Here are 88 books that Burned fans have personally recommended if you like
Burned.
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I’m a writer who just published a book I didn’t have any interest in writing. I didn’t like the subject matter, so I had no interest in doing the research to create credible characters and a cohesive plot.
Back when I was an atheist undergraduate college student, this book, among others, saved my life.
I’d walked away from everything religious and hence lacked all moral grounding. Although I was ambitious, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Only what I didn’t want to do with my life.
My animosity against all things religious was huge, but the stoic philosophy of discipline and self-control kept me from throwing my life away.
Nearly two thousand years after it was written, Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life.
Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D. 161–180). A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcus’s insights and advice—on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others—have made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations…
Finalist for the 2023 California Book Award, and the 2023 Northern California Book Award.
Eighteen-year-old Del is in a healthier place than she was a year and a half ago. She’s sober, getting treatment for her depression and anxiety, and volunteering at a suicide prevention hotline. Her own suicide attempt…
Writing is about the metaphysical as well as the rational if it’s any good. As an author, I am always more interested in the wreckage of a crisis than the crisis itself—in the aftermath. Survivors search for purpose above all else. They undertake long sojourns, seek spiritual counsel, or find solace in art or politics. As a writer who has dealt with illness for most of my adult life, I think one path that is shared by all these novels is the discovery of agency—over one’s body, one’s choices, and one’s own life and death. There lies meaning.
Vietnam was a war complicated by political lies, class antagonism, and generational trauma.
The author seamlessly blends non-fiction with fiction, creating verisimilitude which references memoir without always being bound by the weight of facts, freeing the narrative. The horrors and hollowness of war are recounted through intimate encounters, unrequited loves, and imagined lives. In doing so, he keeps alive the friends and lovers who have died.
I found a catharsis in the clarity and coolness of his internal voice, which needs no embellishment to deliver its emotional blow. In writing about the everyday violence both during and after the conflict, he reminds us of the importance of love and morality.
The million-copy bestseller, which is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
'The Things They Carried' is, on its surface, a sequence of award-winning stories about the madness of the Vietnam War; at the same time it has the cumulative power and unity of a novel, with recurring characters and interwoven strands of plot and theme.
But while Vietnam is central to 'The Things They Carried', it is not simply a book about war. It is also a book about the human heart - about the terrible weight of those things we…
I firmly live by the saying, “Where we are in life is a direct reflection of the choices we’ve made, or failed to make.” The theme of choice and consequence has not just been a way of living but the very trope in all my novels. The beauty in showing the process of making a choice, for my characters, in their stories, brings them to life. It forces the reader to step inside that decision tree, to analyze and predict the outcome despite the unknown. We are continuously propelled into the unknown and we make choices based on the notion of understanding what those choices will mean.
When it comes to poetry, one can’t help but visualize the emotions often conveyed as readers see with their mind’s eye.
In this book of visceral poetry, John eloquently touches on different motifs with poems and photography, all while exploring the human condition, giving true shape and identity to each piece.
From one poet to another, the principles of understanding require an inward look at oneself, and John does this without blemish. Striking heart cords to the tune of sophisticated emotions in their simplest form, Raw Thoughts lives up to its title.
Raw Thoughts: A Mindful Fusion of Poetic and Photographic Art is a visceral exploration of mindfulness and hope via a symbiotic fusion of poetic and photographic art. Each successive poem-photo pairing (each 'raw thought') builds on an underlying philosophy that compels us to assess and adjust what and how we think, with the aim of improving our lives-and by extension, the lives of those around us.
Raw Thoughts is Book One in The Raw Thoughts Series. Book Two is titled Meridian: A Raw Thoughts Book.
Raw Thoughts was nominated for the National Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. Select…
A heartbreakingly beautiful novel in verse about adoption, family, friendship, and love in all its many forms, perfect for fans of Robin Benway and Jandy Nelson, from the acclaimed author of Three Things I Know Are True.
