100 books like The Gentleman's Bottle Companion

By P. Harris Publishing,

Here are 100 books that The Gentleman's Bottle Companion fans have personally recommended if you like The Gentleman's Bottle Companion. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Roughing It in the Bush Or, Life in Canada

Morgan Wade Author Of Bottle and Glass

From my list on frontier life in 19th century Canada.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I moved to Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 2001 I was amazed to find how this city, unlike many North American cities, has preserved and celebrated its past. It’s in the architecture, the streets, the fabric, and the soil. As someone with a deep love of reading and exploring history, I immediately began to research my new home. I didn’t discover the sort of bloodless accounts often taught in school, replete with dates and facts. This history simmers and boils; full of tales of pirates and officers, gadflies and ne’er-do-wells, countless plucky frontiersmen and women. There is enough raw material for a thousand novels. 

Morgan's book list on frontier life in 19th century Canada

Morgan Wade Why did Morgan love this book?

The gold standard source for what life was like for the hardy souls arriving in Upper Canada in the early 19th century. Although writing from a position of relative privilege, Moodie writes of hardships and deprivations that make the modern reader blanch. We wonder whether we could have survived what she and her family endure.  She writes with richness and great humanity so that we can vividly imagine what it must have been like for her to be taken from the relatively comfortable life she’d known and to make a life in the bush.  Despite her trials and tribulations, she comes to have a great love for the beauty and wildness of her adopted home.

By Susanna Moodie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Roughing It in the Bush Or, Life in Canada as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…


Book cover of A Troublesome Berth: The Journal of First Lieutenant Charles Allan Parker, Royal Marines: The Canada Years, 1838-1840

Morgan Wade Author Of Bottle and Glass

From my list on frontier life in 19th century Canada.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I moved to Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 2001 I was amazed to find how this city, unlike many North American cities, has preserved and celebrated its past. It’s in the architecture, the streets, the fabric, and the soil. As someone with a deep love of reading and exploring history, I immediately began to research my new home. I didn’t discover the sort of bloodless accounts often taught in school, replete with dates and facts. This history simmers and boils; full of tales of pirates and officers, gadflies and ne’er-do-wells, countless plucky frontiersmen and women. There is enough raw material for a thousand novels. 

Morgan's book list on frontier life in 19th century Canada

Morgan Wade Why did Morgan love this book?

I used Parker’s journal extensively in my research for Bottle and Glass.  It is the account of a British officer arriving in the Canadian wilderness for the first time. Parker’s style is very much modern and journalistic, giving an immediacy to the wonder and apprehension he has for his new surroundings.  The reader is right there with him marveling over the rudeness of frontier life.  A representative quote: “Kingston is one of the dirtiest, or rather muddiest places I have ever been in, even in my extensive peregrinations; it is the worst lighted, and most miserably paved place I have ever been in… the number of masterless dogs prowling about the streets at all times is abominable, the quantity of pigs laying in every corner is disgusting in the extreme, and the number of cattle roaming about the streets with their inexpressive countenances is really, really past bearing!”

By Rosalyn Parker, R. Andrews,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Troublesome Berth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Kingston: The King's Town

Morgan Wade Author Of Bottle and Glass

From my list on frontier life in 19th century Canada.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I moved to Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 2001 I was amazed to find how this city, unlike many North American cities, has preserved and celebrated its past. It’s in the architecture, the streets, the fabric, and the soil. As someone with a deep love of reading and exploring history, I immediately began to research my new home. I didn’t discover the sort of bloodless accounts often taught in school, replete with dates and facts. This history simmers and boils; full of tales of pirates and officers, gadflies and ne’er-do-wells, countless plucky frontiersmen and women. There is enough raw material for a thousand novels. 

Morgan's book list on frontier life in 19th century Canada

Morgan Wade Why did Morgan love this book?

