82 books like Townie

By Andre Dubus III,

Here are 82 books that Townie fans have personally recommended if you like Townie. 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 The Shining

Ariel Swan Author Of The Nightingale Bones

From my list on haunted house stories for everyone.

Why am I passionate about this?

I like to say cats raised me, and I grew up among ghosts, but in all truth, my greatest influence was my mother, who took me to the library. Books have always been a part of me, and so have haunted houses. Old places have always felt charged to me. Because of this, I love great ghost stories. The books on my list all feature haunted dwellings of one sort or another, with spirits that range from inspiring and uplifting to fun and magical, spooky to downright terrifying. Enjoy!

Ariel's book list on haunted house stories for everyone

Ariel Swan Why did Ariel love this book?

This book is the scariest book I have ever read. Most people know the film, but the book is scarier. I was shocked to find that topiaries are, in fact, terrifying. They still make me uncomfortable.

It took me a while to recognize that, at its core, this is a haunted house story, and it is very haunted, with what I think are magnificently crafted ghosts. I also love this book because it is a story about a writer trying to write. I relate to it.

Steven King is a writer’s writer. Being holed up, lost in another world, and spending long hours alone can make me a little bit crazy, too. 

By Stephen King,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.

Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around…


Book cover of Portnoy's Complaint

Zachary Zane Author Of Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto

From my list on overcoming sexual shame.

Why am I passionate about this?

As the sex and relationship advice columnist at Men’s Health Magazine, I’m obviously pretty damn obsessed with sex. I find it fascinating on so many levels, which is why I not only have a ton of it but also made it my career. For so long, I struggled with sexual shame, and one thing I realized as a writer is that I’m not special. Sure, I’ve probably been to more sex parties than you, but if I’m struggling with shame, being bisexual, and embracing my kinks, then other folks are, too. And just like I’m obsessed with sex, I’ve become obsessed with helping others remove sexual shame.

Zachary's book list on overcoming sexual shame

Zachary Zane Why did Zachary love this book?

This is THE book for neurotic hypersexuals. It set the genre. I think it’s wild, brilliant, horny, thoughtful, introspective, delusional, and absurd at the same time. I mean, for the love of God, there’s no plot! It’s the protagonist (Alex Portnoy) rambling to a psychologist about his clear Oedipal Complex. The man is torn, trying to be a good Jewish boy who betters the world, but he has some nasty sexual desires (and messed-up feelings about his sexual partners) that are holding him back. 

This book is one of my obsessions. (It’s fitting, given the obsessive nature of the book.) Ironically, I felt really seen and sane while reading it. No, I’m not as neurotic and horny as Alex, but boy, do I struggle with some of the same obsessive thought patterns as that man!

By Philip Roth,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Portnoy's Complaint as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The most outrageously funny book about sex written' Guardian

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933-)]:A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature.

Portnoy's Complaint tells the tale of young Jewish lawyer Alexander Portnoy and his scandalous sexual confessions to his psychiatrist.

As narrated by Portnoy, he takes the reader on a journey through his childhood to adolescence to present day while articulating his sexual desire, frustration and neurosis in shockingly candid ways.

Hysterically funny and daringly intimate, Portnoy's Complaint was an immediate bestseller upon its publication…


Book cover of The Risk Pool

Chuck Augello Author Of A Better Heart

From my list on fathers and sons.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I started writing my novel A Better Heart, the focus was not on fathers and sons, but from the moment the narrator’s estranged father walked through the door, I knew their relationship would drive the story. As a reader, I enjoy following characters as they navigate the potholes of their lives, and family often present the biggest holes. Our primary relationships are with our parents, and their influence is a big part of who we become as adults. Exploring that bond often makes great fiction. My father died of cancer ten years ago. In writing about fathers and sons, perhaps I’m trying to imagine a different ending.          

Chuck's book list on fathers and sons

Chuck Augello Why did Chuck love this book?