Rynn was born with a hole in her heart—literally. Although it was…
I firmly live by the saying, “Where we are in life is a direct reflection of the choices we’ve made, or failed to make.” The theme of choice and consequence has not just been a way of living but the very trope in all my novels. The beauty in showing the process of making a choice, for my characters, in their stories, brings them to life. It forces the reader to step inside that decision tree, to analyze and predict the outcome despite the unknown. We are continuously propelled into the unknown and we make choices based on the notion of understanding what those choices will mean.
This novel-in-verse tugs at the heart and soul of any individual who has suffered at the hands of abuse.
Written from the perspective of a teenage girl searching for her identity, she and her siblings come to know abuse in this relatable story.
A coming-of-age story trapped in the grasp of an abusive and alcoholic father whose selfish tendencies are haunting, this story and its tropes of love and acceptance will stick with you well after the last page.
Anke’s father is abusive to her brother and sister. But not to her. Because, to him, she is like furniture— not even worthy of the worst kind of attention. Then Anke makes the school volleyball team. She loves feeling her muscles after workouts, an ache that reminds her she is real. Even more, Anke loves the confidence that she gets from the sport. And as she learns to call for the ball on the court, she finds a voice she never knew she had. For the first time, Anke is making herself seen and heard, working toward the day she…
I've been writing spooky stories for the better half of my life. Reading
and writing horror has always been a strangely therapeutic endeavor.
It's a way to process the things that keep me up at night and force them
into a somewhat manageable form. After all, tangible words on the page
are less worrisome than swirling thoughts in the mind. And a surprising
number of people seem to agree. As absurd as that may sound, many of us
troubled souls find comfort in the horror genre.
"There is a despair that goes deeper than existence; it runs to the marrow of consciousness, to the seat of the soul."
In this brief but brilliant masterpiece, the afterlife is a (nearly) infinite library. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Just wait. With each page turn, I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into a state of existential dread. Immersive, heartbreaking, and profound, I would've been happy to stay in this hell a good while longer.
An ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he’ll be reunited with his loved ones after death in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life.
Living in southern Utah for many years, I saw first-hand the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah. It always intrigued me that these people still held on to the beliefs and teachings of the early Mormon leaders regardless of the laws or scorn of those who lived around them. The research I did for The Treasure of Cedar Creek, was about polygamy, but also the history of the area of Idaho where the novel takes place and how it would be as a woman not only trying to escape, but facing the challenges of the terrain and perceptions of the day.
I found Wall’s first-hand account of what life is like inside a polygamist cult to be both revealing and tragic. The book is nonfiction but reads like a novel. I loved how the pages were full of descriptive passages that gave me an insider’s view of what these young girls are taught and must face as child brides. It helped me see that what began decades before is still happening under a cloak of secrecy. I found this book revealing and disturbing, and one I couldn’t put down.
A tale of survival and freedom, Stolen Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up for what was right and reclaimed her life.
In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at the age of fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of the lengths to which Jeffs went in order to control the sect's…
Living in southern Utah for many years, I saw first-hand the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah. It always intrigued me that these people still held on to the beliefs and teachings of the early Mormon leaders regardless of the laws or scorn of those who lived around them. The research I did for The Treasure of Cedar Creek, was about polygamy, but also the history of the area of Idaho where the novel takes place and how it would be as a woman not only trying to escape, but facing the challenges of the terrain and perceptions of the day.
I love escaping into a story, and if it is historical fiction, I want it to be historically accurate. By telling the story in both the present day and in the past, I was intrigued and this kept me reading. The novel is based on the experiences of a real woman living in polygamy but tells the story of what happened then and how it affects the lives of others later. It may be fictional, but the historical accuracy made the story come to life. I could feel her angst with being part of her family, but also knowing she didn’t want this life.
Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime. Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and…
My life is divided into two parts: before I left the cult I was involved in during my 20s, and after. Leaving the cult created a reckoning in my life unlike anything I’ve experienced before or since. It was both the worst thing that had ever happened to me, and the best. As a result, I connect deeply with others’ stories of grief, loss, and the challenging times in life that make us. As an author, I have carried these themes into my mystery novels. I hope you experience as much resonance from the books on this list as I have.
This book parallels my own journey of leaving a spiritual group, which is no doubt why this memoir is so precious to me. I’ve probably read this book six times. The author writes with confidence, humility, and humor that I find both deeply touching and inspirational.
Beck grew up in a family where her father was an apologist for the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Her personal reckoning with that religion and her journey to finding her own version of faith is one that everyone with an interest in the human experience will be able to relate to.
As “Mormon royalty” within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church’s high elders in an existence framed by the strictest code of conduct. As an adult, she moved to the east coast, outside of her Mormon enclave for the first time in her life. When her son was born with Down syndrome, Martha and her husband left their graduate programs at Harvard to return to Utah, where they knew the supportive Mormon community would embrace them.
But when she was hired to teach at Brigham Young University, Martha…
In 2012, a publisher asked me if I wanted to write a book about Joseph Smith's assassination. I leapt at the chance, in part because I was fascinated by Smith and the Latter-day Saints, and in part because I appreciated how many of the important contributions to Mormon history --- including Fawn Brodie’s famous biography of Joseph Smith, or the first honest and comprehensive account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre -- sprang from the pens of women and men with no formal academic training. By contrast, many “scholars” have disgraced themselves with prevaricating or pusillanimous accounts of the religion’s raucous and fascinating 190-year history. So jump in! Never a dull moment with the Latter-day Saints!
This is an honest book about Joseph Smith’s first, and only “real” wife, Emma, who virulently opposed polygamy and, after Joseph’s death, convinced herself that it never existed. Emma is one of the three titans of Mormon history: she, her husband, and the subject of my next pick.
Mormon Enigma is the bestselling biography of Emma Hale Smith, wife of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. It was Joseph Smith who announced that an angel of the Lord had commanded him to introduce a 'new order of marriage.' And it was Emma Hale Smith who confronted the practice of polygamy head on.
As the authors note in their introduction, "Early leaders in Utah castigated Emma from their pulpits for opposing Brigham Young and the practice of polygamy, and for lending support to the Reorganization. As these attitudes filtered down through the years, Emma was virtually written out of…
I became involved in a rigid religious movement as a teen and prepared for the ministry at a fundamentalist college and seminary. I took this ideology to its logical extreme and became a foreign missionary. I know from the inside how such an ideology takes hold of a person and how difficult it is to escape its grasp, especially when family and career are intertwined. Through my own struggle with depression and anxiety, I scoured books to help understand myself and faith development, eventually earning a Ph.D in counseling, emphasizing developmental theory. I know from personal experience what it means to walk away from a way of thinking that has defined much of your life.
This is an amazing memoir of a woman who was raised by a fundamentalist Morman family who lived in a polygamist compound in Mexico. She was her father’s thirty-ninth child and the daughter of a union between him and her mother, who was his fifth wife. Her father died when she was only 3 months old, and she spent most of her childhood with her mother, four siblings, and an abusive stepfather. The community was a confusing combination of rigid religious beliefs, sister wives, and poverty. At age 15 she takes three of her siblings and escapes to California to build a new life. I am amazed that a child could have the understanding, foresight, and courage to do what she did. The book is very well written and thoroughly captivating.
The Sound of Gravel is Ruth Wariner's unforgettable and deeply moving story of growing up in a polygamist Mormon doomsday community. The thirty-ninth of her father's forty-one children, Ruth is raised on a farm in the hills of Mexico, where polygamy is practiced without fear of legal persecution. There, Ruth's family lives in a home without indoor plumbing or electricity and attends a church where preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world. In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States,…
