Here are 100 books that Enslaved by Ducks fans have personally recommended if you like
Enslaved by Ducks.
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I’ve been in love with animals my whole life. I loved them so much in fact, that I wished to become one, whether it was a sea otter, wild horse, or a dolphin. Today, I’m fortunate enough to not only write about animals, but I also advocate for their protection as an ambassador for Wild Tomorrow and Defenders of Wildlife. As co-founder of the Children’s Book Creators for Conservation, I help other children’s book writers and illustrators connect with conservation stories in the field. I hope you’re as inspired by these books as I am!
This picture book memoir based on her New York Times best-selling adult memoir, How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals, introduces young readers to some of the incredible animals that have influenced the author throughout her lifetime and challenges us all to look at our relationships with animals differently.
What lessons have animals taught us—whether it’s our domesticated pets at home or animals you’ve seen in nature? How can animals make us better versions of ourselves? This beautifully told story by one of the greatest nature writers of our time shows us simply just how much animals have to teach us if we only pay close attention.
Sy Montgomery has had many teachers in her life: some with two legs, others with four, or even eight! Some have had fur, feathers, or hooves. But they've all had one thing in common: a lesson to share.
The animals Sy has met on her many world travels have taught her how to seek understanding in the most surprising ways, from being patient to finding forgiveness and respecting others. Gorillas, dogs, octopuses, tigers, and more all have shown Sy that there are no limits to the empathy and joy we can find in each other if only we take the…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
Before I turned twenty-five, I lost my father to illness, my brother to a car accident, and a cousin to murder. Experiencing this string of tragedies so young profoundly changed me. As a writer, I’ve often worried that my naked grief on the page would come across as soft, cloyingly sentimental, and wholly without bite. Over the years, I have looked to examples of books that deal with death, grief, and mourning with a kind of brutal honesty. I sought out writing that conveyed the reality of loss in all its messiness. Reading these beautiful, honest accounts of grief have always made me feel less alone in mine.
Writing about crime is understandably fraught. Some true crime stories are told with genuine care and attention to impact, while others are definitely…not.
In Jane, Nelson finds a way to grapple with the death of her aunt and the impact it is had on her and her family. It was a guiding light for me when I thought about ways to tell an unwieldy story about murder.
Nelsonleans on honesty, compassion, and curiosity to stay safely away from the most common true crime traps, and the result is a wonderful, affecting book.
Part elegy, part true crime story, this memoir-in-verse from the author of the award-winning The Argonauts expands the notion of how we tell stories and what form those stories take through the story of a murdered woman and the mystery surrounding her last hours.
Jane tells the spectral story of the life and death of Maggie Nelson’s aunt Jane, who was murdered in 1969 while a first-year law student at the University of Michigan. Though officially unsolved, Jane’s murder was apparently the third in a series of seven brutal rape-murders in the area between 1967 and 1969. Nelson was born…
In 2015, I moved to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a world all its own. I live only four blocks from Lake Superior, and I can’t imagine living anywhere without that lake. I pay much more attention to the weather—those waves really crash during Winter storms—and I’ve become more interested in things like geology and local history since moving to such a unique place. Everything I notice eventually enters my poetry, which has become filled with water, shorelines, copper, and white deer. And best of all, our long winters give me a lot of time to read.
After I moved to the Upper Peninsula, I kept hearing about an event referred to as the Italian Hall Disaster in Calumet, Michigan, when over 70 people were killed, most of them children, in 1913.
This book features that event as part of its plot, but it really drew me in because I felt so sympathetic to its main character, Annie Clements. She cares about people, and she cares about justice, and I admired her from the start. I wanted her to succeed even as I sensed she probably would not. She’s one of the few characters I actually grieved for when I finished the book.
From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Sparrow comes “historical fiction that feels uncomfortably relevant today” (Kirkus Reviews) about “America’s Joan of Arc”—the courageous woman who started a rebellion by leading a strike against the largest copper mining company in the world.
In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements has seen enough of the world to know that it’s unfair. She’s spent her whole life in the mining town of Calumet, Michigan, where men risk their lives for meager salaries—and have barely enough to put food on the table for their families. The women labor in the houses of the…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
Fresh out of journalism school I stumbled on a strike at a machine shop in Pilsen, a neighborhood once home to Chicago’s most famous labor struggles, by then becoming a hip gentrified enclave. Drinking steaming atole with Polish, Mexican, and Puerto Rican workers in a frigid Chicago winter, I was captivated by the solidarity and determination to fight for their jobs and rights, in what appeared to be a losing battle. After covering labor struggles by Puerto Rican teachers, Mexican miners, Colombian bottlers, Chicago warehouse workers, and many others, my enthusiasm for such stories is constantly reignited -- by the workers fighting against all odds and the writers telling their stories, including those featured here.