The Risk Pool shows the importance of accepting and loving our fathers for who they are instead of resenting them for who they never could be. Sam Hall, the irresponsible wreck of a dad in this warm-hearted and funny book, is by any definition a terrible father, yet his relationship with his son Ned feels real in ways that most fictionalized father-son relationships don’t. Forced to care for Ned when Ned’s mother is hospitalized with mental illness, Sam introduces his son to pool halls, bars, bookies, drunks, and the occasional petty crime. Though aware of his father’s many faults, Ned can’t help but be charmed by Sam’s easy-going life, and even when Sam disappears for years, the bond remains strong.  

By Richard Russo,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The Risk Pool is a thirty-year journey through the lives of Sam Hall, a small-town gambling hellraiser, and his watchful, introspective son Ned. When Ned's mother Jenny suffers a breakdown and retreats from her husband's carelessness into a dream world, Ned becomes part of his father's seedy nocturnal world, touring the town's bars and pool halls, struggling to win Sam's affections while avoiding his sins.


Book cover of The Cider House Rules

Julie F. Kay Author Of Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom

From my list on how reproductive rights are human rights.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author and human rights lawyer passionate about making reproductive rights accessible in law and in real life. My written work translates my legal cases into stories to engage readers in the fight to expand rights for all. My legal work leading the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine seeks to make medication abortion legally available in all 50 states, regardless of a person’s ability to pay for it. I have 2 daughters and am always looking to learn from their experience in an ever-changing world and from a diverse range of other women making decisions about whether, when, and whom to have and raise children. 

Julie's book list on how reproductive rights are human rights

Julie F. Kay Why did Julie love this book?

A doctor colleague of mine said that this story made her decide to become an abortion provider.

This lively novel provides a wonderful time spent with an engaging and flawed doctor who is caring for children in an orphanage while also providing illegal abortion services for women in need. John Irving writes such engaging characters with humor about the heavy issues that play out in a bucolic New England town.

Today, as abortion is banned in so many parts of the US, and as we are having more honest conversations about the challenges of adoption, the book resonates even more. This book was made into a wonderful movie too–but the rule in our house is that you always have to read the book before you see the movie, no cheating. 

By John Irving,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Cider House Rules as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The reason Homer Wells kept his name was that he came back to St Cloud's so many times, after so many failed foster homes, that the orphanage was forced to acknowledge Homer's intention to make St Cloud's his home.'

Homer Wells' odyssey begins among the apple orchards of rural Maine. As the oldest unadopted child at St Cloud's orphanage, he strikes up a profound and unusual friendship with Wilbur Larch, the orphanage's founder - a man of rare compassion and an addiction to ether. What he learns from Wilbur takes him from his early apprenticeship in the orphanage surgery, to…


Book cover of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

Katherine Rye Jewell Author Of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

From my list on the political side of music scenes.

Why am I passionate about this?

My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S. Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships, from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access information and new sounds that they love.

Katherine's book list on the political side of music scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did Katherine love this book?

Before delving into the business and culture of college radio, I had to think through the complicated relationships between universities and their surrounding communities. Davarian Baldwin helped me do just that.

The FM signals emanating from inside the walls of the ivory tower occupied the public’s airwaves, and so surrounding residents not affiliated with institutions had legitimate claims to these signals, which usually operated on licensed signals requiring public service and educational functions. While these signals often did provide valuable culture and information for wide and diverse communities, they sometimes replicated the more complicated politics of these institutions and the destructive role they played in communities.

Baldwin’s engaging and enraging exploration of town and gown provides a critical lens to use when thinking through the relationship between universities, nearby music scenes, cultural service, and radio.

