Here are 100 books that The Most Honoured Profession fans have personally recommended if you like
The Most Honoured Profession.
Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Foreign cultures have always intrigued me. I am a Midwesterner who lived for several years in Latin America, teaching English and later doing field work in anthropology. As a young woman, I lived through a violent coup d’état in Chile, and I drew on that experience when I later wrote about political upheaval in Guatemala. A Ph.D. in anthropology gave me the opportunity to spend time in Guatemala and Mexico, some of it in Mayan towns. My love of historical fiction stems from my desire to enter and understand other worlds, and I am grateful to authors who spin their magic to bring far-off places and times to life.
Nobilissimaswept me into a time of historical upheaval--the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. And I watched events unfold through the eyes of a real historical figure, Placidia, sister to the outrageously incompetent Roman emperor, and an influential leader in her own right. This fast-paced, well-researched novel begins with the city of Rome encircled by Germanic invaders. Soon, Placidia is abducted by the Goths, with astonishing consequences. Bedford portrays Placidia as a warm person, loyal to her friends and followers, but also as a leader capable of making hard decisions, and I cheered for her as she steered a survival course for her beloved Roman Empire. By the end, I couldn’t help wishing that history might have turned out differently.
Placidia seems destined to live in the shadow of her brother, the Emperor, until the night in 410AD when the Visigoths launch a vicious attack on Rome and she is taken hostage. Forced to march with the enemy on a perilous journey through Italy and the far reaches of the Roman Empire, she relies on her wits and determination to survive. Overcoming imprisonment, violence, and the treacherous quicksands of Roman politics, Placidia proves to be a skillful diplomat and leader, building alliances with generals, kings and popes.
This exciting, heart-stirring story celebrates a woman’s unbreakable will and rise to power…
I’ve loved history since my grandfather told me tales about my ancestors and their exploits. I haunted libraries, reading up on whatever current era I had a passion for: Roman, medieval England, American Civil War, etc. but I was always disappointed that little or no space was given to women’s stories. They had to have existed or all those famous men wouldn’t have been born. It took some digging and a feminist revolution, but finally remarkable women’s lives began to surface in academia and I now turn their stories into popular fiction. I hope these recommendations help readers learn about awesome women who didn’t make it into the history books. Enjoy!
While researching the fifth century for my first novel, I found a trio of powerful women who became the protagonists in my historical novel series. Roman Princess Galla Placidia was taken hostage by the Goths when they sacked Rome in 410. She returned to court to rule during the twilight of the Western Roman Empire. Empress Placidia held the empire together against rebel generals and ravaging hordes of barbarians.
Her long life was filled with romance, danger, political intrigue, and inevitable loss. Her tale is chronicled in this “biographical essay” which is over 300 pages of readable scholarly work. This book is close to my heart because I had to physically go to the New York Public Library and take notes before I found a used print copy. Thank you NYPL!
Like many who carry over childish curiosity into adulthood, I'm attracted to forbidden places. I trespass. When I heard that a portion of South Africa’s coast was owned by the De Beers conglomerate and closed to the public for nearly 80 years, plunging the local communities into mysterious isolation, I became obsessed with visiting the place. Afterward, I began studying carrier pigeons—the amazing flying things that folks use to smuggle diamonds out of the mines. I wrote a book about this, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers. I'm also the author of nonfiction books about the first-ever photograph of the giant squid, working on a medical marijuana farm, and American food culture.
Valeria Luiselli dissects the odd systems and networks of our world’s cities and reveals in their hidden corners and corridors strange and magical identities. Luiselli’s essays further interrogate a city’s relationship to the bodies, cultures, artifacts, and languages that inhabit its spaces. In the essay, “Flying Home,” Luiselli journeys to Mexico City, the place of her birth, and, staring out of her airplane window, considers the city’s layout from this great height. This act of “mapping” according to her extraordinary vantage (suspended in flight), allows for a greater, incantatory meditation on our various perceptions of “home,” and how said perceptions depend as much on the imagination and on ephemeral memories as they do on reality.
Luiselli's essays (originally published in Mexico) have been released to great acclaim abroad and has been translated for and published in the UK, Italy, Germany, and The Netherlands Alma Guillermoprieto called Luiselli "one of the most important new voices in Mexican writing" at BEA and Luiselli is similarly known to and beloved by Latin American writers and venues including PEN America, the Americas Society, and the Mexican Cultural Institute Luiselli's work is well known to bilingual Spanish language readers (including invitations to appear at Instituto Cervantes in Chicago and the Spanish language bookclub at McNally Jackson) Luiselli is an engaging…
Writing my history of the 1746 earthquake and tsunami that walloped much of Peru taught me that disasters serve as great entryways into society. They not only provide a snapshot (today's selfie) of where people were and what they were doing at a given moment (think Pompei) but also bring to light and even accentuate social and political tensions. I have lived my adult life between Peru and California and have experienced plenty of earthquakes. I continue to teach on "natural" disasters and have begun a project on the 1600 Huaynaputina volcano that affected the global climate.
