100 books like Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Here are 100 books that Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay fans have personally recommended if you like Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Beloved

Eliza Minot Author Of In the Orchard

From my list on elevating the overlooked experience of moms.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about this topic because patriarchy has generally told us that raising babies and kids is a mundane, even vilified, topic that’s hardly worthy of artistic attention, which is ridiculous. It is the richest of topics, underlines the mysteries of being alive, and so many wonderful books that explore it are either overlooked, unwritten, or admired for how they address something else. I have a hard time saying “Best” of anything, but these are great books that contribute to the respect and reverence that the experience deserves.

Eliza's book list on elevating the overlooked experience of moms

Eliza Minot Why did Eliza love this book?

This book is about the legacy of the massive violence and trauma of slavery, but at its heart, this is entirely about motherhood. I have read no other novel that so searingly, brilliantly, and tenderly depicts the haunting extremes— physically, emotionally, and spiritually—to which motherhood will bring a woman.

By Toni Morrison,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times

Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved

It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her…


Book cover of The School for Good Mothers

Kim Akass Author Of Mothers on American Television: From Here to Maternity

From my list on mothers in media, culture and society.

Why am I passionate about this?

A professor of television, I had my first child at 28 and was the first of my friends to give birth. The mothering support I received came from my mother, who (bless her heart) was convinced that all women should stay home with their children and devote their lives to mothering. A lifelong feminist, I knew that something was amiss (particularly for a single parent), and as I learned more about feminism and mothering, I realized there was something at odds with the way mothers were treated in the media and society. Learning why became my passion.

Kim's book list on mothers in media, culture and society

Kim Akass Why did Kim love this book?

A much more recent book that can be read in conjunction with The Handmaid’s Tale.

I had no idea what to expect from this novel and was truly gripped by the unfolding tale of a world in which women are incarcerated for being deemed bad mothers. I am not going to give away any of the plot here, as the power of the book depends on its unfolding horror.

D W Winnicott's definition of the ‘good enough' mother resonated with me throughout this book, and I do worry that we are facing this dystopian reality in a 21st-century America that puts fetal rights before those of women and families. 

By Jessamine Chan,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The School for Good Mothers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AN OBAMA'S 2022 SUMMER READING PICK

'A taut and propulsive take on the cult of motherhood and the notion of what makes a good mother. Destined to be feminist classic - it kept me up at night' PANDORA SYKES
'A haunting tale of identity and motherhood - as devastating as it is imaginative' AFUA HIRSCH
'Incredibly clever, funny and pertinent to the world we're living in at the moment' DAISY JOHNSON

'We have your daughter'

Frida Liu is a struggling mother. She remembers taking Harriet from her cot and changing her nappy. She remembers…


Book cover of The Argonauts

Amy Hassinger Author Of After the Dam

From my list on flawed, fierce, and fascinating mothers.

Why am I passionate about this?

Becoming a mother reshaped me in ways I’m still wondering at now, two decades on. I’ve had to find ways to resist the repressive cultural mythology surrounding motherhood—the pressure I felt to suddenly become a perfect, self-sacrificing vessel for my children’s optimized development. When I read stories about flawed mothers—women, queer and straight, struggling beneath the magnitude of the job, yet fiercely loving their children all the way through—I felt I could breathe a little bit, could handle the task with a little more good humor and forgiveness, for myself, my partner, and my kids. Read a book, bust a myth, go hug your mom.  

Amy's book list on flawed, fierce, and fascinating mothers

Amy Hassinger Why did Amy love this book?

Maggie Nelson just dazzles me. Her prose is so sharp and thoughtful, her thinking so idiosyncratically brilliant, her images filled with light. The Argonauts is both memoir and inquiry, a story of how Nelson and her partner Harry, who is in the midst of a gender transition, became parents, a story fraught with obstacles and veined with wisdom. Nelson’s voice mixes erudition, visceral power—especially when she writes about sex and the body—and formal innovation. The Argonauts caused a splash when it came out, and for good reason—its unflinchingly honest portrayal of one queer couple’s creation of family together is beautiful, brave, and yes, deeply fierce. 

