I’ve long had a passion (read: obsession) with the apocalypse in whatever form it takes. I’ve written viral pandemics, zombie outbreaks, post-nuclear survival, dystopian totalitarianism, extinction-level-event, alien invasion, WW3… all of them have the theme of the great reset. The ability to reinvent yourself in the new world. The erasure of your life and the clean slate to try again and become who you want to be. I read and listen to this genre as well as write it because I'm passionate about the worlds writers create and the way their characters adapt to overcome the challenges my own have faced. As a former police officer, I’ve probably spent too many night shifts pondering the end of the world.
Joshua is another author with multiple series, but Commune is a standout piece of literature. His style is subtle and suggestive, making the reader pay attention so they don’t miss the nuances and the snippets of backstory. That said, his action sequences are fast and brutal with a realism that hits home. The humour of the characters throughout is so genuine it’s a stroke of brilliance.
Full disclosure – I loved this series so much I’m writing more Commune with him!
Finding a friend in the apocalypse isn't easy, and for Jake Martin, it's been damn-near impossible.
Life has become an endless trek for canned food, shelter, and avoiding those who've turned to killing for anything all while trying not to become a killer himself.
When Jake encounters Billy, an elderly wanderer on the highway to ruined Las Vegas, everything changes. Billy reminds him of life before the world ended, of when being human meant acting like more than a mindless beast. Although their bond…
I believe that the gap between the amount of LGBTQIA+ and heterosexual erotica is far too large in the mainstream. Queer people deserve to have quality, well-written, spicy romance just as much as the mom in Utah reading her Danielle Steel novels does. This includes, gay, bisexual, lesbian, queer, panromantic, polyamourous, and non-binary people just to list a few. People who don’t adhere to cis, heteronormativity deserve to know that they can love, have steamy sex, maintain healthy relationships, and do whatever it is they want to do. Through my books and queer activism, I intend to rectify this by normalizing queer romance novels and increasing accessibility of the genre.
Don’t be fooled by the initial MF pairing of this book, A Lady of Rooksgrove Manor is very queer and very spicy.
Kathryn Moon does a fantastic job creating a realistic example of a polyamorous relationship in a genre where most authors tend to just like creating conflict. Each partner to the main character has unique, well-negotiated relationships not only with the main character but also with each other.
These relationships range from sexual to queer, platonic, and scratches the itch that every queer person has to build a commune out in the wilderness with all their closest friends that they may or may not make out with sometimes.
Crystal King is the author of The Chef’s Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and was a Must-Read for the MassBook Awards. She is an author, culinary enthusiast, and marketing expert. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity, and social media at GrubStreet, Harvard Extension School, and Boston University, among others. She resides in Boston.
In the third novel of Zola’s twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart, a man named Florent, accused of a crime he didn’t commit, escapes to Paris and becomes a fish inspector at the Les Halles market. Food and politics collide in the heart of the market, giving the reader some of the most vivid and delicious descriptions you’ll ever find on the page.
Unjustly deported to Devil's Island following Louis-Napoleon's coup-d'etat in December 1851, Florent Quenu escapes and returns to Paris. He finds the city changed beyond recognition. The old Marche des Innocents has been knocked down as part of Haussmann's grand programme of urban reconstruction to make way for Les Halles, the spectacular new food markets. Disgusted by a bourgeois society whose devotion to food is inseparable from its devotion to the Government, Florent attempts an insurrection. Les Halles, apocalyptic and destructive, play an active role in Zola's picture of a world in which food and the injustice…
I don’t think I’m alone in considering cults and those who join cults fascinating, but I’ve also always found it frustrating when non-fiction accounts or documentaries focus on the logistics of how the communes operate rather than finding out the why. Why do people join a cult, why do they stay, why do they follow increasingly erratic and dangerous instruction? For me, researching cults for my new novel The Sleepless – about a commune whose disciples believe that sleep is a social construct – was about finding out about the characters, the individuals, who are drawn into organisations which often ask you to relinquish that self-same sense of individuality.
This is a novel about a young woman, the titular Nina, escaping from a Maoist cult and it’s a terrifically absorbing and engrossing tale.
