100 books like The Culture of Make Believe

By Derrick Jensen,

Here are 100 books that The Culture of Make Believe fans have personally recommended if you like The Culture of Make Believe. 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 Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash

John H. Sibley Author Of Being and Homelessness: notes from an underground artist

From my list on understanding homelessness and existentialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Chicago-based artist, author, veteran, and teacher. I studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1968 during the bloody Tet Offensive during the Vietnam era. Upon my discharge I got my BFA in 1994. I got convicted for a crime I did not commit, and I became a homeless-existential artist on Chicago’s mean streets for six months. I got hired by an Acoustic company, and I married and worked for twenty-seven years while raising a family. I now work as an art teacher. All my nonfiction books chronicle different episodes in my life. 

John's book list on understanding homelessness and existentialism

John H. Sibley Why did John love this book?

Years ago, I was a janitor. When I would take a shower, it was like I could never get the stench off my body. I like Susan Strasser’s book because it reminds me of the waste I use to clean up daily. She examines the most unprecedented commonplace act of throwing things out and how it has transformed American society.

Her classic book about trash world culture is fascinating to me because, in the last hundred years, the way of life has been replaced by mass consumption, disposable goods, and waste on an unimaginable scale. Her book could easily be used as a metaphor for the ‘homeless,’ whom some view as “disposable’ goods. Her book illustrates that what counts as trash depends on who counts it, and what we throw away defines us as much as we keep it.

Strasser argues that in Western society, popular understanding of cleanliness, gender,…

By Susan Strasser, Alice Austen (photographer),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Waste and Want as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An unprecedented look at that most commonplace act of everyday life-throwing things out-and how it has transformed American society.

Susan Strasser's pathbreaking histories of housework and the rise of the mass market have become classics in the literature of consumer culture. Here she turns to an essential but neglected part of that culture-the trash it produces-and finds in it an unexpected wealth of meaning.

Before the twentieth century, streets and bodies stank, but trash was nearly nonexistent. With goods and money scarce, almost everything was reused. Strasser paints a vivid picture of an America where scavenger pigs roamed the streets,…


Book cover of World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability

John H. Sibley Author Of Being and Homelessness: notes from an underground artist

From my list on understanding homelessness and existentialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Chicago-based artist, author, veteran, and teacher. I studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1968 during the bloody Tet Offensive during the Vietnam era. Upon my discharge I got my BFA in 1994. I got convicted for a crime I did not commit, and I became a homeless-existential artist on Chicago’s mean streets for six months. I got hired by an Acoustic company, and I married and worked for twenty-seven years while raising a family. I now work as an art teacher. All my nonfiction books chronicle different episodes in my life. 

John's book list on understanding homelessness and existentialism

John H. Sibley Why did John love this book?

When I was a homeless artist, I stumbled across this brilliant book, and it validated my belief that contrary to what global capitalists believe, free markets outside the West do not spread wealth in the hands of an ‘outsider’ minority but instead generate ethnic envy and hatred among the frustrated, impoverished majorities.

Amy Chua states that billions of poor, exploited, and powerful people around the world (homeless and displaced) watch as the wealthy minority in the United States continues to amass more control, prestige, and tax breaks.

Ironically, Chua points out, although America is viewed “as arrogant, hegemonic and vapidly materialistic, most of the downtrodden would rather be in the U. S. than anywhere else. In 2023, close to 10 million illegal migrants have entered the U.S. via the porous Texas border.

By Amy Chua,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The reigning consensus holds that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this revelatory investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy.

Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites…


Book cover of Being and Nothingness

John H. Sibley Author Of Being and Homelessness: notes from an underground artist

From my list on understanding homelessness and existentialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Chicago-based artist, author, veteran, and teacher. I studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1968 during the bloody Tet Offensive during the Vietnam era. Upon my discharge I got my BFA in 1994. I got convicted for a crime I did not commit, and I became a homeless-existential artist on Chicago’s mean streets for six months. I got hired by an Acoustic company, and I married and worked for twenty-seven years while raising a family. I now work as an art teacher. All my nonfiction books chronicle different episodes in my life. 

John's book list on understanding homelessness and existentialism

John H. Sibley Why did John love this book?

When I was a homeless artist living on Chicago’s cold streets for six months, it was hard for me to believe in a compassionate Judeo-Christian God. It was difficult for me to reconcile how a just and benevolent God would let African pregnant women be thrown into the Atlantic Ocean and perish with thousands of other slaves.

