100 books like The King of Infinite Space

I’ve become a bit of a Hamlet geek in my adult years, including having a framed poster in my house that features the entire text. The passion, for me, comes from the depth and complexity of the story. It sounds like hyperbole, but there really is always something new to discover. Some years ago, I taught Hamlet in a college writing class. That experience really allowed me to dive into the text and much of the attendant criticism. The academic approach opened up whole new worlds of opinions and perspectives for which I’m very grateful.

I’ve become a bit of a Hamlet geek in my adult years, including having a framed poster in my house that features the entire text. The passion, for me, comes from the depth and complexity of the story. It sounds like hyperbole, but there really is always something new to discover. Some years ago, I taught Hamlet in a college writing class. That experience really allowed me to dive into the text and much of the attendant criticism. The academic approach opened up whole new worlds of opinions and perspectives for which I’m very grateful.

Before fan fiction was popular, I would often daydream about the lives of my favorite book characters. Did Jane Eyre gain more confidence from her inheritance? Did Ponyboy find a way to survive his tragic childhood? Decades later, I gravitate toward retellings, often picking them up simply because I like the source material. Still, when I started working on this list, I realized what a daunting task I’d set myself. There are so many! And I haven’t even read two recently lauded titles: Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Percival Everett’s James. So hat in my hand, I present these favorites ranging from serious to light-hearted. 

I’ve become a bit of a Hamlet geek in my adult years, including having a framed poster in my house that features the entire text. The passion, for me, comes from the depth and complexity of the story. It sounds like hyperbole, but there really is always something new to discover. Some years ago, I taught Hamlet in a college writing class. That experience really allowed me to dive into the text and much of the attendant criticism. The academic approach opened up whole new worlds of opinions and perspectives for which I’m very grateful.

In my various professional roles, I help people prepare for a world that does not yet exist. I often talk with students, scholars, politicians, industry leaders, community advocates, and others about how emerging, digital technology changes the world. And yet, technology doesn’t come from nowhere—we make it! And use it! And misuse it! We also sometimes forget that something as simple as fire can be understood as technology or that our imaginations and care for others are the most important technology. The books on this list encourage us to explore building a world that serves all of us—not just some of us. 

When I was starting out as an illustrator, I stumbled into two art director jobs, first at the innovative New York Herald Tribune and then at The New York Times. Working with great journalists gave me the startling idea that a comic strip could have no better subject matter than real life. This led me to create my popular comic strip “Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies,” which ran in The Village Voice and reported on the rowdy New York city of the '70s and ‘80s. Back then, I was alone in combining real-life stories with comics; today many artist-writers use the comic strip format to tell complex and multilayered true stories of the human experience.

Since I began reading, two things have fascinated me the most, that is, history and mystery. My voracious appetite for mystery began with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. History has always been my best subject in school. To me, history isn’t about people, achievements, and dates. It’s about lives lived through the tragedies and triumphs that we all face and can relate to. It is the origin of stories. History doesn’t have to be boring. It can be the greatest and most intriguing story that you have ever read. Mystery is history’s great friend—to convert a huge range of readers into history lovers.

As a child, I listened to scary Korean folklore and then devoured all of Grimm’s fairy tales with their themes of good versus evil, disguise and betrayal, sacrifice, and magic. It’s not surprising that as I grew older, my reading tastes skewed toward darkness, mystery, madness, and the uncanny. There’s a penitential aspect to gothic stories, with their superstitious moralism, often with elements of the supernatural manifesting not as monsters but restless spirits—the repressed ghosts of a location’s history. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of a place absorbing and regurgitating the histories and sins of its occupants, whether it be a town, a house, or both.

I was a reporter for the New York Daily News at the time of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and covered the FDNY in the aftermath of 9/11. Being on the site the day after the attack and following the recovery efforts, I came to know some of the FDNY family members who lost loved ones that day, as well as members of the department, as they struggled to rebuild. The family members’ stories stayed with me long after the attack. I always felt that the story of what happened to the FDNY members killed that day and the story of their family members who wanted answers had not been fully told.

I’ve always been a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy, especially anything involving superheroes or D&D-style adventure. For the longest time, I had to find queer representation through subtle glances and creative readings of characters. I loved these stories for the sci-fi and fantasy elements, but it was frustrating that every love story that came up was straight. It didn’t feel possible for queer love to be a part of a plot, and even when there was a queer character it had a “very special episode” vibe to it. Finally, queer characters are becoming part of the story, and it doesn’t have to be a “big deal.”