The name “Detroit” too often conjures images of poverty-porn: gorgeously crumbling buildings, post-apocalyptic urban decay, lost souls wandering cracked streets. Detroit: I Do Mind Dying shatters this image with unfettered energy. It chronicles the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in the auto plants of the 1960s-1970s, a refreshing reminder of the power of intersectional labor organizing; a raw look at the racism of the mainstream labor movement; and a very human chronicle of the struggles and flaws of courageous everyday workers at this critical time and place in history.
Detroit: I Do Mind Dying tracks the extraordinary development of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers as they became two of the landmark political organizations of the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely heralded as one the most important books on the black liberation movement.
Marvin Surkin received his PhD in political science from New York University and is a specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit.
Dan Georgakas is a writer, historian, and activist with a long-time interest…
I think about the positive identity development of Native youth all the time and not just because I am an educator and author. I love my Ojibwe language and culture, but I want to turn Native fiction on its head. We have so many stories about trauma and tragedy with characters who lament the culture that they were always denied. I want to show how vibrant and alive our culture still is. I want gripping stories where none of the Native characters are drug addicts, rapists, abused, or abusing others. I want to demonstrate the magnificence of our elders, the humor of our people, and the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
I love this book because it has a gripping story that keeps you guessing and flipping pages. I also love it because it showcases a strong, female, Native protagonist solving a mystery and acting with agency, power, and knowledge of self. It does a lot to disrupt the victim narratives about Indigenous people we have often seen in literature.
I also love this one because Angeline Boulley is really connected to her own Native community, and it shows up in the work. It gives you a window into Ojibwe culture rather than an imagining of the culture.
A PRINTZ MEDAL WINNER! A MORRIS AWARD WINNER! AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD YA HONOR BOOK!
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
Soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground.
“One of this year's most buzzed about young adult novels.” ―Good Morning America
A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time Selection Amazon's Best YA Book of 2021 So Far (June 2021) A 2021 Kids' Indie Next List Selection An Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated Books of…
For more than thirty years, I worked as journalist covering the biggest news stories of the day—at Newsweek magazine (where I became the publication’s first African-American top editor), then as a news executive at NBC News and CNN. Now, I keep a hand in that world as a judge of several prestigious journalism awards while taking a longer view in my own work as a contributor for CBS Sunday Morning, Washington Post book reviewer, and author of narrative non-fiction books with a focus on key personalities and turning points in Black History.
An Alabama native who moved to Detroit as a young child, renowned Black press reporter Herb Boyd paints a lively, knowing portrait of the world that his fellow Southern migrants and their offspring made in his hometown. The sweeping study examines the role that Blacks played in shaping the American car industry and autoworkers union, and fleshes out the backstories of legends who were raised or came of age in Detroit and went on to transform our national culture, from Malcolm X and Aretha Franklin to record mogul Barry Gordy and the young local musicians who became the superstars of Motown Records.
The author of Baldwin’s Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit—a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city’s past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation’s fabric.
Herb Boyd moved to Detroit in 1943, as race riots were engulfing the city. Though he did not grasp their full significance at the time, this critical moment would be one of many he witnessed that would mold his political activism and exposed a…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I’ve been reading historical romance since I was a teen and writing it since I published my first historical romance in 1987. Since then I’ve written over forty romance novels, short stories, and novellas, many of which are historical romances. I adore history and research is never a chore for me. Graduate school and a project on Eleanore Sleath, an English author of Horrid Novels from the early 19th century, honed the research skills that I bring to my historical novels. There are times when readers need the certainty of the happy ending that Romance promises, and I love delivering on that promise in all my books. I hope everyone finds a new author to love from this list!
This was my first Jenkins Historical Romance and it was by no means the last. I confess I picked up the book because I was tickled that the title was my last name, but the story. Wow. It gripped me hard from the start. The historical setting is the American West of the 1870s and involves a couple who pretend to be married, for just one evening. The pretense ends in scandal and a real marriage to save their reputations, and the hero’s journey to love is deeply emotional. Some of Jenkins’s contemporary-set romances have been made into movies and I keep my fingers crossed that one day they’ll choose some of her historicals.
