100 Books Like Catching Murphy

This book was short-listed for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. It features ex-soldier Mercy Carr and retired military K-9 Elvis, who were both traumatized when Mercy’s fiancé—also Elvis’s handler—was killed on their last deployment.

Paula Munier is another author with a deep connection to the natural world. She is studying for a naturalist certificate in her home state of Vermont, and the books are full of great details.

I’ve been reading Castle Freeman’s stories and novels for many years, and I always go back for more of his small-town settings, his sheriffs and loggers, and the lingering sense of menace he brings to every situation. But most of all, I go back for the dialogue, which is particularly funny, absurd, and even sometimes wise in this short, propulsive novel.

There’s something of Beckett in how these characters’ talk goes nowhere and everywhere at once. In the closed-down mill of the Dead River Chair Company, a handful of retired or otherwise unemployed men provide commentary and insight on the fast-developing plot, in which a young woman comes to them for information about a man who’s been stalking her and eluding the law.

They set her up with a couple of seemingly hapless locals, who together track him down in an abandoned logging camp in the dark woods. Freeman grew… show more.

Various poetry collections have become important to me throughout my life, but if I had to choose a favorite poet and favorite book right now, it would be Voigt and Headwaters. Something new reveals itself each time I read this collection, and it is a particular thrill that so many aspects of a place I know show up in poems of such fierce beauty—the groundhogs and winter snows, the larch and birch and owls.

Voigt moves from one line to the next with such smooth velocity—not slowed down by a single piece of punctuation—that the tumbling forth of images, moods, memories, questions, and quips can create a whiplash effect of the most pleasing kind. A poem that begins with heavy frost and hibernation moves through insomnia, deception, and the pleasure of smoking, and by the end, I find myself marveling, how did we get here?

There’s really no point… show more.

I’ve often wondered about the lives of the migrant farmworkers who come to Vermont, most often from Mexico, Guatemala, and Jamaica, but whom I only ever see in the grocery store checkout line or waiting at the service desk for cash transfers.

While it’s easy to idealize the rolling hills dotted with Holsteins, perfect for postcards and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cartons, dairy is big business in Vermont, and, like everywhere in the US, many of our farmworkers are immigrants without legal protection. Language and cultural barriers, and their very real fears of deportation, keep these workers’ lives hidden. This book, which brings together nineteen stories of personal witness, told by immigrant workers and illustrated, graphic-novel-style, by local comics artists, goes a long way to change that. While there are some common themes—the dangers of crossing the desert, longing for home, working endless shifts in all weather—the stories are… show more.

I can’t get enough of quirky, indefatigable teen sleuth Stevie Bell. She’s determined to solve a decades-old cold case, but must also navigate social awkwardness, anxiety, and people who literally want her dead.

I enjoyed how this book flip-flopped between the present-day narrative and the past. My friend and I got to see Maureen Johnson give a talk at a nearby bookstore, and we loved it; she’s basically a stand-up comedian. 

The masculine voice in this novel is absolutely masterful. It’s tender, nuanced, earnest, and intelligent. Stegner offers a sweeping, unflinching story about friendships, marriage, the human ego, and the passage of time with a set of characters who are flawed, fragile, and therefore, very believable.

I’ve read this book more than once, and discover something new and lovely each time. This book honors a reader’s intelligence and heart. Again, the complexity in the characters and how they relate to one another gets me every time.  

This lovely story is one of loss, tragedy, hope, family, and new beginnings that come in the most unexpected ways.

Seventy-five-year-old Sarah has a good life. She’s been married to Charles, a man she adores, for fifty years. She assumes they will live out the rest of their lives together in the tranquil setting of their Vermont country home. But when Charles unexpectedly passes away, Sarah’s beautiful life is shattered.

With her children grown and raising families of their own, she finds herself alone in her big house, no one to nurture, no place to put her love. Until a collection of displaced characters begin to find shelter in her home. Working through her grief, Sarah discovers interests she never took the time to explore, and in pouring into others, soon finds her own cup overflowing. 

This story provides perspective on what things are important, and what are not. So… show more.

I love to explore all aspects of family drama and strife, but sometimes I prefer something with more light and hope rather than darkness and despair.

I thought this one would fit the bill. In many ways, it did. But that doesn’t mean there was a lack of tears and angst. Who wouldn’t want three wishes? And what would we do if we had them? This story explores that and more.

Moreover, it left an indelible stain on my heart while also proving all is not over after a loss. It’s an odd mix of sad and joyful… bittersweet, but elevated to another level. 

This is a feel-good book with just enough punch to keep it from being cute.

It comes with a building project, some hurricane-induced drama, a bit of romance, and two dogs.

Cooper and Bubba are the canines who wind themselves around the main characters, as most dogs do in real life. Cooper is everyone’s friend, and he orchestrates introductions.

But he’s also a bolter who gets lost just as flooding begins and evacuation becomes unavoidable.

Catherine Drake’s books are always a respite between heavier reading, and this one is one of the best.

A childless couple adopts a chimpanzee named Looee, and you already know from reading that sentence that it will lead to trouble and heartbreak. After a few pages, I didn’t care. In McAdam’s skilled hands, the inevitable sadness doesn’t matter, because the delicately handled point of view perfectly captures a doomed creature trapped between two opposing identities. In contrast, we also meet Podo, an alpha chimp at a research facility seeking to test the intelligence of primates. Podo is fully ape, but he is turning into something more. Their paths soon join, taking them deeper into a gray area between human and animal that I had never seen rendered on the page so vividly before.