Book cover of Empire Falls

Shannon Bowring Author Of The Road to Dalton

From my list on capturing the Maine experience.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a born and bred Mainer, there are dozens of great books I could recommend set in the Pine Tree State. But the five I’ve curated capture, for me, the diversity of the Maine culture, from the long-gone loggers who made their living from the woods to the often-overlooked Indigenous communities to the mill towns struggling to survive. When a non-Mainer thinks of our state, what usually comes to mind are quaint coastal villages, lighthouses, lobster… And while those things are part of what makes Maine the place it is, there exists, both on and off the page, plenty of other experiences and histories to discover here. 

Shannon's book list on capturing the Maine experience

Shannon Bowring Why did Shannon love this book?

When I think of Maine, I think of mill towns. When I think of mill towns, I think of Empire Falls. And to consider Russo’s titular town is to consider what happens to a community when its once-lucrative mills are abandoned.

I have witnessed it repeatedly through the years, all around the state of Maine—first our mills go out of business, then the towns that grew around those mills gradually, inexorably decline. Russo captures this struggle, creating characters as real as the millworkers I grew up with.

He also emphasizes a strange thing that happens in these blue-collar communities: even though the people who live there know their town will never be as it once was, most of them still can’t bring themselves to leave. 

By Richard Russo,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • The bestselling author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace.

“Rich, humorous ... Mr. Russo’s most seductive book thus far.” —The New York Times

Welcome to Empire Falls, a blue-collar town full of abandoned mills whose citizens surround themselves with the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors and who find humor and hope in the most unlikely places, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo.

Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at…


Book cover of Walden: Life in the Woods

Lawrence Winkler Author Of Orion's Cartwheel

From my list on becoming the hero of your own myth.

Why am I passionate about this?

There is no quality of life without meaning, and there is no better meaning than the search for it. The Vision Quest has been a beacon of hope for me my entire life. It permeates all my aspirations and writing. It inspired me to hitchhike worldwide for five years and continued into my professional life. I hope you enjoy the selections.

Lawrence's book list on becoming the hero of your own myth

Lawrence Winkler Why did Lawrence love this book?

I first read this book at M.I.T., and it changed my outlook on life and its meaning. On odd weekends, I would drive out to his pond and stare at the lake to restore my own natural balance.

It is true that Thoreau was not as self-sufficient as he wished us to believe, but his lesson of mindfulness is a gift of Zen. I have emulated him my whole life and live on my own pond, Westwood Lake, where I’ve written my own chronicles of the seasons.

By Henry David Thoreau,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Henry David Thoreau is considered one of the leading figures in early American literature, and Walden is without doubt his most influential book.

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

It recounts the author's experiences living in a small house in the woods around Walden Pond near Concord in Massachusetts. Thoreau constructed the house himself, with the help of a few friends, to see if he could live 'deliberately' - independently and apart from society. The…


Book cover of A Trouble of Fools

Scott Von Doviak Author Of Charlesgate Confidential

From my list on crime that bring Boston to life.

Why am I passionate about this?

The roots of my debut novel Charlesgate Confidential are in the time I spent in Boston, most notably the three years I lived in the Charlesgate building when it was an Emerson College dormitory. I always wanted to find a way to write about that time, but it wasn’t until I immersed myself in the world of Boston crime—not only the novels of Higgins, Lehane, and company but nonfiction works like Black Mass and movies like The Departed and The Town—that I hit on the way to tell my story. I’ll always be excited for new Boston-based crime fiction, and I’m happy to share these recommendations with you.

Scott's book list on crime that bring Boston to life

Scott Von Doviak Why did Scott love this book?

Here’s another PI series set in Boston, and while Carlotta Carlyle is nowhere near as well-known as Spenser, Linda Barnes is every bit as readable as Robert Parker. In her first outing (an Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel), ex-cabbie and ex-cop Carlyle takes on a missing person case that has her tangling with IRA gunrunners. A Trouble of Fools is my pick because it brings the ‘80s Boston I remember to life, and because of the light, humorous voice Barnes lends the proceedings.