That is why I became agnostic and was attracted to Sartre’s belief in the essential freedom of individuals, and he also believed that as free beings, people are responsible for all elements of themselves, their consciousness, and their actions. It made me question why I was homeless. Was it because of bad choices in life? Or was it just the experience of being a black male in a racist capitalist society?

Sartre became an existentialist because of the war and an encounter with Merleav Ponty, who taught him the political dimension of human…

By Jean-Paul Sartre, Sarah Richmond (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Revisit one of the most important pillars in modern philosophy with this new English translation—the first in more than 60 years—of Jean-Paul Sartre’s seminal treatise on existentialism. “This is a philosophy to be reckoned with, both for its own intrinsic power and as a profound symptom of our time” (The New York Times).

In 1943, Jean-Paul Sartre published his masterpiece, Being and Nothingness, and laid the foundation of his legacy as one of the greatest twentieth century philosophers. A brilliant and radical account of the human condition, Being and Nothingness explores what gives our lives significance.

In a new and…


Book cover of The Outsider

John H. Sibley Author Of Being and Homelessness: notes from an underground artist

From my list on understanding homelessness and existentialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Chicago-based artist, author, veteran, and teacher. I studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1968 during the bloody Tet Offensive during the Vietnam era. Upon my discharge I got my BFA in 1994. I got convicted for a crime I did not commit, and I became a homeless-existential artist on Chicago’s mean streets for six months. I got hired by an Acoustic company, and I married and worked for twenty-seven years while raising a family. I now work as an art teacher. All my nonfiction books chronicle different episodes in my life. 

John's book list on understanding homelessness and existentialism

John H. Sibley Why did John love this book?

All my life, I have felt like an "outsider." Wright’s book depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms.

The main character Damon Cross, a Chicago negro, disillusioned with the futility of life and the mess he has made of it, reminds me of when I was homeless. The fossilized, decadent cultural barons of American art have always kept me at bay. My entire career has been as an outsider. Outcast. The invisible man. Interloper. Picasso had a blue period. I had a blues period.

All my life, I have used painting and writing as a means of exorcising demons from my being in the world. Art has saved me from dementia. If I didn’t have art to channel my creative impulses, I’m sure I would have become Wright’s Damon Cross.

In the novel, Damon Cross becomes homeless and loses his identity in a subway crash…

By Richard Wright,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From Richard Wright, one of the most powerful, acclaimed, and essential American authors of the twentieth century, comes a compelling story of one man's attempt to escape his past and start anew in Harlem.

Cross Damon is a man at odds with society and with himself—a man of superior intellect who hungers for peace but who brings terror and destruction wherever he goes. The Outsider is an important work of fiction that depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms. Brilliantly imagined and frighteningly prescient, it is an epic exploration of the tragic roots of criminal…


Book cover of Imperial Bedrooms

Mike Thorn Author Of Shelter for the Damned

From my list on descent into existential darkness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Mike Thorn is the author of Shelter for the Damned, Darkest Hours, and Peel Back and See. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, including Vastarien, Dark Moon Digest, and The NoSleep Podcast. His books have earned praise from Jamie Blanks (director of Urban Legend and Valentine), Jeffrey Reddick (creator of Final Destination), and Daniel Goldhaber (director of Cam). His essays and articles have been published in American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper (University of Texas Press), Beyond Empowertainment: Exploring Feminist Horror (Seventh Row), The Film Stage, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick.

Mike's book list on descent into existential darkness

Mike Thorn Why did Mike love this book?

With Imperial Bedrooms, Bret Easton Ellis channels many of his career-long obsessions into a nihilistic work of Hollywood noir, written in a minimalist prose style that evokes both Raymond Chandler’s staccato brutalism and Joan Didion’s haunting lyricism. Imperial Bedrooms takes a razor to Hollywood’s beautiful surfaces while drawing the reader deeper and deeper into protagonist Clay’s misanthropic paranoia. The writing is masterful, existential horror frozen into sentences so spare and focused they often resemble haiku. It features what might be my favorite closing line in fiction: “The fades, the dissolves, the rewritten scenes, all the things you wipe away—I now want to explain all these things to her but I know I never will, the most important one being: I never liked anyone and I’m afraid of people.”

