Love The Milagro Beanfield War? Readers share 80 books like The Milagro Beanfield War...

By John Nichols ,

Here are 80 books that The Milagro Beanfield War fans have personally recommended if you like The Milagro Beanfield War. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Migrations

Meg Serino Author Of Annapurna

From my list on trying to escape your past by going on a journey.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have zero expertise in the climbing world, but I do love to hike and trek in the mountains and just generally be outside in the wilderness or on the water. I’ve hiked up Mount Washington and in New Hampshire, lots of trails in Yosemite and Oregon, and farther afield in Japan, Patagonia, and Nepal. One of the things I love most is how everything falls away when you’re hiking, for example. The calls and emails you’ve yet to return, bills you haven’t paid, issues with your husband or neighbor or a painful conversation with your mom, none of it matters. It’s just you and whatever you’re surrounded by in the moment.

Meg's book list on trying to escape your past by going on a journey

Meg Serino Why Meg loves this book

This book is so hopeful. Painful, yes, and dark in many ways, but in the end, it’s hopeful. We all have a past, and to a lesser or greater extent, we all have suffered, and this book makes me feel like whatever happens, it can be overcome.

I love how this book allows you to travel the world with Franny, the protagonist, and at the same time follow her tragic past as it catches up to her. And this novel moves—not just in geography—but as you learn piece by piece about how she’s suffered and why she’s following the birds to Antarctica. It sounds kind of bizarre and yet it’s all totally believable.  

By Charlotte McConaghy ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'An extraordinary novel... as beautiful and as wrenching as anything I've ever read' Emily St. John Mandel

A dark past. An impossible journey. The will to survive.

Franny Stone is determined to go to the end of the earth, following the last of the Arctic terns on what may be their final migration to Antarctica.

As animal populations plummet, Franny talks her way onto one of the few remaining boats heading south. But as she and the eccentric crew travel further from shore and safety, the dark secrets of Franny's life begin to unspool.

Haunted by love and violence, Franny…


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Book cover of Nate the Texas Story

Nate the Texas Story by Mark Warren,

Nate Champion might be the most heroic figure of America’s Old West ... and yet one of popular history’s best-kept secrets. Now he finally gets his due in this historical novel duology. His humble beginnings in Texas prepare him for a life with horses and cattle. Though a well-known horse…

Book cover of Death Comes for the Archbishop

Ryan McIlvain Author Of Elders

From my list on those in search of faith.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a novelist, essayist, and journalist who’s written extensively about the problems and consolations of faith, about belonging in and out of faith, and about the tribes of what I think of as the In Between. When you’re in between, you’re neither in it nor out of it, whatever “it” might be for you. You bear an “infinity of traces,” as the writer Antonio Gramsci called these formative influences. My first novel looks at these influences directly, while my second one looks at them indirectly. I’m late in the game with a third novel now—a detective story that investigates a murder along with these same themes. 

Ryan's book list on those in search of faith

Ryan McIlvain Why Ryan loves this book

One of my permanent, permanent favorites. Cather’s novel about a pair of French Catholic missionaries in 19th-century New Mexico is a lot of things: a portrait of a complex and life-giving friendship, a “loveship,” if I can borrow from Alice Munro.

It’s also an immersive historical treatment of Catholic proselytizing in the Southwest and a lyric poem about the beauty of that land. It’s smart about the rigors and consolations and the inevitable condescension of missionary work. It’s smart about everything. A perfect book.

By Willa Cather ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Death Comes for the Archbishop as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From one of the most highly acclaimed novelists of the twentieth century—"a truly remarkable book" (The New York Times),an epic—almost mythic—story of a single human life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.

In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, all the while contending with an unforgiving landscape,…


Book cover of Alburquerque

H.L. Cherryholmes Author Of The Reminisce

From my list on set in New Mexico.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised in New Mexico and it’s a part of me. New Mexicans will tell you that it’s impossible to describe its uniqueness, that you must experience it for yourself. That may be partially true, but writers have done a great job incorporating the majesty of the landscape, the earthiness of the people, the eclectic nature of its values, and ultimately the spell it casts. I’ve set quite a few books in New Mexico and have tried to show how these layers fit together for me. Ultimately, it’s called The Land of Enchantment for many reasons and we do our best to share them with our readers. 

