Love The Goldfinch? Readers share 100 books like The Goldfinch...

By Donna Tartt ,

Here are 100 books that The Goldfinch fans have personally recommended if you like The Goldfinch. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of The Glass Castle

Ali Smith Author Of The Ballad of Speedball Baby: A Memoir

From my list on New York City subcultures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a native New Yorker whose recent move to the UK gives me both unique insight into a city I lived the hell out of for decades and space and time to look back and wonder what it was all about, like with a lover you still adore but are relieved you’re no longer with. I’ve partied in squats and walked red carpets. I can sniff out a fake-take on this city so many people feel they know long before ever visiting it, and that always offends/bores/turns me off. These books got it right, and I’m thrilled to point more people in their direction.

Ali's book list on New York City subcultures

Ali Smith Why Ali loves this book

While most of the action doesn’t take place in NY, key scenes do and those are generally heartbreaking and speak to a city that allows for new beginnings and fresh starts for all, as well as a place that can swallow you whole.

Written about streets and squats I knew, the sentimental aspect was off the charts for me. But even without that connection, Jeannette’s writing is so moving that it will bring you emotionally into a unique, often hidden world. 

By Jeannette Walls ,

Why should I read it?

26 authors picked The Glass Castle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents.

At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane,…


If you love The Goldfinch...

Ad

Book cover of Feral Maril & Her Little Brother Carol

Feral Maril & Her Little Brother Carol by Leslie Tall Manning,

Winner of the Literary Titan Book Award

Bright but unassuming Marilyn Jones has some grown-up decisions to make, especially after Mama goes to prison for drugs and larceny. With no one to take care of them, Marilyn and her younger, mentally challenged brother, Carol, get tossed into the foster care…

Book cover of A Gentleman in Moscow

Erika Rummel Author Of What They Said About Luisa

From my list on authenticity and truth with a capital T.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professional historian and have published both nonfiction and fiction. I present research in my academic books and spin that research into stories in my novels, but sometimes I wonder whether it doesn’t come out to the same thing–I interpret the evidence in light of my own experiences and look at it through the narrow lens of contemporary values. Is that so very different from making it up? That’s why I like to write (and read) novels that inquire into the nature of our conceptions and raise the question of whether there is such a thing as Truth with a capital T. 

Erika's book list on authenticity and truth with a capital T

Erika Rummel Why Erika loves this book

This book has been criticized for ignoring the brutal aspects of the Bolshevik revolution and giving us only old-world elegance and luxury. Hello? It’s historical FICTION! Instead of facts, the author gives us atmosphere, a charming main character who is being gradually revealed to us.

It made me ask: Did time change him, or was he always that way, and the events brought out his “true” self? It’s a story told in a polished style or, as one reviewer put it, with “a permanently arched eyebrow.” 

By Amor Towles ,

Why should I read it?

43 authors picked A Gentleman in Moscow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and…


Book cover of Where the Crawdads Sing

Melanie Maure Author Of Sisters of Belfast

From my list on women discovering strength through tragedy.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for this topic of women overcoming the odds stems from having worked with powerful, resilient women as a life coach and therapist for the past 15 years. I witness and continue to be inspired by women who surpass what they or those around them believe is possible internally and externally. Women are powerful in unimaginable ways, and I love to read a great story that depicts this truth.

Melanie's book list on women discovering strength through tragedy

Melanie Maure Why Melanie loves this book

Kaya Clark is the wild child I longed to be growing up. Although her family story is tragic and well-explored, how she inhabits her world of nature and allows it to inhabit her is stunning. Once again, she is a young woman who is an outcast who manages to rise above her limitations and those placed on her by society. 

Beyond the incredible storytelling and intriguing plot lines, I was mesmerized by the natural world of the North Carolina marshes, being as much a main character as Kaya herself. The intricate details of the lushness and cruelty of the natural world were incredible. In looking back at my favorite novels, one of the commonalities is the writing’s ability to come alive in my head and to take up a permanent space as much as my own lived memories. This novel is one of those.

By Delia Owens ,

Why should I read it?

57 authors picked Where the Crawdads Sing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…


If you love Donna Tartt...

Ad

Book cover of Hemingway's Goblet

Hemingway's Goblet by Dermot Ross,

Hemingway's Goblet is a rollicking read about a mismatched relationship between a middle-aged commitment-phobic university professor in London and one of his female students, a Korean 15 years younger than him. He is accused of sexually harassing her, but somehow their relationship survives as they join forces to seek to…

Book cover of Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

J.E. Weiner Author Of The Wretched and Undone

From my list on emotional Southern Gothic and Western novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a writer and novelist who comes to storytelling via several curious paths. I am a historian trained in archival research and the collection of oral histories. I also come from a long line of ghost magnets–all of the women in my family have been for generations. And while I am living in blissful exile on the West Coast, my heart remains bound to my childhood home, the Great State of Texas. 

J.E.'s book list on emotional Southern Gothic and Western novels

J.E. Weiner Why J.E. loves this book

This remains one of the most haunting novels I have ever read. I cannot shake the character of Judge Holden, a formidable man both physically and intellectually, who deploys his insidious intellect to justify acts of abject violence seemingly only for the sake of violence itself. I was mesmerized by a world where “all covenants were brittle.” This was no straight-up Western as I had expected. It was something more.

