Love We Were the Future? Readers share 100 books like We Were the Future...

By Yael Neeman, Sondra Silverston (translator), Jessica Cohen (translator)

Here are 100 books that We Were the Future fans have personally recommended if you like We Were the Future. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Elsewhere, Perhaps

David Leach Author Of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel

From my list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I dropped out of college to live and work in a socialist commune in Israel, it was mostly to escape a broken heart back home. My memorable experiences as a volunteer on Kibbutz Shamir profoundly shaped how I think about the value of community and inspired me to become a writer. It took me another 20 years to unite these passions by returning to Israel to learn about the past, present, and future of the legendary kibbutz movement—and share my journey of discovery with readers in Chasing Utopia.

David's book list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement

David Leach Why did David love this book?

Asking me to pick my favorite Amos Oz book is like asking me to pick my favorite child: they are all uniquely wonderful. Still, this book best captures the gossipy joys and frustrations of life on a frontier kibbutz.

At age 15, Oz left his home in Jerusalem to become a member of a socialist commune in the countryside and later described his life there as the “ultimate university of human nature.” I love how his wry early novel transforms one imaginary kibbutz into a microcosmic mirror in which we can all see our own petty vanities. 

By Amos Oz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Elsewhere, Perhaps as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"A generous imagination at work. [Oz’s] language, for all of its sensuous imagery, has a careful and wise simplicity." —New York Times Book Review

Situated only two miles from a hostile border, Amos Oz’s fictional community of Metsudat Ram is a microcosm of the Israeli frontier kibbutz. There, held together by necessity and menace, the kibbutzniks share love and sorrow under the guns of their enemies and the eyes of history.

"Immensely enjoyable." —Chicago Tribune Book World


Book cover of The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World

David Leach Author Of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel

From my list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I dropped out of college to live and work in a socialist commune in Israel, it was mostly to escape a broken heart back home. My memorable experiences as a volunteer on Kibbutz Shamir profoundly shaped how I think about the value of community and inspired me to become a writer. It took me another 20 years to unite these passions by returning to Israel to learn about the past, present, and future of the legendary kibbutz movement—and share my journey of discovery with readers in Chasing Utopia.

David's book list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement

David Leach Why did David love this book?

The kibbutz where I once lived had been founded by hardcore Romanian Marxists, so decades later, I was shocked to learn its factory was listed on the NASDAQ exchange. The work of Stanford economist Ran Abramitzky helped me to make sense of the causes and effects of the 100-year-old kibbutz movement’s turbulent evolution from hard socialism to soft capitalism.

This book distills his academic research into clear and readable prose (rare for an economist!), illustrated with anecdotes from his extended family’s kibbutz experiences.

By Ran Abramitzky,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

How kibbutzim thrived for much of the twentieth century despite their inherent economic contradictions The kibbutz is a social experiment in collective living that challenges traditional economic theory. By sharing all income and resources equally among its members, the kibbutz system created strong incentives to free ride or--as in the case of the most educated and skilled--to depart for the city. Yet for much of the twentieth century kibbutzim thrived, and kibbutz life was perceived as idyllic both by members and the outside world. In The Mystery of the Kibbutz, Ran Abramitzky blends economic perspectives with personal insights to examine…


Book cover of Murder on a Kibbutz: A Communal Case

David Leach Author Of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel

From my list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I dropped out of college to live and work in a socialist commune in Israel, it was mostly to escape a broken heart back home. My memorable experiences as a volunteer on Kibbutz Shamir profoundly shaped how I think about the value of community and inspired me to become a writer. It took me another 20 years to unite these passions by returning to Israel to learn about the past, present, and future of the legendary kibbutz movement—and share my journey of discovery with readers in Chasing Utopia.

David's book list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement

David Leach Why did David love this book?

Full confession: I only picked up this novel in my attempt to read every book with “kibbutz” in the title. Lucky me!

I became a fan of Michael Ohayon, the moody outsider who stars in Batya Gur’s series of Hebrew whodunnits, all set in various closed societies and institutions. Ohayon is like an Israeli Inspector Rebus, and no amount of duplicity by the members at an indebted kibbutz can keep him from cracking the case.