This book showcases the extraordinary writing of the novelist and journalist Elena Poniatowska. She weaves together the voices of multiple journalists, her own reflections, and above all the testimonies of dozens of survivors of the two earthquakes that battered Mexico City and surrounding areas on September 19 and 20, 1985. It is both a moving report of people's suffering as well as a stirring portrait of how common people stepped in and created search and rescue teams and offered relief when government efforts failed. Poniatowska masterfully captures what many historians consider a key before and after moment in modern Mexican history.
In September 19, 1985, a powerful earthquake hit Mexico City in the early morning hours. As the city collapses, the government fails to respond. Long a voice of social conscience, prominent Mexican journalist, Elena Poniatowska chronicles the disintegration of the city's physical and social structure, the widespread grassroots organizing against government corruption and incompetence, and the reliency of the human spirit. As a transformative moment in the life of Mexican society, the earthquake is as much a component of the country's current crisis as the 1982 debt crisis, the problematic economic of the last ten years, and the recent elections.…
Ever since I was a little guy, I've been told that I complicate things unnecessarily. I overthink and over-communicate, and often, my feelings are outsized to the situation. These are not things I do on purpose, but involuntary, like a sneeze or the way you reflexively clench with cuteness aggression when you see a grizzly bear’s little ears, even though you know it can hurt and eat and kill you. I love to find books with narrators who seemingly share this affliction. It makes me feel less alone, but more importantly, I love to see how other people's Rube Goldberg machines function.
I didn't realize a book could get the zoomies. América del Norte has instilled in me such great wonder and vicious prose envy that I may never recover. Rambunctious, bombastic, and sprawling, this work of autofiction left me saying things like, “No way!” and “What the hell?!” out loud like a complete buffoon. Sometimes because of the story and sometimes because of the audacity of the sentence structures.
Medina Mora weaves history, literature, politics, translation, and much more into a grand chronicle. Amid devastating historical narratives and global tragedy, I still laughed out loud at some parts and startled my little cat, who then also got the zoomies.
Moving between New York City, Mexico City, and Iowa City, a young member of the Mexican elite sees his life splinter in a centuries-spanning debut that blends the Latin American traditions of Roberto Bolaño and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of US writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole.
Sebastián lived a childhood of privilege in Mexico City. Now in his twenties, he has a degree from Yale, an American girlfriend, and a slot in the University of Iowa’s MFA program.
But Sebastián’s life is shaken by the Trump administration’s restrictions on immigrants, his mother’s terminal cancer, the cracks in…
I love learning about history, and the more I learn, the more I appreciate my place in this world. While military history, particularly from pre-WW1 to the end of WW2, was what made me first plant my nose in a book, I can geek out on pretty much any historical period: the rise of human civilization, Rome, the conquest of the New World, the development of airplanes. But it’s the personal element that most draws me in, and the fact that we humans remain fundamentally the same in how we cope with another through the ages. It’s through fiction that we see the past in a way that makes sense.
I’ve tried several times to understand the Mexican Revolution, with its cast of martyrs and rouges scrambling in a violent tornado of noble intentions and bloody treachery. Nava artfully demonstrates his chops as a writer by paring this seemingly incomprehensible sweep of Mexican history into an accessible and compelling narrative.
His characters are complicated and nuanced—Nava gives us no easy answers—and we watch them flail for salvation and fleeting promises even as society collapses around them.
In the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Diaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic.
Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilan. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe…
I started writing my debut novel Kismet during the 2020 covid lockdown. I was quarantining in my small NYC apartment and, like many, wishing I could be anywhere else. Enter: the power of books. I’ve always loved reading for how it transports you around the world. My novel takes place in the eponymous sun-soaked beach town of Kismet, Fire Island, and writing it offered an escape. It reminded me of how reading books like below felt like embarking on my very own magical getaway, from Positano or London, to Alaska or Palm Springs, all from the comfort of home. I hope you find similar adventure in these novels’ pages.
This is one of those books that I started and couldn’t stop until I finished reading.
It’s a charming, romantic, jet-setting story about two strangers who win a radio contest for a trip around the world. The only problem? The two couldn’t be more different.
With all the favorite elements of a second chance (and forced proximity) romance story, set against the international and every-changing backdrops (from Sydney to Mexico City to Mumbai and more!), readers fall head-over-heels for Dylan and Jack’s relationship.
