Here are 100 books that There Is Nothing for You Here fans have personally recommended if you like
There Is Nothing for You Here.
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Every day, we hear about crises worldwide and wonder what our government is doing to keep us safe and prosperous. Reality is often very different from what we see on the news. I was lucky to serve as a senior State Department diplomat and witnessed how the American government machine reacts to wars, coups, and political upheavals. Insights from the inside gave me both comfort (about the high quality of US officials), fear (about how many serious threats we face), and exasperation (at how messy things often get). When I left government, I wanted to share some of those frustrations and found fiction was the best vehicle.
The first in a series, this espionage thriller was written by a former CIA spymaster who uses his experience to tell the story of a Russian seductress targeting US officials. I was drawn in by the multi-layered protagonist, while the little details of spycraft enrich the plot and its authenticity.
THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Jeremy Irons.
Dominika Egorov, former prima ballerina, is sucked into the heart of Putin's Russia, the country she loved, as the twists and turns of a betrayal and counter-betrayal unravel.
American Nate Nash, idealistic and ambitious, handles the double agent, codenamed MARBLE, considered one of CIA's biggest assets. He needs to keep his identity secret for as long as the mole can keep supplying golden information.
Will Dominika be able to unmask MARBLE, or will the mission see her faith destroyed in the country she has always passionately defended?
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the challenge of writing novels with strong female protagonists—this is what I set out to do with my books Romance Language and The Diplomatic Coup. Is a male author capable of doing this? Read the books and judge for yourself. I’m fascinated by history, politics, and the pursuit of power both in real life and fiction. Lately, I’ve become more alarmed about the threat posed to the world by a resurgent Russia determined to undermine western democracy and that interest also influenced my choices. As a former journalist, I covered some of the world’s most important leaders and biggest stories and got to see them operating firsthand.
This is a pair of novels, French classics that were also made into two memorable movies. In a rural village in Provence, an old man and his only remaining relative cast a greedy eyes on some land. They need a hidden spring that is on the land to irrigate the flowers they intend to grow which they think will make them a fortune. But first, they need to drive out the owner and his family.The father of this family is a hunchback trying to succeed in a hostile world. An evil plot slowly unfolds and comes to tragic fruition. Ten years later, the daughter of the family returns to seek her revenge. A moral tale full of wonderful local detail, like my other choices it features a brave, invincible female protagonist battling overwhelming odds.
Au village des Bastides Blanches, on hait ceux de Crespin. C’est pourquoi lorsque Jean Cadoret, le Bossu, s’installe à la ferme des Romarins, on ne lui parle pas de la source cachée. Ce qui facilite les manœuvres des Soubeyran, le Papet et son neveu Ugolin, qui veulent lui racheter son domaine à bas prix…
Jean de Florette (1962), premier volume de L’Eau des collines, marque, trente ans après Pirouettes, le retour de Pagnol au roman. C’est l’épopée de l’eau nourricière sans laquelle rien n’est possible.
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the challenge of writing novels with strong female protagonists—this is what I set out to do with my books Romance Language and The Diplomatic Coup. Is a male author capable of doing this? Read the books and judge for yourself. I’m fascinated by history, politics, and the pursuit of power both in real life and fiction. Lately, I’ve become more alarmed about the threat posed to the world by a resurgent Russia determined to undermine western democracy and that interest also influenced my choices. As a former journalist, I covered some of the world’s most important leaders and biggest stories and got to see them operating firsthand.
This is a wonderful historical novel. A woman trying to recover from a personal tragedy is bequeathed a mysterious manuscript. It turns out to be the score of a previously unknown cantata by Bach—but there is a problem. The lyrics contain hateful anti-Semitic texts. What is she to do? Publish the score and allow this music to be heard—along with the awful words—or suppress it? The author traces the history of the manuscript and how it came into the possession of the heroine. We meet many strong women as we travel 200 years into the past and learn much about the history of Jews in Germany, about Bach and his times, Mendelssohn and his times as well as World War Two. This is a fascinating book featuring several inspiring female characters and is rich in historic background and steeped in music.
The New York Times bestselling author of A Fierce Radiance and City of Light returns with a powerful and passionate novel—inspired by historical events—about two women, one European and one American, and the mysterious choral masterpiece by Johann Sebastian Bach that changes both their lives.
In the ruins of Germany in 1945, at the end of World War II, American soldier Henry Sachs takes a souvenir, an old music manuscript, from a seemingly deserted mansion and mistakenly kills the girl who tries to stop him.
