Here are 74 books that The Loop fans have personally recommended if you like
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All my life, some of my best friends have been animals, especially dogs and horses. As a sensitive kid who wore her emotions on her sleeve and who was constantly worried about pleasing parents, teachers, and friends, my animal friends felt like a source of unconditional love where I could let my guard down, just be myself, and not worry about being judged. The books I recommended all include extraordinary animal friendships. Four of the five are narrated or partially narrated by the animals themselves and are what inspired me to try my hand at writing a book for kids told from a dog’s point of view.
I love this book because of Enzo, the canine narrator. In fact, he may be my favorite narrator of all time. He is one of those narrators I would love to be friends with or who I would love to have as a professor or a spiritual guide.
The first time I tried reading it I put it down because I ugly-cried in the first chapter when Enzo recounted the story of how he planned to simplify his beloved human’s life. Thankfully, a trusted friend convinced me to give it another try because it’s now one of my all-time favorite books. Coming from an English teacher of twenty plus years, who reads a lot of good books, I think that's pretty high praise.
Yes, I cried a lot in this one, too, but I also laughed and did not want to leave Enzo or the humans he loved so dearly…
Soon to be a major motion picture, this heart-warming and inspirational tale follows Enzo, a loyal family dog, tells the story of his human family, how they nearly fell apart, and what he did to bring them back together.
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: he thinks and feels in nearly human ways. He has educated himself by watching extensive television, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo realizes that racing is a metaphor: that by applying the techniques a driver would apply on…
I’m a former independent publisher and current writer of memoir and fiction. My degree was in zoology (animal biology), which got me my first job in educational publishing. After a solid career in textbooks, I switched over to trade publishing and finally writing. I may have left the "hard science" behind, but I continue to be fascinated by human and animal behavior, which shows up in my reading and writing.
The animal is a spunky blind cat. The human is his adoptive mother who can’t resist adding the three-week-old kitten to her household of two other cats while trying to heal from a recent breakup. A memoir with a cool twist. You never know when you adopt a pet, how its personality will unfold; it was fun to read how memoirist Cooper struck paydirt with Homer.
The last thing Gwen Cooper wanted was another cat. She already had two, not to mention a phenomenally underpaying job and a recently broken heart. But Homer was no ordinary cat. He was a three week old, abandoned, eyeless kitten and Gwen was unable to resist his charm. It was love at first sight.
Homer, tagged as an 'underachiever' from day one, quickly proved his doubters wrong revealing himself to be a tiny dare devil with a giant heart and a passion for adventure. The kitten they said would never be as independent or as playful as the other cats…
I’m a former independent publisher and current writer of memoir and fiction. My degree was in zoology (animal biology), which got me my first job in educational publishing. After a solid career in textbooks, I switched over to trade publishing and finally writing. I may have left the "hard science" behind, but I continue to be fascinated by human and animal behavior, which shows up in my reading and writing.
The animal is a number of racehorses. The human is a collection of owners, trainers, jockeys, and more, yielding a comprehensive look at human and animal behavior in the horse racing industry. A strong, intimate novel. I used to ride but never very well, and I’ve always wondered what a horse’s “thoughts” involved. Author Smiley gave me a feel for that as she applied her own assumptions to one horse in particular.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
"A WISE, SPIRITED NOVEL . . . [IN WHICH] SMILEY PLUMBS THE WONDROUSLY STRANGE WORLD OF HORSE RACING." --People
"ONE OF THE PREMIER NOVELISTS OF HER GENERATION, possessed of a mastery of craft and an uncompromising vision that grow more powerful with each book . . . Racing's eclectic mix of classes and personalities provides Smiley with fertile soil . . . Expertly juggling storylines, she investigates the sexual, social, psychological, and spiritual problems of wealthy owners, working-class bettors, trainers on the edge of financial ruin, and, in a typically bold…
I’m a former independent publisher and current writer of memoir and fiction. My degree was in zoology (animal biology), which got me my first job in educational publishing. After a solid career in textbooks, I switched over to trade publishing and finally writing. I may have left the "hard science" behind, but I continue to be fascinated by human and animal behavior, which shows up in my reading and writing.
