100 books like The Graveyard Book

This book is a longtime favorite of mine. Toni Morrison was a master at blending the personal story and the political, and in this book, she blends the true story of a mother who kills her child to prevent slave catchers from returning the baby to life as a slave.

Morrison’s fictional Sethe is haunted by the ghost of the baby she killed and the memories of her difficult life as a slave. This is one of the novels I return to time after time, both for the beauty of the writing and the portrayal of a mother’s love, guilt, and the lingering impact of slavery.

The ‘zombie apocalypse’ scenario has been used for years by risk management professionals to make the examination of possible societal breakdowns more fun and/or interesting.

By focusing on a hazard people know, like hurricanes or wildfires, audiences come to the discussion with pre-existing biases and, in many cases, first-hand experience. This forces the communicator to counter such bias before getting to key messages.

There’s never been an actual zombie apocalypse (nor is there likely to ever be one…), which means the zombie scenario adequately ‘levels the field’. It forces audiences to think beyond their go-to assumptions and introduces levels of uncertainty and unknown that are typical of major disasters.

This book, written without obvious heroes and heroines, in a documentary style, makes a perfect proxy for a disaster exercise scenario. I also believe it does a great job illustrating how different forms of governance result in different response strategies, which… show more.

While I am a tremendous fan of Daphne DuMaurier’s uncanny short stories, in particular, The Birds and Don’t Look Now, I reserve my greatest love and admiration for her modern Gothic masterpiece Rebecca.

While Alfred Hitchcock’s film version is justifiably a classic, it cannot capture the richness of DuMaurier’s prose nor the powerful first-person perspective of the narrator, the unnamed newlywed of a wealthy widower who finds herself cursed to always be in the shadow of his first wife, the eponymous Rebecca. It also can’t quite evoke the oppressive atmosphere of Manderley, silent and secretive, ancient and beautiful, the gilded cage of a mansion ruled over by a domineering housekeeper, the unforgettable Mrs. Danvers. 

My love for this book started at age ten, when I read it for the first time and couldn’t put it down.

It introduced me to many of the tropes I would later come to love: the big house in the country, secrets from the past, the wise mother-figure. 

Most of all, though, this story about three children who resurrect a dormant walled garden taught me the power of hope. This novel shows us that although seeds and bulbs may look dead, there is a life inside that just needs care and space to flourish.

It’s a beautiful lesson for children and adults alike.

A list of fantasy adventure books filled with fun, magic, and hope would hardly be complete without one entry from The Chronicles of Narnia. And though it’s hard to pick just one, I think we have to go with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

When Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace are swept away into the magical world of Narnia to sail with king Caspian and his ragtag crew across the sea, there is no shortage of adventure. They face many challenges along the way, including the incessant whining of Eustace.

Our protagonists never give up, even in the face of difficult bouts with sea serpents, wizard’s tricks, and dragon curses. And at the end of their journey, they grow into the heroes they were meant to be.

I liked this book, not just because I’m a fan of detective stories, whodunnits, and the like, but more so for the deep dive into the understanding of why the antagonist, Francis, became what he became.

It’s hard to make a character believable when that character does things that, to most of us, are unthinkable, but the author here succeeds and wraps it up into a decent read.

A comment in The Washington Star reads: “No one who reads it will forget it.” That is true. I went through every emotion imaginable from stark horror to utter innocence. The boy, escaping the Holocaust, travels on his own through the Slavic countryside where he discovers the best in people and the horrifying worst. I traveled with him. 

The whimsy and humor of this book make it an easy choice to round out an otherwise serious list! An engrossing story lurks behind the comedy, which is no doubt why this book has transcended generations and cultures to persist as a worldwide fan favorite.

The truth is that we have no idea what humanity’s first encounter with aliens will look like, even if Arthur Dent’s experience with the bureaucratic Vogons is a little more tongue-in-cheek than those in our more “serious” picks.

It’s not just an awesome movie, it’s a book, and it’s got everything I want in a fantasy epic: Pirates, princesses, sword fights, and giants. It’s old-school fantasy at its best.

If you’ve seen the movie, be prepared for some stark differences, but do not lose heart. It’s still a fantastic read where good overcomes evil and true love wins. 

Magic is real. To wield it requires sacrifice.

Its allegiance shifts and changes over time. To hold it, Houses of Magic put on an epic tournament at every Turning, where their best and brightest act as champions in battle. But what the champions don’t know, because their elders have never taught them, is that the magic itself draws from a dark source, and that source is crumbling.

Powerful magician Sydney has emerged from The House of Shadows to fight for a sponsor who wishes to establish his own house. But Sydney has first-hand experience with the darkness.

And she doesn’t want to help restore the establishment. She wants to burn it to the ground.

A fast-moving, gritty, wholly satisfying read.