H.L.'s book list on set in New Mexico

H.L. Cherryholmes Why H.L. loves this book

I was a fan of Anaya’s well-known novel, Bless Me, Ultima, and was intrigued that this title’s spelling itself was significant, returning the first ‘r’ to the city name a century after it was dropped by a white station owner. Anaya blends fantasy with history, examining the myth of racial purity and offering a different take on being a New Mexican and our connection to the land. He also departs from a familiar depiction of Albuquerque as a sleepy western town and paints it as a vibrant metropolis with all the associated political machinations. Mostly though, I felt a strong connection with the protagonist, an up-and-coming boxer who learns he was adopted and questions the definition of identity. 

By Rudolfo Anaya ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Alburquerque as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is a winner of PEN Center West Award for Fiction. Abran Gonzalez is a homeboy from the barrio, a young boxer whose world is shattered forever the night he is summoned to his mother's deathbed. He learns he is the son of an unknown Mexican man - a man he is desperately compelled to find. His quest will bring him in contact with many unpleasant characters.


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Book cover of Changing Woman: A Novel of the Camp Grant Massacre

Changing Woman by Venetia Hobson Lewis,

Arizona Territory, 1871. Valeria Obregón and her ambitious husband, Raúl, arrive in the raw frontier town of Tucson hoping to find prosperity. Changing Woman, an Apache spirit who represents the natural order of the world and its cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, welcomes Nest Feather, a twelve-year-old Apache girl,…

Book cover of A History of the Jews in New Mexico

H.L. Cherryholmes Author Of The Reminisce

From my list on set in New Mexico.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised in New Mexico and it’s a part of me. New Mexicans will tell you that it’s impossible to describe its uniqueness, that you must experience it for yourself. That may be partially true, but writers have done a great job incorporating the majesty of the landscape, the earthiness of the people, the eclectic nature of its values, and ultimately the spell it casts. I’ve set quite a few books in New Mexico and have tried to show how these layers fit together for me. Ultimately, it’s called The Land of Enchantment for many reasons and we do our best to share them with our readers. 

H.L.'s book list on set in New Mexico

H.L. Cherryholmes Why H.L. loves this book

This is a nonfiction book and typical of New Mexico, as there are whole chapters of its history nobody really knows about. The (probably) first white American woman to come into the territory was a Jewish woman who accompanied her merchant husband and brothers. Even more interesting, merchants and traders weren’t even the first Jewish people - “Crypto-Jews” who were fleeing the inquisition came to New Mexico long before it was part of the US and kept their identity secret to assimilate. This is depicted with a character in Alburquerque and that perfectly encapsulates one of the overriding things about New Mexico and its tales – a deep sense of connectedness, across people, across the land. 

By Henry J. Tobias ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A History of the Jews in New Mexico as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this first history of the Jews in New Mexico--from the colonial period to the present day--the author continuously ties the Jewish experience to the evolution of the societies in which they lived and worked. The book begins with one of the least known but most fascinating aspects of New Mexico Jewry--the crypto-Jews who came north to escape the Mexican Inquisition. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the story is more familiar: German merchants settling in Las Vegas and Santa Fe and then coming to Albuquerque after the railroad arrived. To these accounts the author adds considerable nuance and detail,…


Book cover of Skinwalkers

R Lawson Gamble Author Of The Other

From my list on paranormal and Native American mysticism mystery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am, and always have been, stimulated by a spiritual connection to my world beyond the laws of physics and men. My hiking, climbing, and trail running have taken me to breathless places imbued with auras and presences I don’t understand but readily accept. And I am filled with the same spirituality when performing or listening to music. I have no ego to shun that which I don’t understand, for I know there is so much beyond me. Some authors describe this intangible better than others in their stories; I hope I am among the former.

R Lawson's book list on paranormal and Native American mysticism mystery

R Lawson Gamble Why R Lawson loves this book

I have long been intrigued by the concept of shapeshifters, particularly the Navajo Skinwalker, a practitioner of spiritual arts who can learn to transform into another species while in pursuit of a particular end. I am not alone,  judging from all the ancient legends around the globe. Even today, depictions of shapeshifters are found in literature and on film in many guises. Tony Hillerman takes a deep dive into Navajo lore in this early novel with a close encounter with a suspected “yee naaldlooshii”. Feel the hair rise on your neck!

By Tony Hillerman ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Don’t Miss the AMC television series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, coming this summer! 

From New York Times bestselling author Tony Hillerman, Skinwalkers is the seventh novel featuring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee—a riveting tale of sorcery, secrets, and murder.

Three shotgun blasts rip through the side of Officer Jim Chee’s trailer as the Navajo Tribal Policeman sleeps. He survives, but the inexplicable attack has raised disturbing questions about a lawman once beyond reproach.

Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn wonders why Chee was a target and what connection the assault has to a series of…


Book cover of Prodigal Summer

Rachael Treasure Author Of Milking Time

From my list on Earth lovers and rural regeneration.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on the wild island of Tasmania. I saw the Vietnam War on TV, then went to a farm my father was ‘developing.’ It felt like war. The natural beauty that I’d once played in was destroyed by machines, poisons, and fire. During agricultural college in mainland Australia, I recognized an absence of reverence for Mother Nature. Women were missing from the rural narrative that increasingly held an economics-only mindset when it came to food. I’m a co-founder of Ripple Farm Landscape Healing Hub–a 100-acre farm we’re restoring to natural beauty and producing loved meat and eggs for customers. And I’m a devoted mum, shepherd, and working dog trainer.

Rachael's book list on Earth lovers and rural regeneration

Rachael Treasure Why Rachael loves this book

Divine, divine, divine! This novel taught me so much about the landscape in Appalachia. The female characters were rich and deep. Running throughout the story was the thread of women standing for farming systems that partner with nature versus male characters who want to dominate or decimate.

It was musical and mystical, and I just adored being transported to the cabin in the woods and the rich gardens of the women who knew how Mama Earth rolls. There was also a wonderful exploration of female desire. It was lush and leafy, and I’m so grateful to Barbara for writing this book

By Barbara Kingsolver ,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Prodigal Summer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It is summer in the Appalachian mountains and love, desire and attraction are in the air. Nature, too, it seems, is not immune. From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and interrupts her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself marooned in a strange place where she must declare or…


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Book cover of Bessie

Bessie by Linda Kass,

In the bigoted milieu of 1945, six days after the official end of World War II, Bess Myerson, the daughter of poor Russian immigrants living in the Bronx, remarkably rises to become Miss America, the first —and to date only— Jewish woman to do so. At stake is a $5,000…

Book cover of Greenwood

Eva Silverfine Author Of How to Bury Your Dog

From my list on our connections with the natural environment.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I grew up in New York City, from a young age I was drawn to the natural world, particularly through gardening and camping trips. Eventually I studied biology in college and earned a Master’s researching stream ecology. I also always imagined myself a writer. For years my writing was solely in letters and journals, but during my Master’s I started a novel featuring an immature mayfly in the stream (it was somewhat autobiographical). Ecology is all about the connection of organisms to their environment and to one another, and I think this perspective of connectedness has embedded itself deeply in my writing and my life.

Eva's book list on our connections with the natural environment

Eva Silverfine Why Eva loves this book

I particularly love books that combine the trifecta of engaging story; interesting, complex characters; and good writing with real substance (as in, I stop to think about the content). Greenwood has all of these.

The writing is particularly lyrical—I could fill this space with beautiful quotes. The author takes the reader through four generations of a family, with each generation intimately connected to trees in different ways—from lumbermen to environmental activist to woodcraftsman to botanist.

And as the author “takes a core” through a family tree, the story captures both the characters’ relationships to one another as well as to the world in which they live. I cannot recommend this book enough!

By Michael Christie ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'The truth is that all family lines, from the highest to the lowest, originate somewhere, on some particular day. Even the grandest trees must've once been seeds spun helpless on the wind, and then just meek saplings nosing up from the soil.'

2038. On a remote island off the Pacific coast of British Columbia stands the Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral, one of the world's last forests. Wealthy tourists flock from all corners of the dust-choked globe to see the spectacle and remember what once was. But even as they breathe in the fresh air and pose for photographs amidst the greenery,…


Book cover of Barkskins

Steve Tomasula Author Of Ascension

From my list on the invention of nature.

Why am I passionate about this?

I know a book can change a person’s life because one of my early life-changing events was reading Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. From it, I took away the idea of how a fact is made, not discovered, and how facts, even those as “objective” as those in science, are different in different ages. It’s less a matter of one age being wrong about “Nature,” for example, than it is that a concept like “Nature” emerges out of a scrum of attitudes, technologies, conventions, etc. 

Steve's book list on the invention of nature

Steve Tomasula Why Steve loves this book

Only separated by two years, I think Proulx’s Barkskins and Powers’s Overstory can be thought of as companions to one another. I like how the pun of Powers’s title refers to both the tree canopy that towers over the landscape and the overarching story that all of his sub-stories form as they come together, while I think of Proulx’s Barkskins as the meaty understory.