The animal is a wild pack of gray wolves. Also a dog. The human is a capable and complex fifty-year-old divorcee who is determined not to let politics defeat the wilderness in her state of Maine. A vibrant and educational novel. Though I live in Maine part-time, I’m an indoorsy type. Author Neily is an outdoorsy type, and she proves it with her plots, settings, and characters.
Winner: Mystery Writers of America McCloy Award. National finalist: Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest.
Cassandra Patton Conover is about to become an outlaw. Searching for her wayward dog in Maine’s dense woods, she finds her best friend Shannon crushed under a tree. Then she finds tracks larger than any animal she knows and a mystery only wild animals can help her solve.
Before she can absorb the loss of her friend, Patton is hired to guide a surly reporter who suspects extinct wolves have returned to Maine, but the forest has too many agendas. A billionaire hopes wolves…
As a child, I received an electronic typewriter as a gift and immediately got to work on a story about a family living on an island. Even at ten, I recognized the power of islands, with their built-in problems of isolation and rich possibilities for metaphors. So it only made sense I’d one day publish a book set on one. If you’re like me and can’t resist books with island settings, you’ll love these book recommendations. Each island in this collection has its own personality that becomes a character of its own, and none of these books could exist in the same way without their unique settings.
I’m a school librarian, so I couldn’t pass up a book about a librarian who works in an island school! This is set on Galveston Island, and the Texas culture there definitely brings its own flavor to the story.
The friendly community feel of the school and town really appealed to me and gave this book a cozy dimension despite its darker themes. A new principal arrives and immediately begins ruining the happy librarian’s life with new rules that she fights at every step—so naturally, the two begin to fall in love. I loved the animals in this book. I couldn’t stop smiling when I finished this one.
Samantha Casey is a school librarian who loves her job, the kids, and her school family with passion and joy for living. But she wasn't always that way. Duncan Carpenter is the new school principal who lives by rules and regulations, guided by the knowledge that bad things can happen. But he wasn't always that way.
And Sam knows it. Because she knew him before - at another school, in a different life. Back then, she loved him - but she was invisible. To him. To everyone. Even to herself. She escaped to a new school, a new job, a…
I have spent over twenty years over (fifteen in Texas) recommending crime fiction as a bookseller in a couple of prominent stores. Texas and its writers have always fascinated me. Now that I get to call myself one, I am connected more to the genre literature of my adopted state and have an insider's view as both writer and resident.
The first in Locke’s Highway 59 series, featuring African American Texas ranger Darren Matthews involving two bodies one black, one white that wash up in a small East Texas town.
The story combines procedural, western, and Southern gothic to give an entertaining, human, yet unflinching look at race both past and present. This book enlightened me on how much African Americans contribute to what we call Texas culture.
Waterstones' Thriller of the Month June 2020 Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2020 A Sunday Times Book of the Year 'Political crime fiction of the highest order' Sunday Times
Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; instead he found himself all alone, adrift on the vastness of Caddo Lake. A sudden noise - and all goes dark. Ranger Darren Mathews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his…
I’ve spent my life recreating myself as many times as Madonna. If things aren’t working, I move on to something new. I’ll go to classes, learn something else, change careers, and struggle the whole way as I look for pieces of life that fit the puzzle of me. It takes me a lot longer to read so when I try to diversify my bookshelf and don’t always stick to my genre (as the professionals tell an author to do). What I “stick to” is finding female characters who struggle and want to give up, but somehow, something deep inside them makes them move forward one step at a time.
The China Bayles series by Susan Wittig-Albert introduced me to characters who are brave without being superpowered.
China Bayles is a female protagonist who is strong-willed and intelligent. The stories about her never emphasize her looks other than describing things that would be overlooked on television.
She’s left her job as a Texas attorney and runs an herb shop (it expands in later books). She’s more likely to have dirt under her nails and sneakers on her feet rather than a fresh mani-pedi with stilettos for superhero-style espionage.