What makes it unique is that it’s as much about the protagonist reclaiming, or even forming, her own identity as it is about the cult that she’s wrestling herself free from. Both the storyline and the form of the book itself involves the reader in that journey into freedom. An excellent and under-rated book.
Winner of the Saltire Literary Award Fiction Book of the Year
'Literary gold . . . Morrison has published his masterpiece' Sunday Times
'Sensational. Like nothing I've ever read. A tour de force' Ian Rankin
Nina X has never been outside. She has never met another child. Nina X has no books, no toys and no privacy. Nina X has no idea what the outside world is like. Nina X has a lot to learn.
Nina X has no mother and no father; she has Comrade Chen, and Comrades Uma, Jeni and Ruth. Her closest emotional connection is with the…
Having first discovered the mystery of ancient Egypt as a small child via my father’s war-time souvenirs, this interest grew over the years until it became a serious magical under-taking, culminating in Initiation into the magical order of the Temple of Khem. I became Principal tutor of the Order in 1998 and publishedLiber Ægyptius: The Book of Egyptian Magic in the same year. I continue to teach the Egyptian Mystery Tradition to those willing to submit themselves to the exacting discipline needed to enter the priesthood, and remain a member of the Egypt Exploration Society to keep up-to-date with the current archaeological discoveries in Egypt.
Because of the complexity of the Egyptian pantheon, it is necessary to have a good ‘Who’s Who’ to hand that gives us all the behind-the-scenes scandal and gossip, as well as the genealogy. No one, expert or layman, who reads this book will look at the strange figures of the Egyptian gods in quite the same light again, thanks to The Meekses-Dimitri (Universite de Provence) and Christine (Sorbonne) - who enable us to enter this strange world by observing the daily routines of these divine beings! I have several A-Zs of the Egyptian gods but none can compare with this one…
This is the first English translation of a highly appealing volume originally published in French in 1993. Informed by a sense of wonderment at divine doings, it treats the ancient Egyptian gods as if they were an ethnic group that captured the fancy of ethnologists or sociologists.The book begins with a discussion of the gods' community as a society unto itself. The authors describe the structures of the society of the gods and some of the conflicts that frequently upset it, with individual gods acting to protect their own positions in an established hierarchy and struggling to gain power over…
I am a writer and academic based at Loughborough University specialising in the lives, works, and afterlives of the Brontës. As a Lecturer in English, I teach and research different aspects of the Brontës writings. Alongside my own biography of Emily, I have published widely on the Brontës, including material on Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Emily Brontë’s poetry, and Charlotte's letters. I have also written about how the Brontës inspire contemporary authors, poets, and screenwriters. As well as rereading the siblings’ novels (I love Charlotte’s Shirley!), I’m fascinated by the many biographies and bio-fictions generated about this great Yorkshire family. I hope you enjoy these recommendations!
Another incredible rewriting of Wuthering Heightsand one that’s as dark and Gothic as Emily’s momentous original. In Ill Will, Michael Stewart picks up Emily’s narrative at the point when Heathcliff, having heard Cathy declare that it would degrade her to marry him, departs the Heights. Stewart unravels the tale of where Heathcliff went during the three years that he was missing from Cathy’s world and imagines what happened to him to make him return in such a vengeful guise.Ill Will is also a rewriting that takes up the issue of race, for here, Heathcliff is a young black man and his departure from the Heights prompts him to trace Mr. Earnshaw’s walk to Liverpool in the hope of finding out who he is.
I am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief.
But you will know me by another name.
Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and is travelling across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past.
Along the way, he saves Emily, the foul-mouthed daughter of a Highwayman, from a whipping, and the pair journey on together.
Roaming from graveyard to graveyard, making a living from Emily's apparent ability to commune with the dead, the pair lie, cheat and scheme their way across the North of England.
And towards the terrible misdeeds - and untold riches…
I grew up living in a housing co-op on Vancouver Island, BC. While not technically a commune, it did have some of the hallmarks. There were gangs of partially clothed kids roaming wild. There were a bunch of idealistic adults who had dreams of shared land stewardship and, well, shared everything. The housing project succeeded in many ways (it still exists today) and, it failed in other ways (over the years there were many fractures in the community). I’ve always been fascinated by attempts at communal living. I suppose my obsession with cult life is just an extension of this. It is my life imagined one step further.
