Books like Esmond and Ilia — picked by fans

This classic book, unlike others in the list, is not so much about memory, as a collection of the author’s memories of his childhood and early years.

Nabokov was born into a wealthy family in pre-Revolutionary Russia in 1899. His childhood in St. Petersburg and at the family’s country estate are described in loving detail, as are aspects of later years in England, Germany, and France. Nabokov was one of the great writers of the 20th Century, and the memories are recounted in his glowing and evocative prose.

His writing is nostalgic, but also wryly humorous, aware that many aspects of his early life are gone forever. Many of the chapters first appeared as articles in The New Yorker; all are eminently readable. 

This is a Cold War chronicle of homesickness and identity change, written by a Polish woman who came to Canada as a child with her family.

Hoffman had to learn not only how to live in a radically new culture, or how to speak a new language, but also how to get used to a new name and to a new lifestyle. This book showed me how to make a potentially cheap sentiment, nostalgia, into a tool of lucid introspection.

As an immigrant myself, I learned from Hoffman to not feel like I must choose between loyalties—to my previous self, before I left my country, and to who I am now, in a new culture. In key moments, Hoffman likes to imagine who she would have been if she had stayed in Poland, not to compare to who she is in North America but to find a third, middle point… show more.

Walter Benjamin was a Jewish German philosopher who escaped Nazi Germany only to commit suicide upon arrival in Spain.

This book captures an earlier time in his life, when he was still hopeful, an idealist in search of intellectual adventures and political transformation. He went to Moscow to define his political vision and found a city both seductive and elusive. The intense winter scenes in the deep Muscovite cold are unforgettable, even though he mentions them almost in passing.

Benjamin had another reason to go to Moscow: he was in love. But the woman he wished to pursue was also elusive, unavailable both in practical and emotional terms. The book speaks to the fascination Western leftist intellectuals have had with Russian culture and politics, turning to Russia as an alternative to a corrupt West.

Benjamin’s reflections about philosophy, history, and the Moscow of the 1920s makes me fantasize about our… show more.

At the height of her success as an American writer, Lahiri moved to Italy to pursue her dream of mastering the Italian language.

She got more than what she had hoped for—a new voice, not just a new language. But this discovery comes after many trials and tribulations that show her that a language is a whole universe that demands we completely re-invent, not merely translate ourselves. 

This is the memoir of a writer who is keenly aware of language as a key part of our human condition, bilingual already before leaving Italy (in Bengali and English) and never fully at home in any language.

Italian teaches her the humbleness of sounding simple and modest; the courage of making mistakes; the patience to build a vocabulary, storing new words like a collector obsessed with having more and more items; the confidence to speak with natives, including judgmental ones who always… show more.

I loved that the hero of this book was illegitimate, raised in a workhouse, is a naval hero and a genius who remembers everything he has read, and is also incapable of tying his neckcloth neatly.

It’s a compelling story with good writing, humor, and a believable love interest, and it’s not populated almost exclusively by the titled and wealthy. All those things appeal to me very strongly.

Teaching at St. Brendan the Navigator’s School for workhouse boys intended for the navy, Sailing Master Six and his bride turn frightened, deprived children with no experience of kindness or affection into a family. That made a heartwarming novel that enchanted me—and I’m not easily enchanted. I’ll be re-reading it.

This is a powerful memoir.

As a reader, we follow Paul first as a doctor and then as a patient. He reminds us of our vulnerability when seeking medical care. He questions, “Why was I so authoritative in a surgeon’s coat but so meek in a patient’s gown?”

When Breath Becomes Air is a deep meditation on life and the dying process. Written in the first person, this is a courageous and emotionally charged read. Kalanithi is a courageous pilgrim who documents first-hand his own uncharted territory: death.

Confronted with his end of life, this 37-year-old neurosurgeon reflects on the fundamental universal questions that we will all ponder when facing mortality. Even though the reader is led graciously to death’s door, it remains an abrupt and emotionally devastating shock when, in fact, Paul Kalanithi’s breath simply becomes air.

Stacy Schiff is a master biographer. Any subject she chooses (Cleopatra, Benjamin Franklin, Antoine de St. Exupéry, the accused witches of Salem) is elevated by the passion and persistence she brings to research and writing. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Véra Nabokov, the wife of Vladimir, is another pioneering work that proves you don’t have to be at center stage to be worthy of a book. What did Véra do for Vladimir, and he for her? This is no take-down, not the kind of exposé that reveals the great man’s wife as the true genius, exploited and forgotten. It’s a love story of equals, two against (and for) the world.

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs has been helping couples have happier, healthier marriages by teaching husbands how to love their wives as Ephesians 5:25 commands, and by teaching wives how to respect their husbands as Ephesians 5:33 commands.

Despite what the world says today, men and women are different and they have different, not just desires, but needs. The book also contains testimonies of transformed marriages. Husbands and wives will learn principles for talking to, thinking about, and treating each other biblically. 

Who knew that the life of a prim and proper midwestern suburban housewife could be so riveting and moving? Written by a man (!) and told in vignettes that act like facets to a many-sided gem that is this novel, Mrs. Bridge is a mind-blowingly beautiful book that centers on the invisible forces of patriarchy that restrict a woman, wife, and mother.

Although this book is many years old, it is forever timely. With humor and clear, satisfying, and exquisite writing, this is a book that I return to often since, like a glittering jewel, it is surprising at every turn.

Many readers knowledgeable about the Jazz Age know about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s many novels, as well as his life.

This fictionalized account gives keen insight into his wife, Zelda. Read to discover the difficulties faced by a creative woman married to a celebrated man. In many ways, Zelda was a woman of her times, yet like so many women overshadowed by her husband.

Read about their scandalous lives—hers in some ways even more so than his.