99 books like Wanted, A Gentleman

Journeys are most often linear – Here to There – or circular – "There and Back Again." The Odyssey is actually a return leg in the most traumatic and perennial circular journey: going to war, and then, getting back. "Wily" (in modern terms, read, "sneaky," "trickster")  Odysseus left Troy a famous warrior, but takes seven years to get home. The fabulous episodes of that journey, the Cyclops, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Circe, and Calypso, the wreck in Phaeacia that leaves him bereft even of clothes, have grounded the Western imagination. But the concluding little things – the recognition scenes, the dog that dies, and the nurse who doesn't – push that epic past into a close, human Now.

J.R.R. Tolkien's masterful storytelling is unmatched, and The Lord of the Rings weaves together moral dilemmas and profound philosophical ideas seamlessly, encouraging me to contemplate the nature of power, the importance of preserving the natural world, and the significance of individual choices.

The book's themes of heroism, friendship, sacrifice, and the struggle between good and evil resonate deeply. In addition, each of his characters feels like an aspect of oneself; the introspection it inspires is brilliant!

The Lord of the Rings instills a sense of wonder, ignites the imagination, and imparts timeless wisdom, which heavily transformed my perspective on life, my values, and my understanding of the human condition.

Raynor and her husband, Moth, are destitute. Moth has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. They have lost everything; house, work, and income. They have nowhere to go.

So they decide to go for a walk; a very long walk; around the coastline of the West Country following the South Coastal Path. Raynor shares with us, in poetic detail, the minutiae of their struggle, both physical and emotional. As they battle with the force of nature’s elements, something starts to happen.

They begin to identify a way forward and Moth begins to feel stronger. This true story will inspire you. It is a pure testament to the healing power of nature. Raynor’s humility shines through in what is, essentially, a love letter to Moth; the truest love of her life.

From multi-culture epic to English 17th Century Christian allegory, from the breadth of the Mediterranean, gods, and giants, to a foot journey down a strait path to a distant wicket gate. I'm at best agnostic; like Tolkien, I don't care for allegory, and Bunyan's is rather simplistic in comparison to its masterful use in Piers Plowman, the great medieval poem. Yet years after I met them, Christian and his companion Valiant-for-Truth linger in memory. And however unassuming, Bunyan's language can suddenly take flight: as when Valiant-for-Truth dies – allegorically, crosses the river of Jordan – and, "All the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

I like to branch out into different genres, and I’ve recently started getting into Manga. This is a really wonderful series about a gay couple—one of whom loves to try out new dishes the other is always eager to try—whose relationship deepens over the meals they enjoy together. It’s something that really touched a chord in me, as someone who also uses food as a love language.

Oprah Magazine describes the novel as Call Me By Your Name set in Communist Poland and I cannot think of a more fitting description!

The romance between the leads, Ludwik and Janus begins in an idyllic summer in a rural setting. When the novel moves to Warsaw and Janus gets a prestigious, highly-coveted government job, politics enters their lives like an unwelcome but impossible-to-get-rid-of third party and their relationship pays the price. How could it not? It is, after all, the age of the iron curtain in a highly-religious Poland.

To read whether our heroes recover from this blow and find each other again, read the book!

A coming-of-age novel, except the main character is 64 years old? Sign me up!

This delightful novel follows a postman in his small English village as he decides to speak his truth for one of the first times in his life. It is lovely, gentle, and oh so queer, and really reminds the reader that it’s never too late to find your place in the world, so long as you are brave enough to reach for it.

The tagline for this book is “Agatha Christie but make it gay.” But Cat Sebastian does something better than that; although like Christie, everyone is concealing a secret, in Hither, Page almost everyone’s secret is being kept for a good reason—to prevent hurting someone they care about. In this book, Leo, a jaded, world-weary spy, is sent to investigate a murder in a small village. It's just after the end of WWII, and everyone is exhausted and wishes life would just get back to normal already, none more so than James, a local doctor with a touch of PTSD who needs nothing less than to get involved with espionage and smuggling. And then he meets Leo. (Spoiler: things go better than you'd think for the two of them.)

Reading this book is like someone you care about bringing you a bowl of tomato soup on a rainy day.

I’ve been singing the praises of Silvera’s They Both at the End for so long, I was a little nervous about the prequel that came out this year. What if it couldn’t hold up?

Silly me: Silvera knows exactly what he’s doing, setting a doomed romance against the dawn of a new technology, and keeping the reader invested despite knowing the young lovers are on the clock. It’s a romance that reads like a thriller. I’m a sucker for both!

Sass’s first novel, Surrender Your Sons, is a favorite of mine, so it’s no surprise that this book, a queer horror novel reminiscent of Scream, is a riot and an absolute page-turner.

It contains all the best elements of slasher movies and teen comedies alike, and unabashedly gay characters with wit and sharp edges kept me invested all the way until the story’s climactic ending.