94 Books Like Dead Poets Society

In the year after my father’s death in a car crash, I was a young person in New York, trying to break into the world of magazine journalism.

I had been given half of an insurance settlement after my dad’s crash, which I used to survive while I applied for jobs every day. I was too zoned out to work at the time. But one thing I did do a lot of was read. I started with a book recommended by Sharon Stone on Oprah. The Alchemist.

What I loved the most about Santiago’s journey was the unexpected lessons that reveal his true path, the omens he finds along the way, and the belief he develops that when you go after your heart’s desire, the universe supports you.

All of these ideas would end up in my book, 20 years later, and this is because The Alchemist saved my… show more.

I adore this book.

Not only is it loaded with suspenseful moments, but the heartache, Pi’s incredible journey, and the masterful metaphor make it one of those books that will always be near the top of my reading pile. Even the side story of why Pi changed his name is written with humor and heart.

I am a fan of survival stories, and I’m also an animal lover, so the combination of animals playing such a huge role, coupled with Pi struggling to survive when the odds are against him, makes this a great read.

Every prep/boarding school has a Phineas, a campus alpha-dog and star athlete best not to anger, and a Gene, a brainy loner unsure how to navigate a treacherous ecosystem away from loved ones.

The tension is in their intersection – are they friends-of-necessity or adversaries on a collision course? – and what unfolds initially as a tragic accident hardens into a murder mystery that tests one’s conscience and memory.

It remains a stunning, unforgettable book that suggests adolescent history is our real Grim Reaper. 

This is one of those books I am in awe of. Deeply immersive, I had to be pried away from this story once I began. The writing is spectacular and an absolute masterclass on writing chemistry between characters and writing young love.

This book falls on nearly any top-five list of mine. It is truly stunning and heartbreaking in turn. (Sorry, this isn’t a very light list, is it??) But to me, what makes love stories powerful is all the ways that love can be lost, the truth that love can be fleeting, impossible to hold onto forever, even if you have spent a lifetime with the one you love, at some point we all have to say goodbye. This is what makes love so beautiful.

The Roman poet Horace was influenced by Epicurean ideas and they often feature in his work. This book forms a nice introduction to Horace and his works, with carefully chosen selections in both English and the original Latin. Horace might not be the first place that someone curious about Epicureanism would look, but he’s well worth reading, both in his own right and as a Epicurean author. 

I loved this book so much, not only because Susan Cain is such a beautiful writer but also because it explained why we love sad music and why listening to it can be so transformative. I truly appreciate books that teach me something new about why humans are the way they are and those that offer a new perspective on my life experiences, which this book certainly did.

In the first sentence of this novel Anna Lore falls madly in love with a man she happens to run into on the street of her hometown.

Even though she only vaguely recognizes him as they strike up a brief conversation, she becomes so obsessed with him that she is willing to give up everything for him, including her marriage of twenty years with a loving and reliable husband who she loves too.

Reading this novel, I was fascinated with Anna Lore's struggle to understand what's driving her towards a man, who almost against his will has such irresistable power over her. To follow her thinking as it makes her crazy infatuation appear reasonable and compelling is a fascinating experience of the uncanny nature of the unconscious.

Written by an author from the English West Country city of Bristol, this story accurately captures the inequality of life in the 1970s. Fifteen-year-old Carol lives in a council estate on the edge of town. She goes to school with a farmer’s son who will inherit rolling acres. One day, she meets handsome Frankie, who is staying with his aunt in a manor house nearby.

Every reader will know louche Frankie is bad news. Carol, of course, falls for him and finds herself pregnant. So far, so predictable. What is far less predictable is the way Carol herself is sucked into crime, secrets, and lies. Forty years later, how far will she go to evade exposure? Emotional, clever, and exquisitely written, this book is hard to put down. 

Lynes writes masterful psychological suspense which always has the reader asking how they would behave in the world she creates.

This superb book opens with a mother whose toddler has gone missing when she looked away for just a moment. I was gripped from the first line.

Tackling personal and community responsibility, it also examines friendship and the love a mother has for her child.

You can’t go wrong with an S E Lynes.

The shout line on the jacket is “This will overturn everything you thought you knew about…The First World War”, and it certainly delivers. No other conflict has been so misrepresented, and for most people, their idea of it comes straight from Blackadder Goes Forth. But men did not spend months at a time in the trenches; a whole generation did not die; the generals were not cowardly, incompetent fools.

When I first began to write about WW1 for my Morland Dynasty series, I knew as little as anyone, and what I thought I knew was all wrong! By the time I was researching for War At Home, I knew a lot more, but Corrigan opens my eyes to many more subjects. Informative, well-researched, but above all wonderfully readable, this book should be required reading for anyone who is interested in what really happened, not just the made-for-tv version.