By Bret Easton Ellis,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Clay is a successful screenwriter, middle-aged and disaffected; he's in LA to cast his new movie. However, this trip is anything other than professional, and he's soon drifting through a louche and long-familiar circle - a world largely populated by the band of infamous teenagers first introduced in Bret Easton Ellis's first novel Less Than Zero. After a meeting with a gorgeous but talentless actress determined to win a role in his movie, Clay finds himself connected with Kelly Montrose, a producer whose gruesomely violent death is suddenly very much the talk of the town.

Imperial Bedrooms follows Clay as…


Book cover of Froth on the Daydream

Angel Dionne Author Of Sardines

From my list on books that depict the existential pains of human existance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like to believe that my own characters struggle with being human. They struggle with their bitterness, their relations to others (or lack thereof), and their unresolved guilt. What happens when guilt is left unresolved? What happens when someone enters into a state of self-imposed isolation? These are topics I enjoy exploring in my work. I’ve enjoyed writing since I was a child. My mother deserves all the credit. At bedtime, rather than reading bedtime stories to me from a book, she would make up a story and then ask me to do the same. This helped me to develop a lifelong love for reading and writing.

Angel's book list on books that depict the existential pains of human existance

Angel Dionne Why did Angel love this book?

I feel as though this book isn’t widely known. The plot is quite bizarre and surreal–a man falls in love with a woman who is growing a water lily in her lung.

The novel’s theme of grief stood out to me, and I feel it was perfectly illustrated by Collin’s desperate attempts to keep his wife alive. It is evident that Vian used Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy as inspiration for this novel.

Book cover of What Is Existentialism? Vol. I: History & Principles

Frank Scalambrino Author Of The Philosophy of Being in the Analytic, Continental, and Thomistic Traditions: Divergence and Dialogue

From my list on philosophical metaphysics on what is be-ing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a classically and formally trained philosopher. I have a Doctorate in Philosophy from Duquesne University (2011). I've been interested in philosophy for as long as I can remember; however, I began formally studying philosophy when I first discovered the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. I began teaching philosophy at the university level in 2004. I've taught over 100 university-level courses, including graduate-level courses in both philosophy and psychology. I'm presently finishing my tenth philosophy book, along with over 50 professional peer-reviewed articles in philosophy. These days my attention is devoted to sharing philosophy on the internet through The Philosophemes YouTube Channel, @Philosophemes on Instagram, and the Basic Philosophical Questions Podcast

Frank's book list on philosophical metaphysics on what is be-ing

Frank Scalambrino Why did Frank love this book?

After extensive research, this is the only book in existence that answers the question: What is existentialism? Existentialism may be understood as the correct point of departure for addressing the philosophy of being as it relates to the individual. In other words, existentialism provides the philosophical framework with which to answer the question: What does it mean to be?

Existentialism is the culmination of the philosophical tradition moving from Kant through the German Romantics to Heidegger and Sartre, among the other existentialists. In regard to Kant’s division, it differs from Deleuze’s choice to articulate transcendental philosophy with cosmology as the point of departure, in that it takes psychology as the point of departure. Yet, at the same time, just as understanding “the moment of vision” brings about a kind of gestalt shift in the reader’s perspective, so too though existentialism may be characterized as transcendental psychology, it has a higher…

By Frank Scalambrino,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Is Existentialism? Vol. I as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The term “existentialism” was coined in the 1940s. Whereas other books regarding existentialism merely repeat the platitudes that “There is no such thing as existentialism” or that “The term ‘existentialism’ has no coherent meaning,” this two-volume set actually answers the question “What is existentialism?”

Volume I identifies the seven (7) principles of existentialism and the necessary and sufficient conditions for a philosophy to be existential, and introduces readers to the depth of the problem by showing how the question “What is existentialism?” can be answered in multiple ways, all of which are provided in this two-volume set.

Vol. I, then,…


Book cover of The Demon

Jim Alexander Author Of GoodCopBadCop

From my list on unreliable narrators.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a comic book writer, published by Marvel and DC Comics, turned novelist. I enjoy getting inside the heads of my characters until they become entities of their own, with their own voices and actions. At that point I’m merely the facilitator; an interested spectator with a keyboard. Maybe, one whose prose shows a visual flair. Sometimes, I hear competing voices in my head, rather like the warring personas that feature in my debut novel GoodCopBadCop, but I don’t like to play favourites. 

Jim's book list on unreliable narrators

Jim Alexander Why did Jim love this book?

