100 books like Zero Proof

Unlike many non-alcoholic recipe books, this one's for women who are trying to conceive, are already pregnant or are breastfeeding, or individuals who are looking for a little bit more nutrition in their sips. This collection of more than 40 nutritious mocktail recipes are unique and the book also includes tips for sustainable mixology

As the founder of The Sober Girl Society -- and one of the voices leading the sobriety movement in the UK -- Mille Gooch offers personal advice and tips on how to abstain from alcohol in a world where so many social activities revolve around booze. The book is for anyone curious about sobriety or looking to adopt a sober lifestyle for the long term.

This book is about a mom of three (and a former party girl) who started an anonymous blog about giving up alcohol. It documents her first year with hope and humor. It's great for anyone who is looking for a relatable read. It also comes highly recommended by a number of websites, reviews and readers, with a large fan base.

The authors are two women who want to live outside the lines -- spontaneously, extraordinarily, and without alcohol. Their book offers instructions (and a road map) for finding joy without booze including sober dating and zero-proof cocktails, among others, so readers can indulge in life. It offers a unique perspective that maybe readers might not have considered before! 

I have a very large ‘To Be Read’ pile and occasionally I discover a book has stagnated there for far longer than it deserves. Lost Property is one of those – I wish I’d read it and discovered the language of Helen Paris much sooner.

It’s the story of Dot Watson whose life veered off course when she lost her father and, instead of an exciting career, she makes do with working in the London Transport Lost Property Office. When a lost purse turns up, she finds her purpose and sets off on a mission.

Dot, like most of us, just needs a little help finding out who she really is.

Lizzy Dent’s books nail that winning combination of funny and heartfelt. I loved Lizzy’s debut, The Summer Job, as it’s such a great mix of witty and audacious, but full of warmth too.

This book, her latest, has the same ingredients: an outrageous opening, a luscious romance, and a thorny workplace situation. Her prose is sharp, the jokes keep coming, and her characters are people you want to hang out with. Plus, the revenge really is sweet…

Like so many, I’m addicted to this series. Often imitated, never surpassed, Simenon is perhaps the only mystery writer to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was considered by some contemporaries to be the greatest French novelist of his time. Don’t let that put you off. These are great mysteries with an indelible sense of time and place. If the Sherlock Holmes stories can transport me to Victorian London, I can as easily take an absorbing mid-20th century trip to the underside of Paris with Inspector Jules Maigret.

These police procedurals offer unforgettable characters and deep psychological insight. Maigret and the Bum is perhaps my favorite. The bum of the title is a vagrant who has been beaten nearly to death on the banks of the Seine. As Maigret investigates the crime, he finds that the victim was once a highly respected doctor, dedicated to helping the… show more.

Told from the perspective of a museum guard in London, Asunder is one of the most brilliant novels that engages with art.

The protagonist works in the National Gallery by day, and in the evening, she builds miniature dioramas. She also reflects on the destruction of a famous painting, goes on trips with friends, and eventually has a transformative encounter in a dilapidated castle. Asunder explores the meaning of art, decay, and preservation.

This 1844 novel has only been translated into English in an abridgement, but it was a tremendously popular novel in France. Féval capitalized on the bestselling novel The Mysteries of Paris by Eugène Sue by writing a novel with a similar title set in London. Later George W. M. Reynolds wrote another novel with the same name. What makes this novel stand out? Féval’s hero is an Irishman seeking revenge against the English who have wronged him. Disguising himself as the Marquis de Rio Santo, he worms his way into high society and sets about debauching ladies while plotting to blow up the Bank of England and destroy the British Empire. The novel would later inspire the creation of The Count of Monte Cristo and the character of Captain Nemo.

This is one of my all-time thrillers. It’s a cautionary tale that reminds us that not all of the Nazis were caught after the war and their need for power would never disappear.

The story follows Dr. Paul Osborne, who has been haunted from the day he was ten years old and watched a stranger kill his father. Now, years later, in Paris, he sees the same man. This starts the frantic race through Europe to find out why his father was killed and who ordered it done, while killers and the police dodge his every move, Osborne doesn’t know who can be trusted. The action doesn’t stop until the horrifying last page.