Roy’s history of Kingston is a fiction writer’s dream.  It is crammed with colourful anecdotes and amazing descriptions of life two hundred years ago, each one a possible starting point for a novel.  This is not your dry, elementary school history; Roy’s account sweats and stinks, crackles and clangs, chews and spits. He writes of revolting spectacles such as “disfigured or putrified or naked human bodies lying exposed on the shores of the town, or kept afloat and fastened by a rope while the preparations for interment were being made.” Life in a frontier town was not for the faint of heart. 

By James A. Roy,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Lonesome Dove

AJ Davidson Author Of A Stillness Lost: A Val Bosanquet Mystery

From my list on portray a sense of place.

Why am I passionate about this?

I believe many writers suspect they are Strangers in a Strange Land. How ironic that I, a confirmed atheist, should use a biblical quote to describe the mindset of authors. Some discover where they belong through their writing. My book recommendations have a strong sense of place, whether it be the Old West, wartime Berlin, or modern-day Scotland. I was born into a 300-year-old N. Ireland Protestant Plantation family, yet many people saw us as interlopers: we weren’t quite Irish, and we weren’t quite British, yet we held dual passports. It was not until I left Ireland that I realized my Irish Heritage exerted a stronger pull than my British.

AJ's book list on portray a sense of place

AJ Davidson Why did AJ love this book?

This book is written basically as a western road movie. The two main protagonists, former Texas Rangers, decide, on little more than a whim, to assemble a cattle herd and drive it north from the Rio Grande to Montana, with the author providing some wonderful descriptions of the topography and hardships they encounter. 

What makes it a classic for me is how the central characters explore their own mettle from the dichotomy of Woodrow, who is moralistic but happily rustles Mexican cattle and won’t acknowledge his son because the young man’s mother was a prostitute.

Gus has a more enlightened outlook towards another prostitute, and his humor allows the young girl to embark on a passage to discover her place in the West. The story is as stunning as the landscapes.

By Larry McMurtry,

Why should I read it?

17 authors picked Lonesome Dove as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. From Texas to Montana, it follows cowboys on a grueling cattle drive through the wilderness.

It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande.
It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . .

More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America.

Legend and fact, heroes and outlaws,…


Book cover of Defender of Canada, Volume 40: Sir George Prevost and the War of 1812

Jonathon Riley Author Of A Matter of Honour: The Life, Campaigns and Generalship of Isaac Brock

From my list on the War of 1812 and Canadian sacrifice for freedom.

Why am I passionate about this?

I served for 40 years in the British Army, including many tours of active duty. I commanded operations in every rank, from Second Lieutenant to Lieutenant General. I had the privilege of commanding not only British troops, but also troops from the USA, Canada, Australia, and more. I was Director-General and Master of the Royal Armouries and since 2013 I have been Visiting Professor in War Studies at King’s College London. I hold three degrees including a PhD. I've published more than 20 books and numerous articles. I continue to learn new things from history every day, as well as passing on our history to others, and that’s what books are all about.

Jonathon's book list on the War of 1812 and Canadian sacrifice for freedom

Jonathon Riley Why did Jonathon love this book?

John Grodzinski was a career army officer in the Canadian military and a professor of history at the RMC. He is also a personal friend of many years. His subject, Sir George Prevost, is one of the neglected heroes of the War of 1812. He was neglected at the time, as the attention of the Government in London was far more engaged by Napoleon than President Madison; neglected thereafter in favour of more glamorous subjects. But it was Prevost’s defensive plans and actions that preserved Canada from the American invasions of 181. Much went wrong as well as right thereafter, and Prevost took the blame. John Grod’s book provides a thoroughly balanced look at what actually happened and why. Having myself been in command of a theatre of military operations far from home, I understand the stresses and strains, and the loneliness of command that Prevost knew all too well.

