiny ... if only he can survive one, last terrifying trial.
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Welcome to Moojie's mythical world of mayhem and merriment, where miracles are standard fare, mistaken identity is rampant, and the desire to belong can be dangerous.
From screenwriter and award-winning novelist, Robin Gregory, comes a masterful debut…
As the fourth “oldest daughter” in my motherline, and my interest in genealogy and family history, my trajectory was set decades ago to become the keeper of the family letters, telegrams, photos, pilot logbooks, and stories. After researching
what happened to the three brothers lost during WWII, I also have casualty, missions reports, and more. Before publishing the first book, I had bylines in newspapers and magazines, and I’ve blogged regularly for several years. Because of the wealth of historic photos and stories, I began history Facebook pages for three Iowa counties, as well as one for cousins to share memories and photos. If you enjoy family stories, you’ll enjoy the books on this list.
I'm drawn to family stories and saw the author interviewed on a local TV station, so I knew I'd enjoy reading her book. It's a story that needed sharing, about sisters who immigrated from Germany. The much younger one (Bernadine) was so ambivalent about leaving Germany, about being left behind in Iowa when the older sister (Elizabeth) married and moved away. Even after marrying and having so many children of her own, then was widowed, Bernadine struggled.
Bernadine's life became even more fascinating after she married a man who wasn't really as she'd thought. And there were unpleasant surprises with two adult daughters. By then, I'd forgotten about the original secret, so when it was revealed, it came as a surprise.
From author, Diane Holmes, comes a story inspired by the life of her grandmother, Bernadine. In this work of historical fiction, the relationship between Bernadine and her older sister Elizabeth is complicated. Bitterness between them develops when Elizabeth asks Bernadine to keep a deep dark secret about her past. The author shows throughout the novel how the impact of keeping that secret is far greater for the one sister than it is for the other. The bitterness is intensified when the younger sister must leave her home in Germany and say goodbye to her best friend, Judith.
I am a philosophy post-doc at Unesp and a poet who has always felt that politics is not the exclusive business of politicians; that violence is not the exclusive business of warfare or of “vulgar” people, say, drunkards in bars. Violence, I have felt while doing philosophy in the USA, Brazil, Germany, and France, is likewise expressed by well-educated and apparently “peaceful” philosophers who are engaged in implicit politics and practice “subtle” violence. To handle the relation between politics and metaphysics is to do justice to this feeling. The Politics of Metaphysics, I hope, does that. I believe that though more tacitly, the same is done by this list’s books.
I love this book because it problematizes a popular assumption among contemporary Anglo-American authors who like to call themselves “analytic philosophers” and who only care to acknowledge the existence of a few past philosophers, e.g., Russell and Ryle. The assumption is that philosophers, such as the latter two, tackled in an apolitical “noble” fashion metaphysical matters.
Akehurst, by his turn, indicates how the likes of Russell and Ryle aligned themselves with a right-wing British policy whose “vulgar” propaganda is echoed throughout works published by British philosophers in the first half of the 20th century.
Also, I appreciate Akehurst’s way of showing that while contributing to the creation of the so-called “analytic-continental gap,” this attitude helped to naturalize the attribution of the shortness of logos to German philosophers like Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.
British Analytic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century examines three generations of analytic philosophers, who between them founded the modern discipline of analytic philosophy in Britain. The book explores how philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin believed in a link between German aggression in the twentieth century and the nineteenth-century philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche. Thomas L. Akehurst thus identifies in this political critique of continental philosophy the origins of the hugely significant faultline between analytic and continental thought, an aspect of twentieth-century philosophy that is still poorly understood. The book also uncovers a tripartite…
Growing up, books and music became a refuge for the feelings I found I couldn't express aloud. I loved artists like Garbage and The Dresden Dolls. I felt most at home in stories about female angst, sexuality, and rage. Female stories helped me understand the dichotomy of the madonna/whore complex. They helped me understand where my emotions clashed with societal expectations, and how to push at those boundaries in a constructive way. I've always been fascinated with female rage, and stories that poke a stick into the body of the "good girl" stereotype always make for a cathartic and validating read. Females can be anti-heroes too.
Thanks to my religious conservative upbringing, I grew up naive and innocent. I learned a lot about life really quick when I entered college. I partied and made mistakes and definitely have my fair share of shame and regret.
However, reading this book even as an adult was still eye-opening. Life of the Party follows Mia, a fashion student living in Milan who lives the most chaotic life imaginable. She parties hard. She drinks endlessly. She wears outfits I'd never dare try on.
Mia couldn't be anything like rigid careful me, but I still resonated with her choices. I empathized with her trauma. I reveled in every small victory she has. Mia helped me realize just how much of the female experience is universal.
Life of the Party will leave you with a hangover and a "VIP" stamp on your heart. Hacic crafts a Beat novel for the Instagram generation.
This dark comedy dives into the underbelly of Milanese fashion and nightlife, through the eyes of Mia, a young expat. She came to Milan to escape her problems but only found more glamorous ones... Mia indulges in the highs and lows Milanese decadence can offer. Between fashion class and clubbing, her narcissistic boss and abusive boyfriend push her to face bleak reality. Life of the Party asks, can you lose your innocence if you…
I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasn’t like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
A historical sapphic novella with women over 60? And they’re going to get revenge on a very bad man in very inventive ways? Do you really need me to sell this book harder to you?
Okay, fine: it’s Courtney Milan, whose wit, creativity, and compassion for humanity in general and her characters specifically always awe me. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing Courtney couldn’t do.
Mrs. Bertrice Martin—a widow, some seventy-three years young—has kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew.Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of nine and sixty, crashes into her life. The Terrible Nephew is living in her rooming house, and Violetta wants him gone.Mrs. Martin isn’t about to start giving damns, not even for someone as intriguing as Miss Violetta. But she hatches another plan—to make her nephew sorry, to make Miss…
I’m a lifelong sci-fi/fantasy reader who loves the way speculative fiction helps us explore who we are, what we could become, and how to troubleshoot the future before we get there. As a parent and active community member, I’m looking for fresh perspectives on how to tackle the increasingly complex challenges of our time, perspectives that go beyond simplistic solutions like finding bad guys and killing them in climactic battles. I hope books that showcase nonviolent social change in all its complexity can help us imagine better ways to make a difference in our own lives.
Along with authors like Alyssa Coleand Talia Hibbert, Courtney Milan is a luminary of romance’s liberatory wing. If love can conquer all, let’s aim it at something worthwhile! This book takes one of humanity’s deepest nonviolent instincts, the desire for one another, and shows how it gives people the strength to support each other through the hard work of building a better world. I want to recommend all of Milan’s books, but from a nonviolence perspective, The Devil Comes Courtingstands out because of the way it also wrestles with what reconciliation (the last step in Kingian nonviolence) really means.
Captain Grayson Hunter knows the battle to complete the first worldwide telegraphic network will be fierce, and he intends to win it by any means necessary. When he hears about a reclusive genius who has figured out how to slash the cost of telegraphic transmissions, he vows to do whatever it takes to get the man in his employ.
Except the reclusive genius is not a man, and she’s not looking for employment.
Amelia Smith was taken in by English missionaries as a child. She’s not interested in Captain Hunter’s promises or his ambitions. But the harder he tries to…
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