China is surrounded by a tight group of loved ones. These are characters that go through troubles. They support each other. The series gives middle-aged people something to embrace when typical pop culture never lets anyone age.
After reading some China Bayles stories, I noticed myself doing new things like planting small porch pots of pansies and herbs. With small steps come…
Nominated for both an Agatha and an Anthony Award, Susan Wittig Albert's novels featuring ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles have won acclaim for their rich characterization and witty, suspenseful stories of crime and passion in small-town Texas.
Now, when China's friend Jo dies of an apparent suicide, China looks behind the quaint facade of Pecan Springs and takes a suspicious look at everyone. And though she finds lots of friendly faces, China is sure that one of them hides the heart of a killer.
I’m just a guy, a normal guy who enjoys thinking and writing about things that can nudge humanity along towards peace. If everybody thought just a little bit about it, we’d have it.
I love this story! It’s a wonderful romp through the lives of the characters, characters who are like everyday people that we could know.
It’s at once bizarre yet relatable, imaginative yet real, and just all-around fantastic. This is a story that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first time and one that I would read again.
This is one of McMurtry's most memorable novels - the basis for the film of the same name. Set in a small, dusty Texas town, it introduces Jacy, Duane and Sonny, teenagers stumbling towards adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love.
It would be fair to say that the deconstruction has firmly taken hold of the Western genre in movies. But while an appreciation of Sergio Leone is omnipresent to the point of cliché for cinema buffs, in literature, Louis L’Amor, Zane Grey, and William W. Johnstone reign supreme. Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic Western horrors being the exception that makes the rule.
But Western books have their own subversion, and I wanted to spotlight those. The men’s adventure, the pulp fiction, the outright smut. These are the books that inspired my own novel, A Man Called Bone, and I hope it does right by its muses.
To quote Wernher von Braun, “research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.” In that spirit, I should mention I wasn’t just riffing off yellowed old paperbacks, but doing research into the specific setting and time period of my own book. Although this is a case where the research didn’t necessarily find its way into the first book, but was something I earmarked for a future installment. Nonetheless, The Texas Indians is a good read, giving a comprehensive overview of the Indigenous history of the region and providing many avenues for further research as I write the next book in the series.
During an excavation in the 1950s, archaeologists discovered the bones of a prehistoric woman in Midland County, Texas, and dubbed her "Midland Minnie." Some believed her age to be between twenty thousand and thirty-seven thousand years, making her remains the oldest ever found in the Western Hemisphere. While the accuracy of these dates remains disputed, the find, along with countiess others, demonstrates the wealth of human history that is buried beneath Texas soil. By the time the Europeans arrived in Texas in 1528, Native Texans included the mound-building Caddos of East Texas; the Karankawas and Atakapas who fished the Texas…
I have been reading, researching, writing, and teaching Civil War military history for nearly thirty years. I first became interested in soldiers and their experiences as a teen, and went on to earn a PhD in American History at the University of Georgia. I’ve always been fascinated by the anti-hero, and the ways in which everyday people coped (or failed to cope) with this violent conflict. I am currently writing a book about regiments accused of cowardice and how those searing allegations cast a shadow over their military record. From 2010-2015, I served as editor of the scholarly journal Civil War History, and I was recently elected President of the Society for Civil War Historians (2022-2024).
Ural tackles a unit history, but this time a brigade and one of the most famous ones: Hood’s Texans. She showcases not just why and how they became renowned for their fighting effectiveness, but how these men—white southerners—were unapologetic in their support of slavery and the Confederacy. It is “new military history” at its best—combining astute military analysis with social and cultural understandings of the people and the times in which they lived.
One of the most effective units to fight on either side of the Civil War, the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia served under Robert E. Lee from the Seven Days Battles in 1862 to the surrender at Appomattox in 1865. In Hood's Texas Brigade, Susannah J. Ural presents a nontraditional unit history that traces the experiences of these soldiers and their families to gauge the war's effect on them and to understand their role in the white South's struggle for independence.
According to Ural, several factors contributed to the Texas Brigade's extraordinary success: the unit's strong self-identity…
