10 books like Wild

By Cheryl Strayed,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like Wild. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Driving Over Lemons

By Chris Stewart,

Book cover of Driving Over Lemons

Chris Stewart had a circuitous path to ex-pat life in Spain. He was the drummer for the band Genisis, a sheep shearer, and a travel writer. Then he and his wife bought a farm in Andalusia and grew olives, almonds, and lemons. His book Driving Over Lemons was an unexpected hit, with 350,000 copies sold.

Suddenly, people were making a pilgrimage to their farm in Spain. Although Stewart follows some of the familiar tropes of the genre (the resourceful locals, the quirky members of the ex-pat community), his writing is fresh and funny. Unlike Peter Kerr, Stewart and his wife still live in Spain.

Driving Over Lemons

By Chris Stewart,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Driving Over Lemons as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A special anniversary edition with an updated chapter set 25 years on by Chris Stewart.

Over two decades ago we set up Sort of Books to help our friend, the some-time Genesis drummer Chris Stewart, bring his sunlit stories of life on a Spanish mountain farm to print. Ever the optimist, Chris hoped to earn enough money to buy a second-hand tractor for his farm. He got his tractor, as the book spent a year on the Sunday Times Top 10 charts and went on to sell a million and a half copies.

His story is a classic. A dreamer…


Jane Eyre

By Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Brontë,

Book cover of Jane Eyre

Of this novel, Virginia Woolf famously remarked, “The writer has us by the hand, forces us along her road, makes us see what she sees, never leaves us for a moment or allows us to forget her.”

The voice of Jane is so powerful, so real, that some thought that she and her author were one. But no.

In Jane, Bronte presents a truly modern self that all can relate to.

We may not be orphaned, abused, and alone as Jane is. But we do have to, like her, fight for our own sense of self and dignity in a world that too often insists we choose as it would have us choose, live as it would have us live, and compromise our beliefs in order to fit in.

Jane does not (hard as that choice is), and through her example of strength and courage, we might find our…

Jane Eyre

By Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Brontë,

Why should I read it?

25 authors picked Jane Eyre as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue, Canterbury Christ Church University College.

Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage.

She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester.

However, there is great kindness and warmth…


Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer,

Book cover of Into the Wild

Perhaps no one—including Kerouac—embodies this characteristic restlessness more purely than Chris McCandless, the subject of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. McCandless’s story has captured the imagination of legions of readers, myself included (not everyone is on board; there are those who consider McCandless a fool). I’m sure I’m not the only one who read the book in one sitting, unable to set it down. What’s so mesmerizing about McCandless’s story, for those who can’t resist it, is his utter belief (saintly in its way) that the physical journey is in fact a quest, a kind of soul-searching that leads to enlightenment. That his journey ends badly somehow seems to validate his belief. McCandless dared to go to the limits, even if it meant there was no return.

Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer,

Why should I read it?

17 authors picked Into the Wild as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Krakauer’s page-turning bestseller explores a famed missing person mystery while unraveling the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

"Terrifying... Eloquent... A heart-rending drama of human yearning." —New York Times

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all…


The Glass Castle

By Jeannette Walls,

Book cover of The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls tells a story of her early childhood growing up in a highly dysfunctional family with parents who are free spirits doing what makes each of them happy at the moment. Her father promises her that someday, he will build her a glass castle on the beach. She dreams of this beautiful home, but throughout the years, she and her siblings are homeless and learn to care for themselves while their parents take off for places unknown. She teaches life lessons of resilience, redemption, and forgiveness that have stayed with me for a very long time.

The Glass Castle

By Jeannette Walls,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Glass Castle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents.

At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane,…


Full Tilt

By Dervla Murphy,

Book cover of Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Utterly mad yet totally mesmerising, Murphy’s journey was an early inspiration to me in my bicycle-bound adventures. Packing a pistol and little else, she set off in 1963 and pedalled through a brutal European winter, over the Iron Curtain and across the Middle East and Afghanistan where she often disguised herself as a man to get by. In the mountains of northern Pakistan and India she traverses incredibly remote regions on broken trails and occasionally finds herself the guest of regal relics from bygone eras. Murphy’s no-nonsence prose and unembellished style should be a benchmark to all travel writers.