By Linda Barnes,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

This award-winning debut mystery introduces a Boston PI who’s “one of the most sparkling, most irresistible heroines ever to grace the pages of a whodunit” (Chicago Sun-Times).
 
Six-foot-tall, redheaded ex-cop and Boston-based private eye Carlotta Carlyle is “the genuine article: a straightforward, funny, thoroughly American mystery heroine” (New York Post).

Let go from the Beantown police force for insubordination, Carlotta Carlyle is ready for business. Her first client is the genteel and elderly Margaret Devens, whose brother, Eugene, one of the last in a handful of Boston’s aging Irish cabbies, has suddenly vanished.
 
The case should be a cinch. Carlotta…


Book cover of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

L. Andrew Cooper Author Of Descending Lines

From my list on horror for stretching your mind to extremes.

Why am I passionate about this?

My PhD work focused on horror fiction and film, and I spent ten years teaching about horror (I even included two of my recommended books in courses). The academic stuff is more a symptom than a cause of my passion for the scary. I’ve been a horror freak forever, becoming interested in vampires by age four, reading Stephen King and writing stories to frighten classmates by age nine, and putting a poster of Freddy Krueger on my wall at age ten. Extremes of fiction take me away from extremes of real life, which are much harder to handle.

L.'s book list on horror for stretching your mind to extremes

L. Andrew Cooper Why did L. love this book?

This was Poe’s only novel, and I don’t know why more people don’t read it. Yes, it has problems with race and some political issues… most novels of its time do… but it also contains the scary elements for which Poe is best known (extreme claustrophobia à la live burial, storytellers with questionable sanity) as well as cannibalism and other terrors collected very efficiently in the guise of a seafaring adventure tale.

I love its almost unwavering intensity and grimness, how it dares to create a world where nearly everything is horrible. What I love most is probably its mind-boggling ending, which I see as an open door for much cosmic horror to come.

By Edgar Allan Poe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Poe found the germ of the story he would develop into ARTHUR GORDON PYM in 1836 in a newspaper account of the shipwreck and subsequent rescue of the two men on board. Published in 1838, this rousing sea adventure follows New England boy, Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain's son, Augustus. The two boys repeatedly find themselves on the brink of death or discovery and witness many terrifying events, including mutiny, cannibalism, and frantic pursuits. Poe imbued this deliberately popular tale with such allegorical richness, biblical imagery, and psychological insights that the tale has come…


Book cover of Caleb's Crossing

Amy Belding Brown Author Of Flight of the Sparrow: A Novel of Early America

From my list on New England’s forgotten conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write historical fiction set in New England and based on the lives of real people. My New England roots go back to the 1630s when my English ancestors first came to the region so I’m steeped in its traditions and literature. I love doing the research for my books, especially when my characters lead me in new directions. I spent ten years digging into the conflict between the Puritans and the indigenous Natives and in the process discovered a largely forgotten story that has long-lasting implications for our day.

Amy's book list on New England’s forgotten conflict

Amy Belding Brown Why did Amy love this book?

When Caleb’s Crossing came out I couldn’t wait to read it. Not only was it written by one of my favorite authors, it was inspired by a true story and set in the same place and time period as the novel I was working on. Brooks’ depiction of the love between a Puritan minister’s daughter and the son of a Wampanoag leader is fraught with tension as two very different cultures collide. The novel brings to life the forces driving the conflict through the characters of Bethia and Caleb as they struggle to navigate a perilous time and the looming prospect of war.

By Geraldine Brooks,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Caleb's Crossing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A bestselling tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure from the author of The Secret Chord and of March, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Bethia Mayfield is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha's vineyard in the 1660s amid a small band of pioneering English Puritans. At age twelve, she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's father is a Calvinist minister who seeks to convert the native Wampanoag, and Caleb becomes a prize in the contest…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Massachusetts, the working class, and presidential biography?

11,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about Massachusetts, the working class, and presidential biography.

Massachusetts 140 books
The Working Class 106 books