Here are 100 books that The First Time I Died fans have personally recommended if you like
The First Time I Died.
Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
I've penned 11 novels and numerous essays, and if there's one thread that ties them all together, it's rawness. I gravitate towards reading books and watching films where writers peel back the layers of their lives, exposing past wounds and delving into what they've learned from them. As an entrepreneur with a master's degree in marketing, I’ve found that this kind of vulnerability is not only compelling but essential in any form of storytelling. Whether I’m crafting a narrative for a new startup or reflecting on my own experiences for a novel, it’s this unfiltered honesty that resonates deeply with audiences.
This isn’t your typical feel-good, “I found myself on a hike” memoir. Strayed is brutally candid about her flaws, mistakes, and the emotional wreckage she carried along the Pacific Crest Trail. It's like she brought you on this grueling journey to confront her demons, and somehow, you end up confronting your own.
Her vulnerability is so palpable that you can practically feel the blisters forming on your feet. It’s raw, it’s real, and it makes you want to hug your inner mess a little tighter.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
Gabriella Lepore is a YA author from Wales in the UK. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can usually be found exploring the coastline or perusing a bookstore. She enjoys autumn days and cups of tea and is always searching for the next mystery!
Next, we have a true standout in YA—a novel that arguably revolutionized the mystery genre for teen readers.
While mysteries have long been a staple in YA literature, in my view, this book sparked a new age. This novel, now adapted into a popular Netflix series, firmly established YA mystery as a force to be reckoned with, largely thanks to its clever twist.
Taut, scandalous, and enthralling, this book exemplifies the blame game genre.
NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES. This stunning collector's edition of the internationally bestselling YA smash hit, ONE OF US IS LYING, contains a thrilling BONUS chapter!
Five students go to detention. Only four leave alive.
Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule.
Sports star Cooper only knows what he's doing in the baseball diamond.
Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime.
Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life.
And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won't ever talk about any of them again.…
I’ve always been interested in stories about becoming. Whether it’s a coming-of-age story, a story about overcoming adversity, or a story about discovery or recovery, I find that the best books about becoming also tend to be books about resilience. For me, the lure of a book is often more about its themes and perspective than it is about where it’s categorized and shelved. Having written a memoir in verse for an upper young adult reading group, this is especially true of my experience as an author. Each of the books on this list has something profound and singular to offer young adult readers and adult readers alike.
With a codependent mother relationship that feeds into various forms of abuse (CW: eating disorders being one of them) and Hollywood as the backdrop for this coming-of-age story, this is an important, unforgettable memoir.
It’s a gift to be so darkly funny and honest as a nonfiction writer, particularly when your own deep vulnerability is in service of something larger. Written in short numbered passages that span McCurdy’s life from early childhood into adulthood, this true story is a perfect rollercoaster.
Both laugh-out-loud funny and deliriously sad, there’s never a moment you won’t feel held by this book and this writer.
A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor-including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother-and how she retook control of her life.
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction," eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while…
Told from the perspective of Helena, a veterinarian whose career was cut short by—you guessed it!—cancer, this book explores the ethical implications of testing on animals while unpacking the messy reality of grief. As Helena’s husband, David, struggles to care for his late wife’s houseful of beloved animals, ghost-Helena reflects on the meaninglessness of her existence. I think we all like to believe we leave some kind of impact on the world, but what if we don’t? And who are we to call ourselves superior beings when other creatures are forced to suffer at our expense?
UNSAID is told from the perspective of Helena Colden, a veterinarian who has just died of breast cancer. Helena is forced to witness the rapid emotional deterioration of her husband David. With Helena's passing, David, a successful Manhattan attorney, loses the only connection that made his life full. He tries to carry on the life that Helena had created for them, but he is too grief stricken, too angry, and too quickly reabsorbed into the demands of his career. Helena's animals likewise struggle with the loss of their understanding and compassionate human companion. Because of Helena, David becomes involved in…
Chicago-born and now living in Spain, I was a community organizer in South America and the US before earning a PhD in sociology and becoming a college professor and author. I’ve written five nonfiction books and articles for publications including The New York Times, The Nation, Counterpunch, etc. Of my collection of short stories,Welcome to My Contri, theNY Times Book Reviewsaid that it “leaves us aware that we are in the presence of a formidable new writer.” In Rabble! I’ve called on my organizing experience as well as analysis and fiction to bring to life the actors in the first worker-run, self-governing society in the modern world.