Eli Grayson needs a wife - or at least, a woman willing to pretend to be his wife. So, he convinces longtime friend Jewel Crowley to play the part. After all, it's only dinner, and if this is what it takes to save his newspaper, so be it. They'll part ways at the end of the night and that will be that. But, all their plans are turned upside down when Eli's new partner announces their marriage to the whole town. Now, the wild Jewel and the womanizing Eli have to try to make a go of it if he…
I believe that books have saved my life. When I was a child, I was often depressed and anxious, and I instinctively found refuge in reading. I sought books acknowledging that the world can be a painful and difficult place but showed that it was also filled with happiness, love, and joy as long as you knew where to look. My passion for reading has stayed with me, I host the You’re Booked podcast where I talk to iconic authors about the books that have brought them comfort and joy. And whenever I feel anxious, I still reach for a book–because reading heals my heart.
This book had me laughing from the first page. I could see the town immediately and hear every character’s voice clearly in my head. I found it incredibly easy to read. Before I knew it, I was halfway through the story and I loved Jane, Duncan and Jimmy as though they were members of my own family.
Because this book is so funny, I found that the sad, serious parts affected me deeply. But ultimately, I found it hugely uplifting. It reminded me that the worst events can bring out the best in me and the people I love. I can’t think of anyone I know who wouldn’t love this book.
Alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, a wise, bighearted novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family—from the acclaimed author of Standard Deviation, who has been called the "literary descendant of Jane Austen, sharing Austen's essentially comic world view" (NPR).
Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere—at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away.
While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes…
Like myself, each of these novels involved older professional Black women protagonists. Each of these authors presented multidimensional women experiencing circumstances that surpass culture and ethnicity. As women age, not only do we take on new roles, but we physically and emotionally change. I appreciate books with relatable characters coping with issues I experience—menopause, aging parents, an empty nest. Reading mysteries with fictional characters dealing with situations I experience makes me feel less isolated.
Detroit is where Charlene “Charlie” Mack runs a private detective business. Her life is as complex as the Motor City. Charlie struggles with her sexuality while caring for her ailing mother. A theft investigation leads Charlie and her team down to Birmingham, Alabama. Reading about Charlie’s exploits in Detroit rekindled memories of eating Ethiopian food in Detroit and taking the train from Michigan to Toronto, Canada. I lived in Montgomery, Alabama and remember visiting the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
Finalist for the 29th Annual Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Mystery.
Charlene "Charlie" Mack is a PI in Detroit. Born and raised in the city that America forgot, Charlie has built a highly respected private investigation firm through hard work, smart choices, and relentless ambition. Her team of investigators is highly skilled and trustworthy, but she secretly struggles with her sexual orientation and a mother with early-onset Alzheimer's. When Charlie and her crack team head to Birmingham, Alabama following the trail of a missing person, what should be a routine case turns into a complex chase for answers. Shady locals…
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…
During my MFA, I learned to write family dramas and character-driven fiction, but I wanted more comfort, joy, and… romance! I knew the swoony and funny aspects of rom-coms could lift heavier emotional subjects like grief and loss, allowing readers to explore these resonant aspects of life safely, with a guaranteed Happily Ever After. All the books on this list explore a full emotional range of the human experience through extraordinary, utterly magical love stories about otherwise ordinary, flawed people. I hope they make you laugh, swoon, maybe shed a few cathartic tears, and come out the other side feeling better than when you turned the first page.
This enemies-to-lovers story about a romance writer and a literary fiction writer who strike a bet to write their next book in each other’s genre blew me away with its hilarious dialogue and realistic emotional stakes.
January struggles to write another Happily Ever After upon learning her recently deceased father had a secret life with another woman. She goes to deal with his beach house, only to find that her college writing rival is her neighbor for the summer.
As part of Gus and January’s renewed rivalry, they go on a series of dates to teach each other about their genre, and they develop mutual professional respect that bleeds into attraction.
One highlight is when they write flirty notes and hold them up through their neighboring windows. This is a true rom-com, so hilarious and sexy, but it commits to realism and reaches for heavy, heart-wrenching emotional stakes and the…
FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION AND BOOK LOVERS!
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.
They’re polar opposites.
In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring…
