73 books like The Falconer

Another friendly rodent tale with a clever premise! I read this long before there was ever a movie about Stuart. Once again, the author’s imagination amazed me. I was enchanted with all the clever things Stuart could do – his car, his canoe, his friendship with Margalo the bird, and the humans that accepted him as part of their family.

I remember bringing the library book to my grandmother’s house when I spent the weekend. I don’t think the book was out of my grasp except when I was sleeping. And even then, I was dreaming of being a writer and “living” in a world like Stuart’s. 

When I was nine, I stayed with my Grandparents for a week and went to the local bookshop every morning. One day, I randomly picked up Harriet the Spy, read the first page, and couldn’t stop. Over the years, I have read it over 50 times, and it still remains one of my all-time favorites.

This book has nothing to do with presenting and everything to do with being observant, a writer, and a spy. I couldn’t have a list of book recommendations without including this. Harriet is one of the best and most realistic heroines in children’s literature, and if you haven’t read it, you’re in for a treat.

I loved Ayo, this book’s fourteen-year-old main character. She’s burnt out on activism, having been raised by a famous activist mom fighting for Black rights in America. All Ayo wants is to take a break and live a normal teen life. This makes so much sense to me—why do people who are at a disadvantage have to spend their time fighting for basic rights—what if they just want to spend their time making art or writing books like selfish white dudes are free to do?

But when something terrible happens at a big march, Ayo skipped, all the education and activist spirit her mom drilled into her no longer feels like a burden. I loved how she figured out she wanted to fight and really came into her own.

I became obsessed with the two main characters in this book. You could say good vs. evil, but it’s more than that. For me, this was an existential journey into the tunnels of two people’s minds. I learned everything about the way Captain Delaney’s mind worked and the man he chased, Daniel Blank.

For me, this was the kind of mystery/thriller in which you eventually know more about the characters than they know about themselves. Even more thrilling was how similar they both became in the end. It was like their personalities blended into one man.

So what if his worldview never makes sense to anyone but himself? I see Holden Caulfield as the quintessential benchmark for a bad boy, shucking off the last few days at the boarding school that expelled him to wander around Manhattan in a daze. Some readers don’t like him so much that they are personally invested in attacking him and what he represents. 

But what is it that he represents, exactly? When I look beyond the surface of his false bravado, he’s a character deeply affected by the death of his brother and is setting out on a quest to understand how to be a real person in a world of phonies. Many of us, as teenagers, also have moments of feeling misunderstood and alone. I know I did, and so did Holden. 

I disagree with a lot of what Bill Simmons writes about in this book—and that is part of what makes it so wonderful! Simmons is a great storyteller, and this book feels like a bunch of basketball fans arguing about the best player or greatest team of all time.

This is the perfect book for someone who loves basketball and wants to learn more about the history of the game. 

After reading about the Knicks’ struggles from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, you should absolutely read about when they were the best team in the NBA. Many of the names will be familiar to hoops heads—Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, and Phil Jackson—but the way these teams connected to New York City is the real reason to love this book. 

This was another true story of someone who suffered a terrible addiction and was able to overcome it. I liked it because Jim was a regular guy and not a celebrity sharing his life story as so many of these book are. It was one of the first books that gave me inspiration to write a book. It also became a movie where Leonardo DeCaprio played Jim Carrol.

While the titles mentioned so far focus on high school teams spending their winters inside gymnasiums with referees on the court and fans in the bleachers, this one, written vibrantly by a staffer for Sports Illustrated magazine, shifts outside, to a blistering hot summer on the asphalt courts of Flatbush in Brooklyn, where teenage boys (including future legends Fly Williams and Albert King) and full-grown men play a tougher game, replete with trash-talking, flashy in-your-face moves, and tests of manhood that often turn to violence, with no officials to enforce order or rules, and few bystanders besides aging ex-athletes betting a few dollars on the outcomes, and other pickup teams waiting to take on the winners. As on inner-city playgrounds across the country, the game of basketball offers a rare respite from otherwise grim lives framed by poverty and the almost complete absence of hope.

This author is a former NYC firefighter and a terrific writer. This book is well written, with plenty of action in the firefighting world in New York City and plenty of heat for the slow-burn romance.

The heartfelt emotion this author writes is so realistic that she had me laughing and crying along with her characters. Now and then, I like to read a steamy romance, and this one more than delivers on that score. I’ll read anything this author writes.