It opens in Canada’s colonial past when the continent was a vast carpet of old-growth forest. Explorers arrived, shortly followed by French settlers and indentured servants contracted into a kind of slavery to clear-cut the forests. I like how she leads us from this pristine beginning, through the exploitation of the forest and its indigenous dwellers, to the global distribution of lumber. In some ways Overstory picks up where the epic that is Barkskins leaves off.

By Annie Proulx ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017

NOW A MAJOR TELEVISION SERIES

From Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain, comes her masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world's forests.

In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a "seigneur," for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters - barkskins. Rene suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to…


Book cover of Tumble

R.L. Toalson Author Of The First Magnificent Summer

From my list on young female empowerment.

Why am I passionate about this?

I wrestled with big questions as a child, particularly concerning gender inequality. I was aware of the issue as young as 7 years old. I didn’t even feel comfortable challenging the way things were until I was a young adult. Thus began my journey of researching, studying, and embracing women’s rights and gender equality. I feel very passionate about presenting those big questions earlier in the lives of girls, so they start feeling comfortable challenging the places where things don’t make sense, or the areas where inequality still exists. There is a need for more books like these in the market, but I hope you enjoy this list!

R.L.'s book list on young female empowerment

R.L. Toalson Why R.L. loves this book

Addie Ramirez, the main character of Tumble, is the kind of girl who takes charge of her situation—whether it’s searching for her father or meeting new people or speaking her mind about wrestling.

I felt such a personal connection to Addie; she loves her stepdad, but she still wonders about her father and embarks on a journey to find him and get to know him. And along the way, she meets her wrestling family and learns firsthand how powerful women wrestlers can be.

I loved that readers get to see powerful women in a sport traditionally dominated by men!

By Celia C. Perez ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tumble as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

Twelve-year-old Adela "Addie" Ramirez has a big decision to make when her stepfather proposes adoption. Addie loves Alex, the only father figure she's ever known, but with a new half brother due in a few months and a big school theater performance on her mind, everything suddenly feels like it's moving too fast. She has a million questions, and the first is about the young man in the photo she found hidden away in her mother's things.

Addie's sleuthing takes her to a New Mexico ranch, and her world expands to include the legendary Bravos: Rosie and Pancho, her paternal…


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Book cover of Dulcinea

Dulcinea by Ana Veciana-Suarez,

Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, is only 15 when she falls in love with an impoverished poet-solder. Theirs is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes many obstacles until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his bestseller.

By doing so, he unwittingly exposes his muse…

Book cover of Cities of the Plain

Andrew Brininstool Author Of High Desert Blood

From my list on the Land of Enchantment that go beyond Cañon Road and Kachina Dolls.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born in Santa Fe to families with long histories in the southern region of the state. It was my grandfather, Louis Whitlock, a state senator, who headed the legislation that landed Carlsbad this monument of folly.

My childhood was shaped by the reality and beauty of the state. The books I’ve chosen are dear to me because they reflect familial lore. It is a state I love, a state I hope every American visits at least once. Yet much of its reality is obscured by pottery and rugs, Lucchese boots and impressive architecture. These books, I hope, offer a counterbalance, so that anybody touring the state can appreciate its complex culture and history.

Andrew's book list on the Land of Enchantment that go beyond Cañon Road and Kachina Dolls

Andrew Brininstool Why Andrew loves this book

By now, McCarthy is well known for his books on the Southwest.

Cities of the Plain is painfully overlooked. I read it in college as a precocious creative writing major and fell in love because the towns mentioned (Belén, where my grandmother was born, as example) were familiar to me and yet I had no idea these nowhere places of my youth were known to anybody else in the world, to say nothing about their value to any artistic form.

Unlike All the Pretty Horses, Cities of the Plain has zero romanticism to it: it’s a contemporary, hard-driven tale of ranching in the badlands of New Mexico. McCarthy focuses on the pumpjacks and the stench of creosote that encapsulate the southern part of the state.

There’s also a gruesomely funny passage about an Oldsmobile and dozens of jackrabbits. 

By Cormac McCarthy ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cities of the Plain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1994. Environmental issues present a daunting challenge to the international system. The destruction of the tropical rainforest, the Chernobyl explosion and the ozone layer 'hole' all underline the transnational nature of environmental threats and the need for states to act together in order to tackle them. How have such environmental issues entered political agendas in different parts of the world and how has that affected national positions? Can governments ever reconcile their own national interests with the international cooperation needed to deal with transboundary issues such as climate change?

This book traces the history of international environmental…


Book cover of Migrations
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