Heartfelt and deeply moving, Wanderlust made me yearn for a chance to travel the world (and maybe start entering more radio contests!).
People We Meet on Vacation meets The Unhoneymooners in this sparkling debut romantic comedy about two near strangers—and complete opposites—who win a radio contest for a trip around the world.
Love's about to take flight.
Feeling stuck at work and tired of London’s dreary weather, magazine writer Dylan Coughlan impulsively rings a radio station one day only to win a once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world. The catch? Her travel partner must be a contact randomly selected on her phone. And of course this stressful game of contact roulette lands on a number listed only as Jack the Posho, an uptight,…
I write in my spare time, drawing inspiration from my frequent trips to Italy, dating back to my childhood summers. I am an indie writer of noir crime fiction with an interest in uncomfortable moments, especially those created by the main characters themselves. My list journeys across a vast array of genres, but they all have that tone of something happening in the shadows or underlying truths working to achieve an outcome or fight against adversity. I like unspoken dialogue and self-made conflicts, which are both elements included in all the stories I mention in this list.
I enjoyed how this story takes an everyday person that we can all relate to, and with one urge of curiosity, she is easily sucked into a dangerous world of crime and murder.
Throughout her story, she finds herself investigating unseen and unknown by dangerous people. She herself may be unaware of any danger until she dives further into her curiosities. And within it all, there is a slow and natural element of romance.
I appreciate Moreno-Garcia’s characters for their realness and natural way of moving through the story.
1970s Mexico City: while student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite seeks escape from her humdrum life in the stories of passion and danger filling the latest issue of Secret Romance.
She is deeply envious of her neighbour, a beautiful art student apparently living the life of excitement and intrigue Maite craves - so when Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman, journeying deep into Leonora's secret life of student radicals and dissidents.
'Cements Silvia Moreno-Garcia's incredible versatility as an amazing writer who moves between genres effortlessly. A lush, magnificent trip into…
Hello! My name is Flavia Z. Drago and I'm a Mexican picturebook maker currently living with my partner and my cat in the UK. As a child, most of the books that I read came from foreign countries, particularly Europe and the US, and these have had a huge influence on my work as an author and illustrator. However, now that I'm in charge of making the books that I would have liked as a child, I enjoy adding details of my Mexican culture whenever possible. To some extent, the books that I've shared with you collect some of the stories, experiences, and emotions that as a Mexican have impacted my life.
As a Mexican living in the UK, this story deeply speaks to me, as I truly identify with the characters in Tania’s book. This story reminded me of all of the complicated emotions of migrating, the things that I miss when I am not in Mexico, while reminding me of appreciating the present even more, as there are always things to appreciate, enjoy, and love wherever you are.
The illustrations of Tania are full of life, delicate, and convey in amazing detail the lively atmospheres of Mexico City and New York; the city where she was born, and the city where she currently lives.
As a girl in Mexico City and a boy in New York City ponder moving to each other’s locale, it becomes clear that the two cities — and the two children — are more alike than they might think.
But I’m not sure I want to leave my home. I’m going to miss so much.
Moving to a new city can be exciting. But what if your new home isn’t anything like your old home? Will you make friends? What will you eat? Where will you play? In a cleverly combined voice — accompanied by wonderfully detailed illustrations depicting parallel…
I grew up hearing stories about Mexico City from my grandmother, who spent her childhood in the 1930s there after emigrating from the Soviet Union. I fell in love with the city’s neighborhoods during my first visit in 2006, and I am still mesmerized by its scale and its extremes. I am especially interested in the city’s public spaces and the ways people have used them for work and pleasure over the centuries. Those activities often take place in the gray areas of the law, a dynamic I explored in the research for my Ph.D. in History and in my book, Black Market Capital.
Douglas Cope’s book is a wonderful work of social history that explores how issues of race and class impacted the lives of working people in colonial Mexico City. Cope shows that Spain’s so-called “caste system” was more ideal than reality. A person’s physical appearance, occupation, and social milieu shaped perceptions of their race and ethnicity far more than their lineage, which was not something most people documented in this era. The book combines quantitative and qualitative analysis to provide a rich description of everyday life, bringing readers into artisans’ workshops, market vendors’ stalls, and other spaces where people lived and worked in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In this distinguished contribution to Latin American colonial history, Douglas Cope draws upon a wide variety of sources—including Inquisition and court cases, notarial records and parish registers—to challenge the traditional view of castas (members of the caste system created by Spanish overlords) as rootless, alienated, and dominated by a desire to improve their racial status. On the contrary, the castas, Cope shows, were neither passive nor ruled by feelings of racial inferiority; indeed, they often modified or even rejected elite racial ideology. Castas also sought ways to manipulate their social "superiors" through astute use of the legal system. Cope shows…