This novel tells the story of one person, Astrid, who grows up in a dysfunctional failed utopian commune in British Columbia, Canada.
The story of Astrid is told from multiple points of view. Each character paints a different picture of this child-who-becomes-a-woman, at different stages in her life. But what I like most about this book is its exploration of the aftermath of growing up in a failed utopian commune.
How does a person carry this ejected-from-Eden baggage with them over a lifespan? Is it possible to overcome it and fit into “normal” society again? The answers to these questions might surprise you.
I am a former white-collar crime federal prosecutor and California state court judge turned policymaker and author. Though I started in law, I joined the Department of Homeland Security mid-career where I ended up with an assignment that no one wanted: create the department’s first-ever climate adaptation plan. That experience showed me that climate change is a mounting risk affecting everything. I then joined President Barack Obama’s climate team in the White House, where I crafted policy to address catastrophic risks, including climate change and biological threats. Since then, I have become an author, media pundit, and frequent podcast guest, using my voice to call for action on climate.
Climate fiction, or “cli-fi” as it is now known, lets readers imagine the world about which scientists are warning, a world where climate-fueled extremes upend humanity’s everyday existence. This book tells the story of a Midwestern math whiz who studies “worst-case scenarios” for a living. When one of those scenarios collides with his own life, action, adventure, and love follow.
New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor works on the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming. A gifted mathematician, he spends his days in Manhattan calculating worst-case scenarios for FutureWorld, a consulting firm that indemnifies corporations against potential disasters. As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe, he exchanges letters with Elsa Bruner - a college crush with an apocalyptic secret of her own - and becomes obsessed by a culture's fears. When his predictions culminate in a nightmarish crescendo, Mitchell realizes he is uniquely prepared to profit from the disaster. But at what cost?
Each time I have read this book over the years, new images are revealed of the post-apocalyptic dream city, Bellona. Now, as a published author, I am even more drawn to Kid, the poetic drifter.
I particularly relate to the mysterious notebook found by the fire late at night at the Hippie commune. Whoever lost it, has written on only one side of each page. The first thing Kid finds written inside is, “to wound the autumnal city...”, which is exactly how the mythic and symbolic novel Dhalgren begins.
How much of what happens is the direct result of what Kid writes, reads, or has already written in the mysterious notebook is open for interpretation. I enjoy the ambiguity, since it mirrors the mystery of Bellona itself.
Nebula Award Finalist: Reality unravels in a Midwestern town in this sci-fi epic by the acclaimed author of Babel-17. Includes a foreword by William Gibson.
A young half–Native American known as the Kid has hitchhiked from Mexico to the midwestern city Bellona—only something is wrong there . . . In Bellona, the shattered city, a nameless cataclysm has left reality unhinged. Into this desperate metropolis steps the Kid, his fist wrapped in razor-sharp knives, to write, to love, to wound.
So begins Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany’s masterwork, which in 1975 opened a new door for what science fiction could mean.…
I’ve always loved fairytales, whimsical stories, and mysteries. Plus, I’m passionate about mind-expanding, heart-opening books that offer me new ways to understand myself and the Universe we live in. And I particularly like books that show me ways to have more of what brings me joy and pleasure. When I can get all of this in a novel I’m in heaven.
For me this is an unforgettable, compelling story about love, romance, and magic!
This book is a beautiful, metaphysical love story that opened my eyes to the possibilities of soulmates and that not only does love exists, but it can also be accessed through time travel, inter-dimensional travel, and leading multiple lives at once!
Reading it reinforced my belief that love never dies and that love is both pre-destined and has a free will component.
I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?
Would we change if we knew what waits beyond space and time?
“With One, the ninth novel from the ever spiritual and imaginative author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, [Richard] Bach continues his quest for a deeper understanding of human nature. . . . Although the elements of a great science fiction novel are present, the plot is secondary to the novel's theme of humanity's ability to control destiny”—The Boston Herald
“If you have ever tried to judge a book by its cover . .…
