Here are 7 books that A Season of Perfect Happiness fans have personally recommended if you like
A Season of Perfect Happiness.
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Erik Larson is one of my all-time favorite authors of popular history. His grasp of details, his use of sources is masterful, and he's one of the best story-tellers in publishing. I've read all his books, like Dead Wake about the Lusitania, twice, and am eager to re-read this new one about the start of the Civil War. I've been reading about that war for years but never encountered such a deep dive into what happened at Ft. Sumter day-by-day and also the slave-holding culture of South Carolina and especially Charleston. Every page is gripping and ebautifully written and will make you feel that you are there.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).
“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I am a scientist, educator, successful entrepreneur, and author. I believe that human civilization is threatened by the wonderful and dangerous technologies that we created in the last two centuries: fossil fuels, nuclear weapons, gene editing, AI, and social media. As a creator of technologies, I feel responsible that more hasn’t been done to properly control them. My current mission is to sound an alarm about the potential tyranny of technology through my novels, 100 Years to Extinction and the sequel, 12 Years to AI Singularity, on my website and on social media. While the recommended books on my list are nonfiction, my fictional story presents the science and technology accurately as nonfiction would.
I loved the way Nexus looks at human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us and our world.
For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. Will we lose that power to AI? I believe Harari adds an important historical perspective to complement Kurzweil’s view of the future.
I found Harari’s account about the role of Facebook’s AI in the persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar to be fascinating.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.
“Striking original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the zeitgeist perfectly.”—The Economist
“This deeply important book comes at a critical time as we all think through the implications of AI and automated content production. . . . Masterful and provocative.”—Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave
For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour discoveries, inventions, and conquests,…
I am fascinated by the idea of good people, moral people, people you know and like and love, who make terrible choices, wrong decisions, and mistakes that can’t be undone. And when the person who makes the mistake is a mother—my God! How the world turns on them. We live in a society where mothers are judged so harshly, where they are not allowed mistakes, where they are barely allowed to have a life or a want or a desire or a longing not connected to mothering. And so I write about this, and I read about this.
This one I loved for the style as much as the character. I love the use of fragments to weave together a life and it felt true to the life of a mother—that a mother only gets snippets of time to piece together her story and her thoughts. I also loved that Offil was wrestling with such a big issue—how to hold onto oneself while giving so much of your self to a child.
They used to send each other letters. The return address was always the same: Dept. of Speculation.
They used to be young, brave, and giddy with hopes for their future. They got married, had a child, and skated through all the small calamities of family life. But then, slowly, quietly something changes. As the years rush by, fears creep in and doubts accumulate until finally their life as they know it cracks apart and they find themselves forced to reassess what they have lost, what is left, and what they want now.
Written with the dazzling lucidity of poetry, Dept.…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I am fascinated by the idea of good people, moral people, people you know and like and love, who make terrible choices, wrong decisions, and mistakes that can’t be undone. And when the person who makes the mistake is a mother—my God! How the world turns on them. We live in a society where mothers are judged so harshly, where they are not allowed mistakes, where they are barely allowed to have a life or a want or a desire or a longing not connected to mothering. And so I write about this, and I read about this.
I couldn’t put it down, and thirty years after its publication, as with Sue Miller’s book, I still feel the emotions I felt reading it. I can’t think of a better recommendation for any book. I still care about the characters. I wonder how the main character, Alice, is doing. Simply writing this answer makes me want to go back and read the book again—it will be my fourth or fifth read.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of the widely acclaimed The Book of Ruth comes a harrowing, heartbreaking drama about a rural American family and a disastrous event that forever changes their lives.
"It takes a writer of rare power and discipline to carry off an achievement like A Map of the World. Hamilton proves here that she is one of the best." —Newsweek
The Goodwins, Howard, Alice, and their little girls, Emma and Claire, live on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Although suspiciously regarded by their neighbors as "that hippie couple" because of their well-educated, urban background, Howard and…
I am fascinated by the idea of good people, moral people, people you know and like and love, who make terrible choices, wrong decisions, and mistakes that can’t be undone. And when the person who makes the mistake is a mother—my God! How the world turns on them. We live in a society where mothers are judged so harshly, where they are not allowed mistakes, where they are barely allowed to have a life or a want or a desire or a longing not connected to mothering. And so I write about this, and I read about this.
I fell in love with Martha, the main character who is struggling with an unnamed depression and who because of this assumes she can never be a good mother. She is so surprising and real and sad and impossible to love and funny—I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to see if things would work out for her.
I am fascinated by the idea of good people, moral people, people you know and like and love, who make terrible choices, wrong decisions, and mistakes that can’t be undone. And when the person who makes the mistake is a mother—my God! How the world turns on them. We live in a society where mothers are judged so harshly, where they are not allowed mistakes, where they are barely allowed to have a life or a want or a desire or a longing not connected to mothering. And so I write about this, and I read about this.
I teach writing with this book because it’s brilliant in its depiction of an ordinary family in all the beautiful routine wonderful ways all families are ordinary. I felt as if I were living in this household. I felt as if the mother were my good friend. How does Quinlen make you want to turn the pages of such an ordinary life—until, of course, nothing is ordinary.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “spellbinding” (The New York Times Book Review) novel, the author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions.
“In a tale that rings strikingly true, [Anna] Quindlen captures both the beauty and the breathtaking fragility of family life.”—People
Mary Beth Latham has built her life around her family, around caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I'm a mother, and at one time, I was a single mother going through a very bitter divorce. I know what it's like to panic that your child will be in an accident, or that the other parent will kidnap the child (even if observers would say I'm overreacting). Looking back, my experience as a mother has permeated both my fiction and nonfiction writing in unplanned ways. Why does my second novel start with a mother kidnapping her own daughter? Why does the subtitle of my fourth nonfiction book cite "Parenting and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism"?
I had to shut this book about halfway through, and I couldn't pick it up again until my daughter was safely home from her weekend visitation with her father—because it was too real.
Too powerful, in the way it captured my (and many mothers') constant fear that my ex-husband would find some excuse not to bring my daughter back after each visit.
I've rarely read anything that grabbed me so personally. The overall plot itself was also enthralling, though less directly realistic for me.
Anna and her ex-husband, Brian, seem to have an amiable divorce, and Anna finds new romance with a sexy lover. But then things go too far: Will Anna lose custody of her young daughter, Molly? What did her lover, Leo, actually do?
Recently divorced, Anna Dunlap has two passionate attachments: her daughter, four-year-old Molly, and her lover, Leo, the man who makes her feel beautiful - and sexual - for the first time. Swept away by happiness and passion, Anna feels she has everything she's ever wanted.
Then come the shocking charges that would threaten her new love, her new "family" . . . that force her to prove she is a good mother.
