56 books like The Color of Money

What I find striking about this story is that Faulkner’s depiction of Abner Snopes—the barn burner—is so uncompromising. He’s an angry, disaffected man who, when he can’t find his footing in society, reacts with violence. The reader is given no reason to sympathize with him, just asked to understand that he has a code: Integrity through vengeance. If that’s hard to understand—(it is for me)—that is, I think, the point. For a story published in 1939 about Mississippi in the late 1800s, it feels dishearteningly relevant. 

The 1958 film adaptation, The Long, Hot Summer, chops this story up and tosses it in with a few other Faulkner works. It’s far less edgy, but it stars Paul Newman.

You open a novel and begin reading. The author’s voice draws you into a story that leaves you feeling bereft at the end because it’s over. Wanting more, you read all the writer’s other titles, then reread the first one again.

Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool is such a book, despite its eponymous main character, the aging loser, sixty-year-old Donald Sullivan, someone whose life is such a mess that his landlord, Miss Beryl, once Sully’s eighth grade teacher, is the only one harboring any hope he may yet redeem himself.

From such unpromising material, Russo crafts an engaging story that has the reader as often laughing as tearing up. An added plus, a Doberman Pinscher named Ralph has a starring role in the novel’s satisfying conclusion.

P.S. This is one time I recommend seeing a film before reading the book simply for the pure pleasure of having in your head as… show more.

This is a novel published by Ken Kesey in 1964. Not only is it one of the best books to understand personality, but it is one of the best novels ever. It tells the story of an American family whose patriarch, Henry Stamper, is a classic narcissist. Stamper could be described as a confident, callous, Controlling Wanderer. He is an independent logger and owns his home and business on a river on the central coast of Oregon. He defies the small town, his neighbors, and the national union. His behavior ultimately leads to much pain and suffering. However, Henry has a good time.

The writing is poetic and insightful. All the characters' personalities are well fleshed out. It is the story of America coming of age in the '50s and '60s. Today, sixty years later, America's culture is changing; but personalities remain as they've always been. Personality is the bedrock… show more.

Sidney Lumet directed Twelve Angry Men and The Verdict, among many others, and the beauty of this short book is just how practical he is about his craft. In the magazine interviews and hagiographies about directors, we seldom get a true sense of the working day on a movie set, or what happens long before shooting begins and months after it finishes. But here Lumet reveals why he always tried to schedule a very simple shot for the first set-up on day 1 of production, the value of a rehearsal period (if he was granted one) and that he took a lunchtime nap. From first being offered a script to the final sound mix, this is what a movie director really does.

This is similar to my first recommendation in its theme: a tremendous natural disaster overwhelming a small community (in this case a volcano and a Caribbean island). It moves at the pace of a novel … as does the lava when it starts flowing… building up to the terrible, climactic conclusion. I’ve read it three or four times and it never loses its power. Once you start reading, you can’t put it down. Don’t watch the terrible Paul Newman film which is loosely based on the book though!

Once you have some practice playing chess, studying endgames is one of the most important roads to improvement. Endgames are situations where many trades have already occurred, leaving few chessmen remaining on the board. In these positions the remaining pieces have a lot more room to roam, and since they have only a few teammates around them we can see more clearly how they operate, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Famed New York coach Bruce Pandolfini, portrayed in the most famous chess film, Searching for Bobby Fischer, takes a subject mystifying to many and distills the essence of the most important endgames, with easy-to-understand diagrams and explanations. I was already a strong endgame player when I read this book, but I learned a lot and was so impressed, I’ve recommended it to students ever since.

Cheri Register grew up in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the 1950s and 60s, in a working-class home.

When she was 14, a strike in a meatpacking plant created deep divisions within the town and brought national attention when the National Guard was called out to maintain order. As a teenager Register felt acutely the social tensions and class conflicts inherent in such a situation.

In this book she elegantly weaves together her personal coming-of-age story and her own family’s history with details of the strike gathered from archives as well as conversations with those who lived through it.

With sensitivity, humor, affection, and respect for the people of her hometown Register has written a classic American story with a focus on class issues that remain to be resolved. 

I admit it. I read the Hannah Swensen books by Joanna Fluke all out of order.

Key Lime Pie Murder is the ninth book in the series, but the first one I read. I picked it up because I love Key Lime Pie! Joanna Fluke delivers in this murder mystery full of laughs, twisty turns, and delicious desserts. If you’re looking for a good place to start reading this series and you’re not committed to starting at the beginning, try a little Key Lime Pie.

Sigurd Olson’s book transported me on a wonderful, multifaceted journey through the Quantico-Superior country of Northern Minnesota by blending stories of places and people of the northern lake country with rich ecological, geological, and cultural history.

I was particularly engaged and amazed by Olson’s ability to maintain a theme of the man/nature interface and how history has impacted and still impacts ecology. I learned an incredible amount of history while reading, and at the same time, I felt literally transported to the unparalleled beauty and magical landscape (or “lake scape”) through delicious and vivid sensory imagery.

I cannot imagine ever traveling the lakes and forests of the Quantico-Superior region without having first read Olson’s book!

This story also tells of a river journey by four young orphans who in 1932 escape from a horrid Indian training school and travel for months down the Mississippi River. They head into the unknown, unprotected from the perils they encounter.

On my journey, I needed to be constantly vigilant for natural predators like lions, hippos, and crocs. These children had to be on the lookout for human predators: the search party sent looking for them, drifters, grifters, and traveling faith healers. Facing each obstacle we encountered on our trips, we managed not only to survive but actually thrive in hostile surroundings.