The novel doesn’t paint a pretty picture of communal life, but I recognized many of the fatal flaws of the real kibbutz movement magnified to deadly dimensions in this slow burn of a murder mystery.

By Batya Gur,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Murder on a Kibbutz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From award-winning and internationally acclaimed author, Batya Gur, comes another twisty mystery featuring charming Israeli investigator Michael Ohayon.

Michael Ohayon must once again solve a murder that has taken place within a complex, closed society: the kibbutz. As he investigates, he uncovers more and more of the kibbutz’s secrets, exposing all the contradictions of this idealized way of life. 

Murder on a Kibbutz showcases once again Batya Gur’s storytelling talents in a thrilling mystery that readers will not soon forget.


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

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.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia

David Leach Author Of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel

From my list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I dropped out of college to live and work in a socialist commune in Israel, it was mostly to escape a broken heart back home. My memorable experiences as a volunteer on Kibbutz Shamir profoundly shaped how I think about the value of community and inspired me to become a writer. It took me another 20 years to unite these passions by returning to Israel to learn about the past, present, and future of the legendary kibbutz movement—and share my journey of discovery with readers in Chasing Utopia.

David's book list on Israel’s utopian kibbutz movement

David Leach Why did David love this book?

I get professional envy every time I read one of Daniel Gavron’s vivid collections of literary journalism. He is such an attentive observer and compassionate interviewer, and the conversations he preserves on every page bring a diverse range of Israelis to life in all their hopes and fears.

Published at the turn of the millennium, this book is a classic of kibbutz history in which Gavron, a former kibbutznik, travels to communities in various stages of decline or revival. His book inspired my own return to Israel to discover more about the uncertain future of Israel’s utopian movement. I can’t thank him enough for that.

By Daniel Gavron,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The Israeli kibbutz, the twentieth century's most interesting social experiment, is in the throes of change. Instrumental in establishing the State of Israel, defending its borders, creating its agriculture and industry, and setting its social norms, the kibbutz is the only commune in history to have played a central role in a nation's life. Over the years, however, Israel has developed from an idealistic pioneering community into a materialistic free market society. Consequently, the kibbutz has been marginalized and is undergoing a radical transformation. The egalitarian ethic expressed in the phrase, "From each according to ability, to each according to…


Book cover of A Tale of Love and Darkness

James B. Gilbert Author Of The Legacy

From my list on understanding and misunderstanding each other.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have had two careers and two lives. Beginning as a historian of American culture, I have become a writer of fiction. That I have turned to fiction now is because I have so many of my own stories to explore and relate. And what I love most about writing novels and the short pieces I compose is the possibility to create living characters who sometimes surprise me with what they believe and do, but always, I know, emerge from the very deepest corners of my imagination and the issues that I feel compelled to examine and resolve.

James' book list on understanding and misunderstanding each other

James B. Gilbert Why did James love this book?

I love this novel for its ability to describe a very small world as if it were the most important place in the universe. It captures perfectly the way in which people, visited by enormous tragedy, are able to reconstruct lives that are full of richness and humor. 

By Amos Oz,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked A Tale of Love and Darkness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this bestselling and critically acclaimed work is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been changed forever by his mother's suicide when he was twelve years old. The story of a man who leaves the…


Book cover of Flawed

Marie-Hélène Lebeault Author Of The Ancestors' Key

From my list on YA SFF about utopian societies.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an avid reader turned author. I’m a Canadian YA Speculative Fiction author who takes books along as I hike, cycle, and go to the beach. I love audiobooks! In the years leading up to writing my first novel, I must have read over three hundred books. My favorites were Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction. When I ran out of happy, positive, and wholesome books, I started writing them. I feel like I'm often called back to my favorites, and hope more authors will jump on the happy train! Now that the world has literally turned into a Dystopian Society, perhaps more authors will start writing about hope and change.

Marie-Hélène's book list on YA SFF about utopian societies

Marie-Hélène Lebeault Why did Marie-Hélène love this book?