McCarthy pushed the boundaries of the classic Western by challenging the notion that good will ultimately overcome evil and the hero will save the day. There was no hero here, and the day was truly lost to forces beyond the characters’ control, hallmarks of the Southern Gothic tradition. I was hooked on this curious blend of genres!

By Cormac McCarthy ,

Why should I read it?

21 authors picked Blood Meridian as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.


Book cover of The Kite Runner

Susan Doherty Author Of Monday Rent Boy

From my list on trauma resilience, identity, and the human spirit.

Why am I passionate about this?

After completing the first draft of Monday Rent Boy, I was taken aback to discover a common theme running through all of my books: a focus on children in adverse situations. A Secret Music. The Ghost Garden. And now Monday Rent BoyWhat holds paramount importance for me… is tracing the trajectory of the injured child as he or she navigates the journey toward adulthood…And…what does that path look like… what are the factors that help a person rise versus the ones that crush another? The more urgent answer to the question of why write? I came to see that certain subjects need to be written. And hopefully, read. 

Susan's book list on trauma resilience, identity, and the human spirit

Susan Doherty Why Susan loves this book

This novel explores themes of friendship, betrayal, guilt, and redemption against the backdrop of Afghanistan's tumultuous history. The relationship between Amir and Hassan is central, and the story delves into the power of mentorship and the possibility of atonement.

I could see, taste, and hear the sentences. The characters have stayed alive in my mind for years. One of my top ten books. Timeless. Breath-taking.

By Khaled Hosseini ,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Kite Runner as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.


Book cover of To Kill a Mockingbird

Mary Kathleen Mehuron Author Of Down on the South Beach Drag

From my list on coming-of-age stories that simmer with emotion and are set in a fascinating time and place.

Why am I passionate about this?

Until I was ten years old, my family lived less than two miles from the ocean at the Jersey Shore. Even after my parents moved us up to a fancier neighborhood in North Jersey, they rented vacation houses at the beach there in the summer. To me, the most enthralling place at the shore was Asbury Park, with its carnival life on the boardwalk and expansive music scene. 1972 was the year before a certain musician became a rock star—a year that felt like the whole scene was about to explode. I was there. It was a thrilling time that I wanted to share with my readers.

Mary's book list on coming-of-age stories that simmer with emotion and are set in a fascinating time and place

Mary Kathleen Mehuron Why Mary loves this book

This book takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during 1933–1935. This time period was important in American history for two reasons: the Great Depression and the Jim Crow era.

The Great Depression is illustrated in the poverty that affects all of the residents of the fictional town. Even the Finches, who are the main characters, are better off than many others,  but are ultimately poor. The years depicted in the novel also fall within the much longer period of time that modern historians often refer to as the Jim Crow era. This term describes the time in the United States when Black people could no longer be held in slavery, but where laws limited their social, political, and economic possibilities. When the author Harper Lee wrote this novel in the late 1950s, the Great Depression was over, but Jim Crow laws were still present in parts of the American South. 

This…

By Harper Lee ,

Why should I read it?

45 authors picked To Kill a Mockingbird as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'

Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…


If you love The Goldfinch...

Ad

Book cover of The Ballad of Falling Rock

The Ballad of Falling Rock by Jordan Dotson,

Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…

Book cover of In the Woods

Kirk Russell Author Of Wolf Tracks

From my list on strong mood and vibe from the first page.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have just written my twelfth novel and quite possibly my last. I’ve returned to where my heart is. My first five crime novels came about through the generous help of some undercover California wildlife agents. Now, in a sense, I’m back where I started, except that my latest book is also a love story. We make plenty of mistakes in life, some much worse than others. My characters deal with them in their own way. I can understand that, and I like that. And hey, there’s always the possibility of redemption.

Kirk's book list on strong mood and vibe from the first page

Kirk Russell Why Kirk loves this book

I remember summers growing up when we were out of the house seeking freedom from parents as we streamed toward our teenage years, so I can identify with this story’s start. We’d follow deer trails through brush and trees to spots up in the hills we’d claimed as our own. This book begins with a prologue made vivid with three children and Tana French’s gorgeous prose.

The children go up and over a rock wall and into “A summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silk skin blue…your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat…” “…long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways…” and the haunted last sentence, “These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer.”

By Tana French ,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked In the Woods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The bestselling debut, with over a million copies sold, that launched Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).

"Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting." -The New York Times

Now airing as a Starz series.

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only…


Book cover of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art

Nicholas Agar Author Of Dialogues on Human Enhancement

From my list on how technology could change humanity.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a New Zealand philosopher who’s written a lot about the human enhancement debate. Philosophers are well known for their willingness to defend unpopular conclusions against all critics. Sometimes they engage in what I call “philosophical shit-stirring". You may think that’s a profanity but it’s actually a technical term. I’ve advocated some deliberately unpopular shit-stirring conclusions in the past. One of these is liberal eugenics - the idea that you can turn an evil like eugenics into something good by prefacing it with the feel-good term “liberal”. These dialogues are the beginning of a philosophical stock-take on what we should or might become.