The narration is completely devoted to the worldview of main character Harry White. A man who climbs the ladder of corporate and social America thanks to unnatural drives inside him both dedicated to achieving his success and predicated ultimately to securing his eventual self-destruction. The demon is inside Harry White and it is the American dream. An extraordinary novel from an extraordinary writer who had already written himself into the annals of American literature with such classics as Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Room. The Demon in my view is Selby Jr.’s most personal and impersonal work.

By Hubert Selby Jr.,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A womanizer’s struggle for self-control spirals into crime, madness, and murder
Harry White grew up in blue-collar Brooklyn, but the young man’s charm, smarts, and good looks have helped him earn a place as an uptown junior executive. White’s gifts have also made his love life easy, and he takes special pleasure in seducing married women. But when “Harry the Lover” is ready to grow up and leave his womanizing behind, White finds that suppressing his libido has dangerous consequences. His attempts at restraint awaken something sinister, causing White to seek excitement in a new form of violence and depravity.…


Book cover of Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

Julie Chavez Author Of Everyone But Myself: A Memoir

From my list on to feel less alone in the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author and elementary librarian living in Northern California. My mind is a busy neighborhood: there are all sorts of thoughts and feelings running around up there like hordes of naughty unsupervised children. I need books to ground me, to encourage me to slow down, to help me feel and release those emotions. As an elementary librarian, I’m a voracious reader, but I only choose to return to the most necessary, beautiful books. These authors comfort me through their words, pulling forth laughter, tears, and the knowledge that I’m not so crazy after all. Or, if I am, I’m not the only one.

Julie's book list on to feel less alone in the world

Julie Chavez Why did Julie love this book?

When my depression was intense, I was continually worried that something would happen to me or my family. It was a visceral fear, one that ranked up there with a child’s belief that something was hiding under the bed.

To read this story of the author’s experiences with her son’s epilepsy diagnosis was surprisingly comforting for me. She too was terrified, and yet she made her way through, as moms so often manage to do.

I loved this book’s tender, funny, well-crafted words about how little we really can control in our lives. It reminded me that worry won’t make the future brighter, but it will make the present darker.

By Mary Laura Philpott,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A New York Times Editors' Choice
One of NPR's Best Books of the Year

"A beautifully wrought ode to life...a precious gift to the world." -The Washington Post

From the bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink comes a poignant and powerful new memoir that tackles the big questions of life, death, and existential fear with humor and hope.

As a daughter, mother, and friend, Mary Laura Philpott considered herself an "anxious optimist"-a natural worrier with a stubborn sense of good cheer. And while she didn't really think she had any sort of magical protective powers, she believed…


Book cover of The Worst Ship in the Fleet

Danny Anthony Bonsangue Author Of Entanglement

From my list on unlikely heroes facing existential threats.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have loved science since I was young. I was obsessed with watching videos and reading books by scientists like Michio Kaku and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, where they explored concepts like time travel, black holes, and the quantum realm. In college, I majored in environmental studies, mostly because of my love for both natural science and policy. In addition to basic biology and ecology, I learned about what is hurting the Earth and the consequences of not acting fast. I contributed to a white paper on “Ecocide,” or deliberate destruction of the natural environment, by the Russians in Ukraine. I also contributed to the Journal of Science and Technology Law.

Danny's book list on unlikely heroes facing existential threats

Danny Anthony Bonsangue Why did Danny love this book?

I love this book because it is a story about space travel, and it features a flawed character as the protagonist. Most people are flawed; it’s very hard to find a morally perfect person, so I appreciate a book that features an imperfect protagonist.

I am also a fan of redemption—one of my books features a character who has done terrible things but can redeem himself with one good thing. 

By Skyler Ramirez,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Worst Ship in the Fleet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Brad Mendoza is an idiot. He knows it, and so does everyone else in the star nation of Prometheus. A promising naval career down the drain just because he accidentally killed 504 civilians. So, it's time for him to give up and accept a dead-end command on Persephone, the worst starship in the fleet. Until he meets the beautiful and cunning Jessica Lin, his new executive officer, who harbors a terrible secret of her own. Now, with an enemy warship four times their size bearing down on them, Brad's in a race to save Jessica and his stupid ship.

But…


Book cover of Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash
Book cover of World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
Book cover of Being and Nothingness

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Interested in existentialism, homelessness, and the Holocaust?

Existentialism 67 books
Homelessness 39 books
The Holocaust 414 books