Full Tilt

By Dervla Murphy,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Full Tilt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Braving hunger, heat exhaustion, unbearable terrain and cultures largely untouched by civilization, Dervla Murphy chronicles her determined trip through nine countries, through snow and ice in the mountains and miles of barren land in the scorching desert. Full Tilt is a highly individual account by a celebrated travel writer based on the daily diary Murphy kept while riding through Yugoslavia, Persia, Afghanistan, over the Himalayas to Pakistan and into India. Murphy's charm and gracious sensitivity as a writer and a traveler reveals not only civilizations of exotic people and places but the wonder of a woman alone on an extraordinary…


H Is for Hawk

By Helen MacDonald,

Book cover of H Is for Hawk

There are some books you just need. Before I’d even finished my library copy, I’d gone and bought my own; otherwise I couldn’t have given it back. On the face of it, this is nature writing; MacDonald weaves an account of her relationship with a pet goshawk into the story of T.H. White and his own writing of The Goshawk before his King Arthur stories made him famous. It’s a place, this book: a landscape, a psychology, and a sensitive, compassionate history. MacDonald reaches deep into our past – not just the Arthurian lore, but the mythology of animals and how we use them to find our humanity. Tender, honest, and profoundly beautiful.  

H Is for Hawk

By Helen MacDonald,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked H Is for Hawk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year

ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20)

The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of…


On the Road

By Jack Kerouac,

Book cover of On the Road

On the Road is the mother of all 20th-century American road trips. It’s a mad rush West, an impetuous quest for life and friendship, as experienced by the protagonist, Sal Paradise. This is Kerouac’s episodic account of his own restless relationships among transients who question, postpone, reject, or can’t afford the post-World War II American dream of house, spouse, car, career, and kids. What I love about this iconic American road story is Kerouac’s authenticity, his thirst for life, his human fallibility, his truth. 

On the Road

By Jack Kerouac,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked On the Road as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition

Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed…


Circe

By Madeline Miller,

Book cover of Circe

A family friend recommended this book at a party and then I saw it in a bookstore window and had to have it. I love retellings, and Miller’s retelling of Circe, the sorceress of Homer’s Odyssey, is smart, heart-wrenching, and wonderfully executed. Circe’s voice is what captivated me most, but the story is likewise engaging. Miller builds a vibrant world retelling a character who has long been vilified and perhaps misunderstood. Readers who enjoy female characters striving to achieve agency will cheer for Circe throughout.

Circe

By Madeline Miller,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The international Number One bestseller from the author of The Song of Achilles, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens…


Outliers

By Malcolm Gladwell,

Book cover of Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell is my favorite author, his ability to keep the reader engage is second to none. This book helps us understand what makes the spectacular spectacular all while creating the knowledge and understanding that anyone is capable of greatness if you're willing to take the time to work on your craft. 

Outliers

By Malcolm Gladwell,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Regarded by many as the most gifted and influential author and journalist in America today, Gladwell has the rare ability to connect with audiences of tremendously varied interests. There are over 10 million copies of his books in print. Now, Gladwell's landmark investigations into the world around us are collected together for the first time. Beautifully repackaged and redesigned, with newly added illustrations throughout each book, COLLECTED is a perfect treasury of prose…


Women Who Run with the Wolves

By Clarissa Pinkola Estés,

Book cover of Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

I never, never, never want to meet this author. This book had me crying on every page and at 520 pages it is a really long book. How dare she expose my soul warts and all to the world? That book set my soul free in a way that few other books have. If you want to face yourself and be yourself! Read this book.

Women Who Run with the Wolves

By Clarissa Pinkola Estés,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Women Who Run with the Wolves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published three years before the print edition of Women Who Run With the Wolves made publishing history, this original audio edition quickly became an underground bestseller. For its insights into the inner life of women, it established Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes as one of the most important voices of our time in the fields of Jungian psychology, myth, and women's mysteries.

Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora ("keeper of the old stories"), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the…


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