28 Books Like A Quiet Life in 7 Steps

I’ve read this book more times than I can count.

Hell, I think I actually wore the pages out, if that’s even possible. When I was younger, I went back to it like a lab rat hitting the lever for a pellet—each parable connecting another dot. To me, the mystery was life, the teacher the universe, and I was the student—albeit a lousy one. 

The Alchemist is one of those rare novels that feels both timeless and uncomfortably personal. At its foundation, it’s about following your own path—trusting the itch of intuition and chasing something bigger than yourself, even when it feels a little foolhardy in the moment.

What I love is how Coelho cuts through with fable-like simplicity: those who love walking go farther than those who love the destination—and they usually learn a hell of a lot more if they’re paying attention. 

I recommend it because it doesn’t… show more.

Allende is one of my sheroes in the writing world. Her ability to depict the unseen world of intuition and address the passion that stokes the inner fires of women is unmatched. Her life is an extraordinary journey of love, loss, and resilience during difficult political times in Chile.

In this book, she gives voice to women everywhere who have been oppressed, and they still rise to care for themselves and those they love while striving for the lives they deserve. Calling herself a feminist, she shares how her defiant character was pathologized and, ultimately, how that led her to stand up for herself and other women.

It is both an individual and a collective story about the role of women in the world then and today.

I was immediately drawn to a fellow Latina's story by virtue of being of Colombian ancestry and experiencing similar mystical and unusual experiences in my family. I have relatives in Colombia who lived through the political violence of the 1980s, and I could understand the dread she described in her book.

The reckoning between a concrete reality and a magical world was part of my writing challenge. I felt as if I had found a kindred spirit who shared a heritage of magic and mystery and the Latina approach to integrating this into our lives unapologetically.

While studying for my Leadership Coaching Certification at Georgetown University, I heard Parker Palmer speak and immediately sought out his book.

His concepts of a "circle of trust" and his description of the yearning for an undivided life that encompasses our truth and how we operate in the world helped me navigate my choices and informed my approach to my work with organizational clients.

Through his work, I learned the cost of living a fragmented life and sought wholeness in my life and for my clients.

If you have a teenager wanting to be a marine biologist, this is the book to read! It is a coming-of-age book but also one of great charm and devotion to marine life. The tale and the writing are irresistible. It is so rare for an author to personalize marine biology, especially for teenagers.

This book does a remarkable thing. I loved it because it was a great story about teenagers who somehow managed to connect their love for the shoreline, and it even managed to give us a lot of great biology. Children often want to be marine biologists but their love is usually not very well connected to the real worlds of the ocean.

This book is a really great Natural History book. It puts teenagers in the mud, collecting clams, and doing things marine biologists do. Yet it has a heart—a really great book.

This lyrical nonfiction picture book takes readers on a mesmerizing, sometimes dramatic, and almost deceptively informative exploration of a tide pool’s inner workings at the ocean’s edge.

Fleming’s virtuosic text (complete with significant backmatter) is gorgeously enhanced by Hevron’s layered artwork, and while the book works perfectly as intended for very young children, it’s also a special treat for more skilled readers to read and revisit.

When I read The Hungry Tide for the first time, it read to me like a fantasy novel set in a faraway world. Except it isn’t. The setting for The Hungry Tide is a real place, but it is as dangerous and as fantastic as something created by Tolkien. It takes place in the Sundarbans of India, a world where tigers hunt people and tidal floods come without warning and wipe out villages. Sometimes I read a book to get lost in a world that doesn’t exist. Other times I read a book to get lost in a world that does. I’ve never been to the Sundarbans, but I still periodically dream about them. 

I came across this, now out of print, booklet as a 19-year-old who could not believe the majority of the planet would believe something incorrect. This guy was a lone voice against the tide of overpopulation panic. 

The information he provided was easily confirmed with math or encyclopedia references. It is completely a Q&A format. Very strange, at first. It was as if he expected me, the reader, to reach my own conclusions based on the information alone. That was new for me. He did not coax me or summarize his conclusion. This influenced my writing style for life. It respects the reader as having a mind of his own.

The 2nd most impacting part about this was ultimately, that yes, the whole world could literally be wrong. Shocking!

Helen Rozwadowski draws attention to what should be obvious, the ocean matters not just because of what happens on it, but what happens in it.

In Vast Expanses, Rozwadowski plumbs the depths of the ocean’s history from the geological past to visions for its future to make the point that through trade and fishing, exploration and entertainment the accumulation of knowledge about the seas has defined and redefined the relationship between humans and the ocean.

From reaping natural resources, to expanding state power, and even to rest, respite, and leisure, the connection between society and sea has been a complex one.  

This book is an achingly beautiful love story that had me enraptured from the first page!

The book moves from pain to passion as a young woman known as a “sea witch,” risks her life to rescue an enslaved selkie man. This is a quick read with a slow burn, and I was held captive by the growing romance between two people who come from separate worlds.

I am a hopeless romantic, and I love the way the selkie and the sea-witch care for each other, sacrificing their own safety to heal the sins of the past. The words pulse with the beauty of ocean tides. I didn’t want the story to end!