I love Cecelia Ahern’s earlier books and this was her first YA duology. The second book is called Perfect. This society also praises beauty and perfection, but mistakes are punishable offenses with a serious consequence of being branded, literally, are Flawed. The book is chilling in so many ways, but what I loved about it is that making mistakes is an inherently ‘human’ thing to do. Older generations have been taught to avoid making mistakes at all costs, or at least never own up to them. The younger ones are learning that it’s all part of life and we should all have a little more compassion. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have.

By Cecelia Ahern,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Flawed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

In her breathtaking young adult debut, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society in Flawed in which obedience is paramount and rebellion is punished. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her everything.

Celestine North lives a perfect life. She's a model daughter and sister, she's well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she's dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.

But then Celestine encounters a situation in which she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule and now faces life-changing repercussions. She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found…


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Book cover of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

Who Is a Worthy Mother? by Rebecca Wellington,

I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…

Book cover of Bioshock: Rapture

Shannen Camp Author Of Parrish

From my list on proof humans are scarier than ghosts.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, my family and I would make scary movies to watch at our own annual family film festival. Horror has always been a passion of mine. The way horror can evoke emotions in you that you can’t otherwise access is a special kind of high. As a horror movie/game/book aficionado, I’ve tried to weave elements of horror into my stories. My favorite types of scary stories are the ones that would stand on their own, even if the ghosts were taken away. I am so passionate about horror with heart, which can be hard to find in a world of slasher movies and true crime.

Shannen's book list on proof humans are scarier than ghosts

Shannen Camp Why did Shannen love this book?

I typically like to read original fiction rather than a video game story adapted into a book, but this book was the exception. I love it when a story focuses on social issues and the way they affect ordinary people. Even though the world and location of Bioshock are fantastical, the self-serving and corrupt capitalistic society hits too close to home.

Seeing the worst of humanity and the way things quickly devolve into chaos and anarchy when society's basic needs are ignored in favor of profit absolutely terrified me. And while, yes, there are definitely traditionally scary things in this story, the scariest thing about it is the lack of human compassion the residents of Rapture have for each other.

Even if the book didn’t have the terrifying Splicers climbing on the ceilings or the precariously built city at the bottom of the ocean, its unflinching look at the negative…

By John Shirley,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

After barely surviving a plane crash, a man discovers an undersea city called Rapture, a failed utopia created by Jack Ryan, a man who looked to embrace a world surrounding the objectivist ideals of Ayn Rand. Power and greed have run amok and the city has succumbed to civil war and the only question is who really deserves to survive this maniacal debacle of science gone mad.


Book cover of A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers

O. E. Tearmann Author Of The Hands We're Given

From my list on a future worth living in.

Why am I passionate about this?

I come from a reservation town in Wisconsin, and make my livelihood as a horticulturist in the water-strapped state of Colorado. I’m mix-race and LGBT. These influences have shaped what I look for in stories. I write and seek to read about communities in which the person creating medicine and the person growing food is just as important as the fighter, because let me tell you: if you don’t have the means to make food and heal wounds, all the guns in the world won’t save you. I particularly appreciate stories that explore ecology, agriculture, and plant science in innovative ways. These make my little horticulture-geek heart sing.

O. E.'s book list on a future worth living in

O. E. Tearmann Why did O. E. love this book?

By turns uplifting, bloody strange, heartbreaking, and joyful, this story collection touches on so many things: gender relations, race, hope, the need to feel safe, and the need to feel dignity among them. There are versions of America in this series that I dread, and versions of America that I long for. This is a book we need right now: a collection of dire warnings and beautiful dreams, hopes, and fears. We’re at a crossroads in history. This book reminds us that we can take a turn into the dark or the light. And wherever we go, we’ll be taking our whole selves and all our facets along for the ride: good and bad, kind and cruel, genetic and historical.

Strap in.