Nicholas' book list on how technology could change humanity

Nicholas Agar Why Nicholas loves this book

There’s a lot of thoughtless talk by techno-optimistic philosophers about futures in which we all get to become superintelligent and live for thousands of years if we can apply the right tech to ourselves.

Sykes describes fascinating research on the Neanderthals, beings who were almost, but not quite, us. Reading her book, I wondered what it might have been like to grow up as the child of a union between a Homo sapiens and a Neanderthal. I found this especially useful when we consider future relationships between people determined to remain human and others who want tech to make them posthuman ASAP.

There’s so much information to gleen from Sykes to help us guess at how posthumans might treat beings whom they view as different and possibly inferior.

By Rebecca Wragg Sykes ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

** WINNER OF THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2021 ** 'Beautiful, evocative, authoritative.' Professor Brian Cox 'Important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity.' Yuval Noah Harari Kindred is the definitive guide to the Neanderthals. Since their discovery more than 160 years ago, Neanderthals have metamorphosed from the losers of the human family tree to A-list hominins. Rebecca Wragg Sykes uses her experience at the cutting-edge of Palaeolithic research to share our new understanding of Neanderthals, shoving aside cliches of rag-clad brutes in an icy wasteland. She reveals them…


Book cover of The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean

Martha LaGuardia-Kotite Author Of Changing the Rules of Engagement: Inspiring Stories of Courage and Leadership from Women in the Military

From my list on finding inspiration that can change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love adventure—I'm an adventurist. I love escaping—through creative writing and the written word! And, I love the sea—I have served over 30 years in the US Coast Guard at sea and ashore and recently drove Zodiacs in Alaska and Norway for Seabourn Cruise ships. Since publishing my first book, So Others May Live about heroic US Coast Guard rescue swimmers and aircrews  (read by Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher who both told me they loved my book and used it for their roles in film, The Guardian), I have become a TEDx speaker and coach, award-winning author and rose to the senior rank of captain in the USCG. 

Martha's book list on finding inspiration that can change your life

Martha LaGuardia-Kotite Why Martha loves this book

This is an adventure! Turn the pages of this book to find waves and many kinds of waves: rogue, freak, and giant waves of the ocean and the people who try to surf them. I am a retired US Coast Guard officer and sailed many ships at sea. As a mariner we know of or have seen waves, some of them tossing our ships in the middle of the night as we try to sail home. Any number of ships have vanished in the ocean, quickly, with no time to put out an SOS call for help. This is a great book to learn more while having an adventure reading it from the safety of your chair.

By Susan Casey ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The have long been mariners' tales of 100-foot rogue waves - gargantuan monsters that sink super-tankers in the blink of an eye.

But waves that high violate the laws of physics, so science has dismissed them as myth. Until now.

In February 2000 the research ship, RRS Discovery, was trapped by a vortex of mammoth waves in the North Atlantic. Amazingly the ship survived and its state-of-the-art equipment registered waves nearing 100-feet. Something scary is brewing in the planet's waters. And with 72% of earth covered by sea, this is serious business.

Cut to Maui, Hawaii, a surf mecca where…


If you love Donna Tartt...

Ad

Book cover of Unwelcome

Unwelcome by Quincy Carroll,

In the years following his graduation from college, Cole Chen has been back and forth between the U.S. and China, struggling to navigate his transition into adulthood. Estranged from his parents, he returns to Hunan province to work for his friends, while also attempting to write a memoir based on…

Book cover of Prep

Caroline Wolff Author Of The Wayside

From my list on for adults about being a teenager.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a writer, I’ve always been drawn to exploring the teenage experience. Maybe that’s because my experiences in high school and college were rife with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows—everything was intensely beautiful and painful at once. That tension played a major role in my self-discovery process, and story-wise, it makes for a compelling character. But in a lot of literature, I find the depiction of teenage characters to be either sensationalized or infantilizing, melodramatic, or unconvincingly flat. When writing my own adolescent subjects in The Wayside, I turned often toward the rich, complex characters in the stories here. 

Caroline's book list on for adults about being a teenager

Caroline Wolff Why Caroline loves this book

Along with Anthropology of an American Girl, this is one of the books that made me want to become a writer. More specifically, it opened my eyes to what a writer can do with a teenage subject.

The story follows a prep-school student, Lee, but Sittenfeld handles her experience with all the nuance of “adult” subjects. I also admire how Sittenfeld captures the labyrinthine social politics of an elite boarding school and comments on class and race hierarchies without ever feeling didactic.

I think people mistake this book as YA—I certainly did when I first picked it up as a thirteen-year-old—but don’t be fooled by that candy-colored ribbon belt on the cover. This is as complex a novel as they come.     

By Curtis Sittenfeld ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.…


Book cover of The Glass Castle
Book cover of A Gentleman in Moscow
Book cover of Where the Crawdads Sing

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

2,355

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in New York State, loss, and artists?

New York State 591 books
Loss 133 books
Artists 106 books