By Maggie Nelson,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Argonauts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family

Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. It binds an account of Nelson's relationship with her partner and a journey to and through a pregnancy to a rigorous exploration of sexuality, gender, and "family." An insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry for this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.


Book cover of The Blue Jay's Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood

Andrea Lani Author Of Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail

From my list on women in the wild.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Colorado gal living in Maine, where I make the most of the long winters and gloomy springs by spending as much time as I can outside in our 20 acres of woods and fields. I hiked the Colorado Trail twice, in 1996 with my husband and in 2016 with my husband and three kids. My book tells the story of this second hike, as well as the natural and environmental history of Colorado. I’m a Maine Master Naturalist, and I’m passionate about connecting people to the natural world through nature journaling and nature writing workshops.

Andrea's book list on women in the wild

Andrea Lani Why did Andrea love this book?

After the birth of my second and third children (twins!), I felt further than ever from my dreams of being a nature writer. Even the natural world outside my window seemed impossibly far away while I was indoors, contending with the demands of two babies and a preschooler.

When those babies were about two years old, I discovered, by accident, this book, and my life changed. In its pages, Louise Erdrich showed that careful attention to and contemplation of the natural world was not only possible for mothers of small children but that motherhood itself can make us more attuned to nature, more empathetic, and more clear-eyed and fierce.

By Louise Erdrich,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Blue Jay's Dance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s moving meditation on the experience of motherhood—the first nonfiction work by one of the most acclaimed authors of our time.

Louise Erdrich’s first major work of nonfiction, The Blue Jay’s Dance, brilliantly and poignantly examines the joys and frustrations, the compromises and insights, and the difficult struggles and profound emotional satisfactions the acclaimed author experienced in the course of one twelve-month period—from a winter pregnancy through a spring and summer of new motherhood to her return to writing in the fall. In exquisitely lyrical prose, Erdrich illuminates afresh the large and…


Book cover of The Story of a New Name

Terry A. Repak Author Of Circling Home: What I Learned by Living Elsewhere

From my list on writers struggling to find their place in the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

My memoir, Circling Home: What I Learned by Living Elsewhere, details my own trajectory in trying to find my voice and métier as a writer. I’ve kept a journal since I was a teenager, trained to be a journalist in college, and worked as an investigative reporter on a newspaper column and a news show in my twenties. When my husband and I moved abroad, I got a book contract for my PhD thesis and also published my research in academic journals. I wrote travel articles and profiles of people I met while living in East and West Africa. Working with a writing group of friends, I finished two novels before embarking on my memoir.

Terry's book list on writers struggling to find their place in the world

Terry A. Repak Why did Terry love this book?

The second of Ferrante’s four Neopolitan Novels is a gripping portrayal of the hardships faced by women who grew up in Italy in the 1950s and ‘60s.

The novel is packed with romantic liaisons, incidences of family violence, and the many hurdles that Italian women had to face in forging careers independent of their families. The detailed rendering of a complicated friendship between two women who disappointed each other at times shows how hard women in working-class Naples had to struggle to find their paths.

Being from a big family myself and facing many hurdles before finding my voice, I could relate to the characters in this book and Ferrante’s subsequent novel, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay Behind.

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Story of a New Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE

The Story of a New Name, the second book of the Neapolitan Quartet, picks up the story where My Brilliant Friend left off.


Lila has recently married and made her entree into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighbourhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times…


Book cover of I Will Have Vengeance

Joseph D'Agnese Author Of The Marshal of the Borgo

From my list on discovering Italian mystery novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a kid, Joseph D’Agnese did not feel quite normal unless he’d devoured at least two mystery novels in a weekend. Today he’s a journalist and author. His mystery fiction has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He’s a past recipient of the Derringer Award for Short Mystery Fiction, and a contributor to the prestigious annual anthology, Best American Mystery Stories. D’Agnese lives in North Carolina with his wife, the New York Times Bestselling author Denise Kiernan.