By Charlie Jane Anders, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Charles Yu

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A People's Future of the United States as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A glittering landscape of twenty-five speculative stories that challenge oppression and envision new futures for America—from N. K. Jemisin, Charles Yu, Jamie Ford, G. Willow Wilson, Charlie Jane Anders, Hugh Howey, and more.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

In these tumultuous times, in our deeply divided country, many people are angry, frightened, and hurting. Knowing that imagining a brighter tomorrow has always been an act of resistance, editors Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams invited an extraordinarily talented group of writers to share stories that explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice.…


Book cover of Ready Player Two

Jason Jowett Author Of Alchemy Series Compendium

From my list on inspiring sci-fi that reforges your worldview.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an avid explorer having thrice traveled around the world, living and working in over 40 countries, my inspirations as so originally science fiction have found grounding. I looked to level my imagination in the real world and filtered out the impossible from the unnecessary on a path to utopia. Sharing our ideas, exposing misgivings too, all contribute to a shared realization of human potential. This is much of the reason for who I am as a founder of business platforms I designed to achieve things that I envisage as helpful, necessary, and constructive contributions to our world. Those software endeavours underway in 2022, and a longtime coming still, are Horoscorpio and De Democracy.

Jason's book list on inspiring sci-fi that reforges your worldview

Jason Jowett Why did Jason love this book?

For the vastly impossible feat of presenting a sequel to a thoroughly immersive narrative, this did impress. The lead out of the original gives the feeling of the impossible and so it was delivered. Brokering A.C. Clarke's range of brilliance plus getting into the popular references of my youth, in the cyberpunk, virtual reality, corporate elite defining drama, aren't we all familiar with dystopia by now? Where or when does the apocalypse become inevitable and what are you steering towards there or then? I was awe-inspired by this handling of ethical uses of hyper-tech which is one I left up to my reader's imagination by the end of my own series. Whether imagined VR can ever become a coded reality, or if it's only ever going to be imagination, this is the challenge of the Age of Aquarius.

By Ernest Cline,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ready Player Two as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday's contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything.

Hidden within Halliday's vaults, waiting for his heir to find it, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous - and addictive - than even Wade dreamed possible.

With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest: a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize.

And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who'll kill millions to get what he wants.

Wade's life and the…


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Book cover of Radical Friend: Amy Kirby Post and Her Activist Worlds

Radical Friend by Nancy A. Hewitt,

Radical Friend highlights the remarkable life of Amy Kirby Post, a nineteenth-century abolitionist and women's rights activist who created deep friendships across the color line to promote social justice. Her relationships with Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, William C. Nell, and other Black activists from the 1840s to the…

Book cover of Utopia

Peter Zarrow Author Of Abolishing Boundaries: Global Utopias in the Formation of Modern Chinese Political Thought, 1880-1940

From my list on utopianism east and west.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a teenager, I thought we could create a perfect world—or if not quite perfect, at least much, much better than the one we are currently destroying. Actually, I still think it’s possible, just a lot harder and a lot more dangerous than I originally thought. I’ve been interested in all the efforts to imagine and create utopias, which sometimes produce hells instead of heavens, ever since. I have evolved (I think it’s progress) from being a high school Maoist to something more mature while watching China’s attempts to improve the lives of its citizens with respect and sympathy.

Peter's book list on utopianism east and west

Peter Zarrow Why did Peter love this book?

This is the OG of utopias—written in 1516 about people living on a distant island. Later writers made up utopias set in the future, but More’s island is still fun to read about. A place where there is no private property, no one desires wealth, all citizens are equal, and all religions are tolerated—though there is no privacy (or premarital sex) either. Nobody knows whether More meant it as satire or longing, or even if we should translate u-topia as “no-place” or “good-place.”

By Thomas More,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

First published in Latin in 1516, Utopia was the work of Sir Thomas More (1477–1535), the brilliant humanist, scholar, and churchman executed by Henry VIII for his refusal to accept the king as the supreme head of the Church of England.
In this work, which gave its name to the whole genre of books and movements hypothesizing an ideal society, More envisioned a patriarchal island kingdom that practiced religious tolerance, in which everybody worked, no one has more than his fellows, all goods were community-owned, and violence, bloodshed, and vice nonexistent. Based to some extent on the writings of Plato…


Book cover of Elsewhere, Perhaps
Book cover of The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World
Book cover of Murder on a Kibbutz: A Communal Case

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5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in utopian, Israel, and Jewish history?

Utopian 75 books
Israel 127 books
Jewish History 495 books