By John R. Grodzinski,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Defender of Canada, Volume 40 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When war broke out between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, Sir George Prevost, captain general and governor in chief of British North America, was responsible for defending a group of North American colonies that stretched as far as the distance from Paris to Moscow. He also commanded one of the largest British overseas forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Defender of Canada, the first book-length examination of Prevost's career, offers a reinterpretation of the general's military leadership in the War of 1812. Historian John R. Grodzinski shows that Prevost deserves far greater credit for the successful defense of…


Book cover of Canada

William Mark Habeeb Author Of Venice Beach

From my list on poignant coming-of-age about boys.

Why am I passionate about this?

My novel Venice Beach—like the five books I recommend here—has been classified as a “coming-of-age” novel, a classification that I have no quarrels with as long as it’s understood that coming-of-age is not regarded simply as a synonym for “adolescence” or “being a teenager.” The coming-of-age years—generally defined as between ages 12 and 18—are so much more than a period of life wedged between childhood and adulthood. Coming of age is a process, not a block of time; it is a hot emotional forge in which we experience so many “firsts” and are hammered, usually painfully, into the shapes that will last a lifetime. 

William's book list on poignant coming-of-age about boys

William Mark Habeeb Why did William love this book?

You’re fifteen years old, living unhappily with your feckless parents and unstable older sister in a small town in Montana. And then your family implodes: your parents are arrested for bank robbery and your sister flees to parts unknown. As troubling as the premise is, Canada becomes even darker and more ominous as young Dell Parsons travels alone to Saskatchewan to live with erstwhile family friends, but in fact enters a whole new world of intrigue and violence. Dell is a stoic character, and you desperately want to see his life take a turn for the better. What you get instead is a case study in resiliency and survival. Ford’s prose is powerful; every word counts, every sentence pulls you deeper into the story.

By Richard Ford,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then the murders, which happened later.

In 1956, Dell Parsons' family came to a stop in Great Falls, Montana, the way many military families did following the war. His father, Bev, was a talkative, plank-shouldered man, an airman from Alabama with an optimistic and easy-scheming nature. Dell and his twin sister, Berner, could easily see why their mother might have been attracted to him. But their mother Neeva - from an educated, immigrant, Jewish family - was shy, artistic and alienated from their father's small-town world of money scrapes and living…


Book cover of Nights Below Station Street

Mark Lisac Author Of Where the Bodies Lie

From my list on novels depicting regions of Canada.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a writer most of my life, moving from high-school essays to working for newspapers to creating novels. One way or another, I’ve also spent much of that time exploring Canada's back roads and smaller communities. Those places and the people living in them have a pungent reality that I often find missing in the froth of modern urban society. The places and their people are interesting and inspiring, and I always get drawn back to reading and writing about them.

Mark's book list on novels depicting regions of Canada

Mark Lisac Why did Mark love this book?

I loved this book because I loved the characters. Richards invested them with dignity even when they were flawed or endlessly frustrated by fate. They can go through life largely unnoticed except by their closest acquaintances and relatives. But they offer hope despite their failures and tragedies.

This was the first novel in Richards’ Miramichi Trilogy. It and the two subsequent novels, plus much of Richards’ later work, create a strong sense of the province of New Brunswick, even when the characters have a universal quality.

By David Adams Richards,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Nights Below Station Street as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

David Adams Richards’ Governor General’s Award-winning novel is a powerful tale of resignation and struggle, fierce loyalties and compassion. This book is the first in Richards’ acclaimed Miramichi trilogy. Set in a small mill town in northern New Brunswick, it draws us into the lives of a community of people who live there, including: Joe Walsh, isolated and strong in the face of a drinking problem; his wife, Rita, willing to believe the best about people; and their teenage daughter Adele, whose nature is rebellious and wise, and whose love for her father wars with her desire for independence. Richards’…


Book cover of Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

Kevin Clouther Author Of Maximum Speed

From my list on literary fiction about the passage of time.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live in the past, even as the wellness industry tells me to be present. I try to be present! Of course, I also worry about the future. Time for me, inexorably, moves both backward and forward. I’m always writing things down, scared of forgetting. How do other people do it? That’s why I read fiction (or one of the reasons). As Philip Roth said of his father in Patrimony, “To be alive, to him, is to be made of memory—to him if a man’s not made of memory, he’s made of nothing.”