Joseph's book list on discovering Italian mystery novels

Joseph D'Agnese Why did Joseph love this book?

Can a mystery novel have supernatural elements and still be considered a mystery? I obsessed on this question when I was writing my book. (You’ll know why if you check it out.) Then, out of the blue, I stumbled across de Giovanni’s astonishing novels. His detective, Commissario Ricciardi, suffers from a bizarre affliction. He sees dead people. Specifically, he sees visions of murder victims just before their death. Naturally, this makes him the greatest cop ever, and the most tortured. If you can stand to read a little on the wild side, you will enjoy these historical mysteries, set in 1930s Naples. Currently 10 books in the series.

By Maurizio de Giovanni, Anne Milano Appel (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Will Have Vengeance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Introducing Italy’s Commissario Ricciardi. “De Giovanni’s distinct brand of noir . . . will appeal to Agatha Christie and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán fans” (Publishers Weekly).

Commissario Ricciardi has visions. He sees the final seconds in the lives of victims of violent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one of the most successful homicide detectives on the Naples police front. But the horror of his visions has hollowed him out emotionally. He drinks too much and sleeps too little. Other than his loyal partner, Brigadier Maione, he has no friends.
Naples, March 1931.…


Book cover of The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set

Susan Van Allen Author Of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

From my list on women who love Italy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am grateful to my maternal grandparents, immigrants from southern Italy, who instilled in me a love for the Bel Paese that has inspired me all my life. I began to travel to Italy 45 years ago, and after writing for television—on the staff of Everybody Loves Raymond—I turned to travel writing. I’ve written 4 books about Italian travel, along with many stories for magazines. I also design and host Golden Weeks in Italy: For Women Only tours, to give female travelers an insider’s experience of this extraordinary country.

Susan's book list on women who love Italy

Susan Van Allen Why did Susan love this book?

I have always loved visiting the city of Naples – for the great food, the rich history, and the warm locals who remind me of my southern Italian relatives. Ferrante’s novels go deep into the complexities of a female friendship that spans many decades, while also bringing to life a wide range of characters who I grew to love and truly care about, while devouring this extraordinary series.

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The complete four-volume boxed set of the New York Times–bestselling epic about hardship and female friendship in postwar Naples that has sold over five million copies.

Beginning with My Brilliant Friend, the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante follow Elena and Lila, from their rough-edged upbringing in Naples, Italy, not long after WWII, through the many stages of their lives―and along paths that diverge wildly. Sometimes they are separated by jealousy or hostility or physical distance, but the bond between them is unbreakable, for better or for worse.

This volume includes all four novels: My Brilliant Friend; The Story of…


Book cover of The Poison Keeper: An enthralling historical novel of Renaissance Italy

J. C. Briggs Author Of Summons to Murder

From my list on featuring historical figures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love the novels of Charles Dickens and when I found out that he did go out with the London Police to research the criminal underworld for his magazine, I thought what a good detective he would make. He has all the talents a detective needs: remarkable powers of observation, a shrewd understanding of human nature and of motive, and the ability to mix with all ranks of Victorian society from the street urchin to the lord and lady. I love Victorian London, too, and creating the foggy, gas-lit alleys we all know from Dickens the novelist.

J. C.'s book list on featuring historical figures

J. C. Briggs Why did J. C. love this book?

Another woman steps out of the shadows of history in this novel about seventeenth-century Italy. Gulia Tofana was a notorious poisoner of terrible men and Deborah Swift explores in a tale full of excitement and drama the imagined early career of Gulia whose mother was executed for murder. Gulia just wants to be an apothecary, but her friendship with the abused wife of an aristocratic, power greedy husband draws her into murder. It is full of rich detail – you can feel the heat, smell the perfume, hear the rustle of silk and taffeta, and you can’t help being on the side of the women trapped in a corrupt and violent world.

By Deborah Swift,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Naples 1633

Aqua Tofana – One drop to heal. Three drops to kill.