Moon Browdescribes the social tensions between ideals of freedom, religion, and authoritarianism that provoked Iran’s 1978 revolution, but only increased under Islamic rule. Amir, a formerly rich, wild playboy, flogged by the morality police after a drunken orgy, joins the army to escape shame and find meaning for his life in the brutal and futile 10-year war against Iraq. Commanding artillery in the borderland, he encounters the mysterious, sprite-like woman he calls “Moon Brow,” who, after an Iraqi shell maims him, becomes a magical force in his PTSD hallucinations. Her true identity will come as a rebuke for his comparatively pointless existence, while his sister’s spurning of her rich, pretentious suitor will be another rebuke, of his machismo. A brilliant evocation of the illusions that sustain violence.
From “one of Iran's most important living fiction writers” (The Guardian) comes a fantastically imaginative story of love and war narrated by two angel scribes perched on the shoulders of a shell-shocked Iranian soldier who’s searching for the mysterious woman haunting his dreams.
Before he enlisted as a soldier in the Iran–Iraq War and disappeared, Amir Yamini was a carefree playboy whose only concerns were seducing women and riling his religious family. Five years later, his mother and sister Reyhaneh find him in a mental hospital for shell-shocked soldiers, his left arm and most of his memory lost. Amir is…
Joshua Cutchin has written seven books. If you find yourself beside him on an airplane and ask what he writes about, he’ll say, “Speculative non-fiction.” If he warms up, he’ll explain that he writes about supernatural mysteries—UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, etc.—all through the lens of folklore. A suspicion that all these phenomena are connected undergirds his writing. In addition to his books, Joshua regularly contributes to essay collections and, in 2019, appeared on the hit History Channel series Ancient Aliens. Joshua has appeared on countless paranormal programs, including Coast to Coast AM. He regularly speaks at events nationwide, most recently Rice University’s 2023 Archives of the Impossible conference.
Contemporary thought surrounding the supernatural has become rigid, mired in demands for “proof” like photographs and video recordings.
These phenomena rarely offer anything so compelling. Their genesis lies more in imagination than the material world, straddling the line between both. To better understand what might be going on, this rigid thinking must be broken.
Few books do that as elegantly as Patrick Harpur’s Daimonic Reality. Drawing upon Classical philosophy and Jungian psychology, Harpur obliterates the usual traps of distinction we rely upon: internal versus external, objective versus subjective.
While Harpur’s interpretation remains speculative, anyone with an open mind will find themselves liberated by the ideas he proposes. Daimonic Reality offers supernatural phenomena a foothold into the realm of the possible simply by acknowledging their impossibility.
Lake monsters, Yetis, UFOs, crop circles, guardian angels and visions of the Virgin Mary can all be described as apparitions, and this book weaves together an account of them. It argues that only in the last three centuries or so, and only in Western culture, they're as lively as ever. But, the author suggests, they can be made intelligible again by appealing to a different world-view. Three of the chief models for understanding mind and world are Jung's "Collective World", which is used to illuminate the links between the apparently disparate experiences being dealt with.
Worldbuilding is something I absolutely adore, and I have always wanted to see more fantasy in worlds created around a more modern thought process. Worlds that got away from the medieval and instead found inspiration in places like 1920s America or 1950s Mexico or anywhere with cars and motorcycles existing right alongside dragons. It’s what I try to write and its desperately what I want to read. Fantasy has so much more range than I think it is given credit for.
I walked away from reading this book with my imagination completely on fire. I can promise you’ll never look at wax quite the same after reading this book. It takes the pollution of a post-industrial world but filters the premise through magic and god wars. The politics are juicy and the characters come from all walks of life.
"The Gutter Prayer is captivating and complex. Guerdon is a city that seethes with history, horror, and hidden secrets" (Nicholas Eames). A group of three young thieves are pulled into a centuries old magical war between ancient beings, mages, and humanity in this wildly original debut epic fantasy. Enter a city of saints and thieves . . .