In America in 2010, Henry’s niece, Susanna Kessler, struggles to…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the challenge of writing novels with strong female protagonists—this is what I set out to do with my books Romance Language and The Diplomatic Coup. Is a male author capable of doing this? Read the books and judge for yourself. I’m fascinated by history, politics, and the pursuit of power both in real life and fiction. Lately, I’ve become more alarmed about the threat posed to the world by a resurgent Russia determined to undermine western democracy and that interest also influenced my choices. As a former journalist, I covered some of the world’s most important leaders and biggest stories and got to see them operating firsthand.
This historical work traces the improbable rise to power of Catherine the Great and her partnership and love affair with Prince Potemkin. Catherine, a German princess, seizes the throne from her mentally-unstable husband and begins to rule the vast empire that is Russia. She is largely responsible for the partition of Poland. Together she and her lover Potemkin conquer Ukraine and Crimea. It hardly needs stating that these territories are at the center of today’s headlines. Thus we learn a great deal about the background of the current war. Their affair was unbridled but it went far beyond sex. It was a marriage of intellects and politics. Ultimately, they agreed to share power, leaving each of them free to take younger lovers. This is another book about a woman operating in a man’s world, wielding power ruthlessly and giving free rein to her sexuality.
A widely acclaimed biography from thebestselling author of The Romanovs: "One of the great love stories of history” (The Economist) between Catherine the Great and the wildly flamboyant and talented Prince Potemkin. • "Captures the genius of two extraordinary Enlightenment figures—and of the age as well." —The Wall Street Journal
Catherine the Great was a woman of notorious passion and imperial ambition. Prince Potemkin was the love of her life and her co-ruler. Together they seized Ukraine and Crimea, territories that define the Russian sphere of influence to this day. Their affair was so tumultuous that they negotiated an arrangement…
Being an immigrant from India, a culture that places family values above all else, I am drawn to books that explore family conflicts, secrets, and the triumph of love against all odds. When an author incorporates these themes into a mystery, the book becomes more than a simple formulaic whodunnit story that educates me about the complexities of our lives.
Having loved Allende’s previous novels, this tale of history and suspense took me into the magical worlds of South American culture, to gain a better understanding of what the immigrant experience is really like for other people. Redacting from a reviewer’s comment, “this story filled with Allende's signature lyricism and ingenious plotting, teaches us what it means to respect, protect, and love.”
New York Times and worldwide bestselling author Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil that offers “a timely message about immigration and the meaning of home” (People).
During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant,…
I have always loved asking the big questions. What is justice? What is freedom? How should we live? I’ve been lucky to turn these questions into a career teaching philosophy, and I’m always inspired by authors who ask “Why?” in ways that shift our paradigms and broaden our minds. I’m also passionate about women who ask these questions—for too long, women were excluded from philosophy and not taken seriously when they wanted to know why. I loved writing a biography of Lydia Maria Child. So my list includes books by and about women like her: smart, witty, powerful women who ask why. Here’s to asking more questions and finding better answers!
This book is a mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting biographical reflection that asks why we see beauty and disability the way we do.
Jones is herself a philosopher and is disabled. Through anecdotes of ways she has been treated (also by philosophers), stories of her own birth and her unexpected pregnancy, and accounts of her travels (including going to see a Beyoncé concert!), she upended my ideas about beauty and about being able-bodied.
She helps us ask why we think of ability the way we do and why expanding our openness to beauty could help build a more beautiful world. I finished it feeling both humbled and exhilarated.
A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 * A Washington Post, Time,Publishers Weekly and New York Public Library Best Book of the Year * “Gorgeous, vividly alive.” —The New York Times * “Soul-stretching, breathtaking…A game-changing gift to readers.” —Booklist (starred review)
From Chloé Cooper Jones—Pulitzer Prize finalist, philosophy professor, Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient—an “exquisite” (Oprah Daily) and groundbreaking memoir about disability, motherhood, and the search for a new way of seeing and being seen.
“I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living.”
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
My interest in serial killers began when I was a teen watching horror movies with my mom. I learned all I could about them—even became a horror special-effects makeup artist. Eventually, I had to quit due to my connective tissue disorder (Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome). It put me on a path of writing. I love digging into the darker side of humanity—murder or mental illness. The story of a serial killer who could challenge the reader to see disability in a new light came to me, and I had to write her story, if not just so I could dive into the psyche of another serial killer.
Scarlett Clark is a bi serial killer who kills bad men. Carly Schiller is a queer student who just escaped an abusive father. Their storylines are equally gripping, with moments of unexpected intensity in both lust and fear. Layne Fargo creates a world so grounded in reality that, as a woman, it was painful to read at times—micro-aggressions, normalized inappropriate touching. Fargo doesn’t exaggerate it, she just exposes it as part of the narrative. Better yet, she gives a glimmer of equalization in the form of Scarlett who focuses her urge to kill in a direction that’s easy to root for, to want to read. It was wanting a serial killer to go on with her work that made this book and Scarlett a standout.