Giulia Tofana longs for more responsibility in her mother’s apothecary business, but Mamma has always been secretive and refuses to tell her the hidden keys to her success. But the day Mamma is arrested for the poisoning of the powerful Duke de Verdi, Giulia is shocked to uncover the darker side of her trade.

Giulia must run for her life, and escapes to Naples, under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to the home of her Aunt Isabetta, a famous courtesan. But when Giulia hears that her mother…


Book cover of Naples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy

Andy Owen Author Of Land of the Blind

From my list on books that capture the tragedy and comedy of war.

Why am I passionate about this?

War is perhaps the most extreme human activity. I have seen firsthand some of these extremes in Iraq and Afghanistan. I now write about the philosophy and ethics of war and geopolitics, exploring some of the impacts and enduring truths that war and its conduct tell us about ourselves that might be hidden under the surface of our everyday lives. The books I have chosen here explore, with elegance, sensitivity, and sometimes brutal and unflinching honesty, what the battlefield exposes, showing us that there is both tragedy and comedy at the extremities of human nature, and without one, you cannot really truly appreciate the other.

Andy's book list on books that capture the tragedy and comedy of war

Andy Owen Why did Andy love this book?

Out of all the war fiction and nonfiction I have read, this is the one book I wish I had read before deploying to Iraq as a soldier.

Lewis captures the post-invasion chaos, as the war-fighting military struggles to define its new mission as an occupying force, the farcical situations that arise through deep cultural misunderstandings between occupier and occupied, and the suffering and resourcefulness of the local population.

He is also an elegant writer who, like many of the best war writers, finds humour and intense tragedy in the extremes between the absurd and the sublime he encounters.

By Norman Lewis,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Naples '44 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As a young intelligence officer stationed in Naples following its liberation from Nazi forces, Norman Lewis recorded the lives of a proud and vibrant people forced to survive on prostitution, thievery, and a desperate belief in miracles and cures. The most popular of Lewis's twenty-seven books, Naples'44 is a landmark poetic study of the agony of wartime occupation and its ability to bring out the worst, and often the best, in human nature. In prose both heartrending and comic, Lewis describes an era of disillusionment, escapism, and hysteria in which the Allied occupiers mete out justice unfairly and fail to…


Book cover of My Brilliant Friend

Aldo Cernuto Author Of The Curse of Knowing

From my list on women a notch above the rest.

Why am I passionate about this?

Only in my recent life as a reader did I realize that my favorite novels often follow a precise pattern: either the author or the main character is a woman. Or both. So, why this sort of bias from a male reader? I found a plausible answer in my belief that female protagonists, more than male ones, serve as the ideal lever for compelling plot twists—the deae ex machina of contemporary storytelling. No wonder the protagonist of the first novel I wrote is a woman. No wonder she’s gifted (or, rather, cursed) with supernatural powers. As for my choice of topic, could it possibly have turned out differently?

Aldo's book list on women a notch above the rest

Aldo Cernuto Why did Aldo love this book?

Although I have read a number of novels focused on friendship, this one stands out with particular vigor. It started the way I expected: two friends since childhood. The more I advanced into the reading, though, the more I perceived the two main characters—Elena and Lila—as the same person:  a sort of super-protagonist that incorporates not only the psychological traits of the two but their lives as well.

If it’s true that life is often a fight between who we are and who we would like to be, then this novel portrays that conflict masterfully. What I saw in this story, more than the recount of a friendship, is the power that lies hidden within each of us. Whether we annihilate it or let it bloom depends on the choices we make in our lives. 

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

18 authors picked My Brilliant Friend as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDE

OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN THE UK

OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE

NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES

GUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY

58 WEEKS ON THE BOOKSELLER'S TOP 20 ORIGINAL FICTION BESTSELLERS LIST

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015

43 INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS DEALS

Now in B-format Paperback

From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Naples Italy, female friendship, and feminist theory?

Naples Italy 20 books
Female Friendship 132 books
Feminist Theory 16 books