The city of Guerdon stands eternal. A refuge from the war that rages beyond its borders. But in the ancient tunnels deep beneath its streets, a malevolent power has begun to stir.
It was during the epistemological craziness around the year 2000 that I christened myself a truth warrior. I was already a scientist. Yet I knew there were other important truths, not of the mind but of the heart, truths we discover and marvel over in the realm of art. So as a biology professor I was granted a sabbatical to write the second of three of my novels, about Pliny the Elder. It is through literature, some of my own making, that I find new ways of seeing and experiencing the world: and of discovering and validating what is true, and what is not.
It’s hard for me to imagine myself in Sister of the Cross’ place, overcome with spiritual experiences so intense they are almost unbearable.
Like Saint Teresa of Avila’s ecstasies or experiences under the influence of psychedelic drugs, ordinary language cannot describe her journeys outside the normative experience of her spiritual sisters. They are, to herself and her community, barely believable.
In the end she faces an unbearable choice: to allow herself to collapse into that other, wonderful world, or be “cured.”
Mark Salzman's Lying Awake is a finely wrought gem that plumbs the depths of one woman's soul, and in so doing raises salient questions about the power-and price-of faith.
Sister John's cloistered life of peace and prayer has been electrified by ever more frequent visions of God's radiance, leading her toward a deep religious ecstasy. Her life and writings have become examples of devotion. Yet her visions are accompanied by shattering headaches that compel Sister John to seek medical help. When her doctor tells her an illness may be responsible for her gift, Sister John faces a wrenching choice: to…
I am an archaeologist dealing with prehistoric societies for the last 30 years. For many hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors worldwide practiced shamanism and altered states of consciousness. I think this is what makes us human and what allows the persistence and success of our genus. The more I learn about these two subjects, the more I understand their importance and relevance to us today. There is a lesson sent to us by past societies: Pay respect to the world. Respectful behavior is assisted by shamanism and altered states of consciousness. We can be better, feel better, and do better, and the books I recommended are the beginning of this wonderful way.
It just blows my mind any time I read it, the same way it did the first time. Huxley was way ahead of his time when he wrote this influential book, and he was one of the first prophets of the New Age and the Age of Consciousness.
I was deeply touched by his intimate descriptions of his own experiences with LSD and Mescaline and the way it opened his mind to understanding the complexities of our consciousness beyond our regular and daily way of perceiving the world.
One of my favorite rock bands, The Doors, is named after this book, and it gives me ultimate pleasure to listen to Jim Morrison while reading it. What an experience!
Discover this profound account of Huxley's famous experimentation with mescalin that has influenced writers and artists for decades.
'Concise, evocative, wise and, above all, humane, The Doors of Perception is a masterpiece' Sunday Times
In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. Huxley described his experience with breathtaking immediacy in The Doors of Perception.
I’m a writer fascinated by landscape and history—and the American West is my magnet. I’ve set three books in the West. I can’t get enough of the place. An entire national myth is enshrined “where the deer and the antelope play.” Independence. Freedom from the past. Land we can supposedly call our own. The West is so beautiful and also so scarred. I love to read books that deepen my experience of the deserts, mountains, and rivers. I also love to learn about the people who were here before me, those who have hung on, and those who hope to heal the scars. These books are great stories about a bewitching place.
Fajardo-Anstine does many remarkable things in Woman of Light, but three of those things just blew me away. First, she anchors the novel in a city (Denver, 1930s). Cities are the forgotten truth of the American West, and they shouldn’t be. Second, she brings to life the “Lost Territories,” the Hispanic/Indigenous lands of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, long-cherished homes overrun by white settlement in the 19th century. Third, she builds the entire compelling narrative around a suite of Chicana/Indigenous women—and they are the strongest, liveliest characters you’ll ever meet. They work, they love, they breathe loyalty, they seek justice. This novel is a stylish eye-opener from start to finish. And it’ll forever change what you think you know about the region.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “dazzling, cinematic, intimate, lyrical” (Roxane Gay) epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina
“Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you’re swimming under a big, sparkling night sky.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You
A PHENOMENAL BOOK CLUB PICK AND AN AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK
There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.
