77 books like The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

Dickens was a great intuitive psychologist, and The Tale of Two Cities shows some brilliant insights into human behavior during and after revolutions. The wonderful dreams of French society being built on justice and fairness came crashing down after the revolution. This is because people driven by opportunism and pathological hatred took over society. These ‘revolutionaries’ had an intense desire for vengeance and violent retribution–as well as gaining power for themselves. 

This is a feature of revolutions that we see again and again after the collapse of the old regime: unprincipled opportunists jumping to power. The direction of change becomes more radical. Inevitably, a lot of innocent people became victims during this post-revolution period, as did many innocent French people during what became known as the period of ‘Terror,’ when the guillotine rapidly killed thousands and thousands.

Dickens shows that in this terrifying post-revolution period, some individuals make great sacrifices… show more.

Michael Faber is one of my favorite writers of all time, and the same author of Under the Skin, another wonderful book with a female protagonist you’ll hate yourself for loving. Faber’s range as a storyteller is incredible, and along with his mastery of horror and science fiction, he shows that he can put together a Victorian epic that is gorgeously written, with a main character, Sugar, who is a complicated character—a sex worker by trade who sometimes makes bad choices but is admirable in how she has to navigate the world of pompous, detestable men to survive. 

Set on a Canadian prairie plain in the 1930s, Who Has Seen the Wind tells the coming-of-age story of a young Saskatchewan boy, Brian O’Connal, as he seeks meaning in life, death, and God. I love this book for its lyrical use of the wind which constantly sweeps across the prairie and through every aspect of the story. This book influenced me as a writer because I hoped to personify the sea the way W.O Mitchell did the wind.

This compelling family saga set on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia was published in 1996 and explores the lives of the complicated Piper family in the early 20th century.

My late mother was from Glace Bay, a mining town on Cape Breton, and I remember she was quite excited when she heard about Ms. MacDonald’s drama, and promptly bought a copy. She told me she couldn’t get beyond the first few chapters because it was far too filthy for her taste. Naturally, I then had to read the whole novel to find out just how controversial the book was!

The Norse site at L’Anse aux Meadows was discovered by the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad in 1960. The following year he returned to the site with his wife Anne Stina, a trained archaeologist who led the annual summer excavations until 1968. This book is her memoir of the digs, which was published in Norwegian in 1975 and translated for the predecessor to this edition in 2006. The book ranges beyond the archaeology to encompass an evocative and sometimes lyrical account of the Ingstads’ spartan life on the site, its moments of great excitement when Norse artefacts were found, and their experience of the local community.

The author presents a setting so stark, so isolated, so deprived of diverse demographic and cultural experiences that the reader experiences the characters as not so much shaped by the setting but as emerging from it. Communications among the residents of the tiny fishing village off the Newfoundland coast, Witless Bay, are spare and quirky and often misunderstood. An aggressive young female character, Margaret, elbows her way through it, and a passive male artist, Fabian, drifts into actions he regrets, yet the two fulfill one another. In paragraph one, Fabian confesses to murder, but this story is about psychological survival not murder. It asks the question, how do eccentric characters, pushed together and doomed to struggle for existence in a remote, weather-beaten setting, near a turbulent ocean, survive? The role of coffee in their survival rings true as Howard Norman’s protagonist states, “I had drunk coffee since I was five… show more.

It’s a richly lyrical, indeed Thoreauvian account of life in Labrador in the late 1920s. Among other things, the author and his life go on a long trek in the dead of winter and experience a remarkably different way of life – and mostly a rewarding one – from their previous way of life down south. I might add that the now-deceased author was a dear friend of mine.

I am in awe of the strength, determination, and hope of early pioneers. Imagine uprooting your family from what few comforts they know and travelling across the ocean to an unknown barren land to start over. Where survival means every member working hard day in and day out to build a place of shelter, gather and grow food, and fish the cold Atlantic waters in order to care for and build a life while struggling to survive harsh weather and dangerous seas. Would I be strong enough to endure such a difficult life?

I felt like I was transported to Newfoundland. It is now on my bucket list. The personal growth of the main character, Quoyle, is profound. At first you almost despise him for his failings, but the reader ends up loving him. The cast of characters is quirky but extremely entertaining. When the house was dragged across the ice and cabled to the rocks, I could tangibly feel the cables quiver. Beautifully written.

There are lots of books out there about Emily Dickinson, but this is my favorite one. Why? Because it challenges the myth of Emily as a lonely recluse. (After all, what child wants to read about a depressed lady who never leaves the house?) Marty Rhodes Figley humanizes Dickinson by focusing on her love for her dog. Children will identify with Emily as someone who needs a companion to help her navigate the big world. They will also love the rambunctious Carlo as much as she did. I did not know about Carlo before I read this book and as an adult reader, I came away with a more nuanced picture of this most mysterious and mercurial of poets.