Fans pick 100 books like The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman

It always seemed unfair to me that not only do we get just one life, but we only get to live it once. So I fell in love with this novel from the moment I read its premise: Ursula Todd is born and dies and is born again… and again… and again.

I love that she doesn’t remember her previous lives except as vague intuitions that help her avoid making the same mistakes twice–and I also love that avoiding those mistakes often means she makes other (often fatal) mistakes. I found this book funny, moving, and thought-provoking, but what I love most about it is the way its down-to-earth, realistic style allowed me to fully inhabit the impossible conceit at its heart. 

Being someone who often ponders life's "what ifs," I was quick to snap this novel up. The plot revolves around a suicidal woman, Nora Seed, who finds herself in a mysterious library between life and death, where each book serves as a portal to a different version of her life had she made alternative choices.

Though the story shares thematic elements with traditional time travel narratives—such as the exploration of alternate realities—it’s not time travel in the strictest sense. Instead, it has a dreamlike quality that offers a clever means to explore the deeply personal and relatable concept of self-discovery.

As Nora samples all the different lives she could’ve lived, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own life choices and the paths I didn't take…and be grateful for the ones I did.

Over the years, I’ve read hundreds, maybe thousands of books. Many of them have moved, stretched, and entertained me, but there are only a few I wandered into and realized early on that I would not get out of this one unchanged.

The author's inventiveness is astonishing, managing to create not one new world we inhabit but three, all deftly interconnected by the unlikely thread of a simple fable passed from generation to generation. Perhaps most striking to me is the sheer power of the book, its capacity to take us places and share lives we would otherwise never dreamed of.

While the mysterious document—itself a fascinating story within a story—wends its way through a narrative that spans a thousand years, its message is less important than the lives it touches.

And what lives. Each character is drawn so vividly and infused with such essential, defining human traits that we… show more.

Okay, you got me. This is not a book of fiction, although cynics may disagree. It’s a book of quantum possibility based on hard science and evolved visionary theory.

Like all of my stories, Biocentrism places consciousness at the center of its premise, presenting an important new human/world/cosmic view of well, everything. Like its author, Robert Lanza, I believe that consciousness is the essential fabric of mind, soul, and matter. Everything arises from it. Nothing is conceived without it.

The characters in my stories are always guided toward the higher aspects of their awareness in order to create new realities. Waking up to the understanding of a consciousness-centric existence changes not only us, but everything we know. Everything we thought we knew. And most importantly, forms the basis of everything we do from this point forward.

Biocentrism, as well as Lanza’s other books, provide a scientific foundation for what… show more.

I want to live inside Ross Montgomery’s head. It seems full of magical people and places, including a school janitor’s room filled with huge feuding civilizations! The story hops masterfully from the school janitor to the tyrannical Headmaster to the story’s brilliant ten-year-old protagonist Max, without missing a beat. Max is deaf, which doesn’t need to be an issue, if people can just make a few small accommodations to help him fit in. But, instead, the horrible Head treats him like some kind of strange school mascot, constantly singling him out for special attention.

Max and the Millions seamlessly combines action, mystery, struggles with hearing aids, and a warning about the abuse of power. All with a sense of the surreal that will have you sniggering throughout.

“Max was hiding in a cupboard
He usually hid in the toilets, but they’d all exploded that morning – again – and Mr.… show more.

All the characters in this book felt totally real and the situations they find themselves in and live through are honest.  And I’m not just talking about the main characters here – all the supporting characters have their own personalities and don’t resort to stereotypes as shorthand.  The romance developed organically and felt like something healthy that both Josh and Skylar needed in order to really accept who they are.

Though it came out in the Summer of 2022, and had a headstart on the other books on my list, Just Care is in conversation with the rest of this list, and is just as relevant to our current moment, when we might agree that we have a crisis of care. Nishida shows that care dynamics exist within a brutal social order that determines who survives and who deteriorates. Along with the other books on this list, the research methods are creatively mixed here, with interviews, focus groups, and participant observation with care workers and people with disabilities. Just Care documents how people with disabilities work together to reimagine care. We are all enmeshed in a healthcare industry with giant cracks and fissures exposed by the pandemic, and in which we will all move between caregiving, receiving, or both. Read Just Care to better understand imbalances in care, as well… show more.

This is an anthology for teens that explores disability from a fictional lens, so that it entertains as it teaches tolerance and compassion. Each short story’s author lives with a disability and writes about first loves, friendship, hardship, and adventure. Unbroken is for teen readers to step into the shoes of teens with disabilities so that they can understand other experiences besides their own. Understanding differences and recognizing one’s own positionality and privilege helps teen find their own agency, purpose, and empowered hope for the future. 

12-year-old Catherine’s feelings toward her younger, autistic brother are complicated. She’s protective of him and also appears to be embarrassed by his behaviour. All she wants is a “normal” life. When she becomes friends with a paraplegic boy she’s forced to think about what “normal” really means. This book is hopeful, humourous, thoughtful, and explores what it means to interact with someone who is neurodivergent. The author is the mother of a child with autism and the complex relationships and friendships in the book felt real and captured the mixed-up emotions of middle-graders. 

Alice Wong is an incredible writer and self-advocate and has put together an anthology of writers who share first-person experiences through. Variety of formats, including essays and interviews. It is eye-opening for anyone who is not disabled and also presents all of the work that our society needs to do to create accessibility and disability justice.