From the author of the “raw, ingenious, and utterly fearless” (Wendy Walker, USA TODAY bestselling author) Temper comes a dynamic psychological thriller about two women who give bad men exactly what they deserve.
Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder.
Every year, she searches for the worst man at Gorman University and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself—but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies…
I have been fascinated with mental health since long before I was officially diagnosed with Bipolar I. Even as an elementary schooler, I recognized that I was different from my peers: I thought more deeply and often more darkly, I experienced higher highs and lower lows, often beyond my control, and I very rarely discussed my home life. Writing became a logical and perhaps life-saving outlet as soon as I learned to put words into letters (mostly the wrong letters, but thank God for spell-check).
I loved this book, which I read shortly after recovering from my first major manic episode. I remember sitting on the patio of the LSU student union and thinking, “Yes, this!” again and again.
Written by a medical doctor (a psychiatrist), this memoir offers a unique view of bipolar disorder as Jamison herself has bipolar. I needed to know more about my diagnosis, and I needed to hear it from someone who had experienced it herself.
An Unquiet Mind is a definitive examination of manic depression from both sides: doctor and patient, the healer and the healed. A classic memoir of enormous candour and courage, it teems with the wit and wisdom of its writer, Dr Kay Redfield Jamison.
With an introduction by Andrew Solomon, writer and lecturer on psychology and culture.
'It stands alone in the literature of manic depression for its bravery, brilliance and beauty.' - Oliver Sacks
I was used to my mind being my best friend. Now, all of a sudden, my mind had turned on me: it mocked me for my…
As a lifelong asthmatic I’ve been working with the body for as long as I can remember. Childhood activities included getting lost in the woods, camping, and roller-skating, and grown-up life has included the professions of a modern dancer, choreographer, yoga therapist, and occupational therapist. If you can learn to slow down and find safety in your body, you can always manage to find your way home.
I could barely put this book down. It’s incredibly well written and has themes that are close to my heart and not often explored in literature, especially through a somewhat unhinged female perspective: physical therapists, chronic pain, Shakespeare, performing, desire and self-identity. The body is at the core of this fleshy, raw, and brilliant novel.
"A dazzling wild ride of a novel - daring, fresh, entertaining, and magical. Mona Awad is a powerful and poetic storyteller, telling us something new and profound here about the connection between suffering and elation. When I was away from this book, I longed to get back to it." - George Saunders, New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo
"Wild and exhilarating and so fresh it takes your breath away, All's Well is an utterly delicious novel of pain and vitality, Shakespeare and the uncanny, and our own subtle moral failures when we brush up…
ThePianist's Only Daughter is a frank, humorous, and heartbreaking exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family.
Social worker and gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams spent decades negotiating evolving family dynamics with her colorful and talented parents: her mother, an English scholar and poet, and her father, a pianist…
I started reading mysteries as a way to avoid studying for final exams as an undergrad. Nemesis by Agatha Christie was my gateway mystery. That was fifty-plus years and many, many mysteries read ago. I managed an independent bookstore for several years and then worked in a public library for twenty more. I especially liked introducing readers to my favorite mysteries in the store and the library. Why mysteries in particular? Because they do something that doesn’t often happen in real life—they restore order. But the best mysteries, to my mind, are the ones that include humor. We need humor in our lives because it restores hope.
I’ve always thought bleached bones are beautiful (there’s a cow skull on the window seat behind me), but imagine my surprise when I fell in love with a walking, talking, wise-cracking human skeleton. That’s what happened when I read this book.
Sid, the skeleton in question, is the literal skeleton in Georgia Thackery’s family closet. She’s known him since she was a child. Neither of them knows why he’s still “alive” or how he died.
I’m jealous because Georgia has a skeleton for a best friend. They make up for that, though, by being a very funny pair of amateur detectives. And lucky for me, they appear in five more books and a short story.
A woman discovers the literal skeleton in her family’s closet in the first Family Skeleton Mystery!
Moving back into her parents’ house with her teenage daughter had not been Georgia Thackery’s “Plan A.” But when she got a job at the local college, it seemed the sensible thing to do. So she settled in and began reconnecting with old friends.
Including Sid. Sid is the Thackery family’s skeleton. He’s lived in the house as long as Georgia can remember, although no one, including Sid, knows exactly where he came from and how he came to be a skeleton.