Kevin's book list on literary fiction about the passage of time

Kevin Clouther Why did Kevin love this book?

Nobody for my dollar moves between front story and back story better than the Canadian author Alice Munro, whose 2013 Nobel Prize was recognition not only for the brilliance of her career but also for the possibilities of the short story as a form.

The final story in the collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” is among the most lasting fiction I’ve read, a meditation on memory and its limitations, as well as the compromises people make to help those they love and have hurt.

By Alice Munro,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013

In the her tenth collection (the title story of which is the basis for the new film Hateship Loveship), Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and conjuring up characters as thorny and contradictory as people we know ourselves.
A tough-minded housekeeper jettisons the habits of a lifetime because of a teenager’s practical joke. A college student visiting her brassy, unconventional aunt stumbles on an astonishing secret and its meaning in her own life. An incorrigible philanderer responds with unexpected grace to his wife’s nursing-home romance.…


Book cover of The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer

Paul Willetts Author Of King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor

From my list on twenty-first century true-crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an English nonfiction writer who is, I suppose, best-known for Members Only, my biography of the London strip club owner, theatre impresario, property magnate, and porn baron Paul Raymond, which was adapted into a big-budget movie called The Look of Love. Like many of my books, Members Only strayed into true crime, a genre that has, for all sorts of reasons, been attractive to me as a writer. Probably the most important of those is that it provides the opportunity to tell inherently dramatic stories and to convey a vivid picture of the past, thanks to the wealth of documentation associated with major crimes. 

Paul's book list on twenty-first century true-crime

Paul Willetts Why did Paul love this book?

Now that’s a question that can be answered in a few sentences. Here’s goes…

This is among the finest examples of the true-crime genre. It’s an enthralling, pacey, and ingeniously structured account of the murders committed on both sides of the Atlantic by Dr. Neill Cream, a Scottish-born Canadian whose medical career served as camouflage for his psychopathic misogyny.

Macabre though the subject matter is, Jobb never wallows in that side of things, preferring to use the story as a vehicle for his vivid and insightful portrait of late nineteenth-century society.

By Dean Jobb,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream takes readers to the late nineteenth century as Scotland Yard follows the trail of a cold-blooded serial killer who was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper and who would finally be brought to justice by detectives employing a new science called forensics.

"When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals," Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most baffling investigations. "He has nerve and he has knowledge." In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream poisoned at least ten women in the United States, Britain,…


Book cover of Pageboy: A Memoir

Zoë Bossiere Author Of Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir

From my list on coming of age memoirs about trans kids actually written by trans people.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, I didn’t identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. Even without the language to describe who I really was, I was always on the lookout for stories about other people who felt like I did—for stories, in other words, like the ones on this list. But I never found them. As the books below beautifully illustrate, the spectrum of transgender experience, and our childhoods in particular, are so rich and diverse. My hope is for these and other books like Cactus Country to encourage more trans and queer people to tell their stories so that kids like us can find characters that represent them. 

Zoë's book list on coming of age memoirs about trans kids actually written by trans people

Zoë Bossiere Why did Zoë love this book?

Elliot Page’s book is an engaging, worthwhile celebrity memoir. As a longtime fan of Page’s film performances and a trans person myself, I was so inspired by his public coming out and transition.

In his book, Page took me behind the scenes for an exclusive look at the unglamourous sides of Hollywood stardom—especially the ways the industry has historically been harmful to trans actors, many of whom, like Page, were encouraged to stay in the closet. I also appreciated that Page, as a celebrity, wrote the book himself without the help of ghostwriters.

By Elliot Page,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Pageboy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.

'Can I kiss you?' It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. The…


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