Here are 100 books that Everything Is Totally Fine fans have personally recommended if you like
Everything Is Totally Fine.
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During my 25-year journalism career and now, in my books, I’ve specialized in telling powerful, human stories that are often humorous and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. To me, humor is an essential part of life. Real stories might make us cry, but just as often, they make us laugh. That’s the balance I try to achieve with all my writing.
Humor often comes from putting normal people in absurd situations. That’s what Kevin Wilson does here—setting the lovable loser Lillian in her rich friend’s home, where she’s asked to care for her two young children. Children who, when agitated, tend to burst into flames. This frightens everyone but leaves the kids unhurt.
I found myself laughing and caring at the same time. That’s a neat trick for any author.
A New York Times Bestseller • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, TIME, The A.V. Club, Buzzfeed, and PopSugar
“I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you…
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…
I'm a writer of humorous fiction living in Austin, Texas. I enjoy writing novels about unusual friendships and the healing power that comes when people just shut up and listen to each other. Many of my stories have the odd-couple dynamic on full display and I love to explore what would happen if people with very different backgrounds and opinions are forced to deal with each other. I do have a couple of novels that wouldn’t seem to be humorous on the surface, but there is an element of humor or comedy that runs through all of my work. My next novel, The Codger and the Sparrow, will be published by TCU Press in 2024.
These stories are all surreal, trippy, and many are quite funny. Sort of a mashup of Márquez, Burroughs, and Bukowski, trying to pin down Flores’ actual style is difficult as it is wholly unique: the ultimate compliment for a writer. One story is about a couple who make a sculpture of a baby using their ear wax while the male partner is a writer who also is paid to be a life coach to other writers of lesser talent. Another story is about two men who are neighbors, one of which owns an extraterrestrial shape-shifting cloth, the other is a philosophizing writer prone to drink too much. This collection of short stories is top-notch as well as bizarre and humorous.
No one captures the border-its history and imagination, its danger, contradiction, and redemption-like Fernando A. Flores, whose stories reimagine and reinterpret the region's existence with peerless style. In his immersive, uncanny borderland, things are never what they seem: a world where the sun is both rising and setting, and where conniving possums efficiently take over an entire town and rewrite its history.
The stories in Valleyesque dance between the fantastical and the hyperreal with dexterous, often hilarious flair. A dying Frederic Chopin stumbles through Ciudad Juarez in the aftermath of his mother's death, attempting to recover his beloved piano that…
I'm a writer of humorous fiction living in Austin, Texas. I enjoy writing novels about unusual friendships and the healing power that comes when people just shut up and listen to each other. Many of my stories have the odd-couple dynamic on full display and I love to explore what would happen if people with very different backgrounds and opinions are forced to deal with each other. I do have a couple of novels that wouldn’t seem to be humorous on the surface, but there is an element of humor or comedy that runs through all of my work. My next novel, The Codger and the Sparrow, will be published by TCU Press in 2024.
This novel of literary fiction is a ribald and adventurous mixture of humor, magical realism, Old West historical fact, and dream-like self-reflection. Main character Didier Rain, who is a drunken yet poetic lout, is hired to deliver a baby named Virtue to a Mormon prophet, who has been chosen as his future bride. (!!!) He is accompanied by a band of talking animals. Virtue miraculously grows into a young woman during the trip. It’s hard to categorize this novel but one thing is for sure, it is delightfully bizarre and laugh-out-loud funny in parts.
A magnet for trouble. A dubious destiny. His quest for true love could succeed, if only his moral compass didn’t point South.
The American West, 1850. Former French dandy Didier Rain’s weakness for saloon girls, money, and whiskey keep derailing his plan to join the pantheon of epic poets. So, when he’s approached by holy men claiming he’s part of a prophecy, he agrees to transport an infant bride for a soul-selling sum of $30,000. But to fulfill his foretold role, he’ll have to succeed at two tasks at which he's always failed: keeping the cork in the bottle and…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I'm a writer of humorous fiction living in Austin, Texas. I enjoy writing novels about unusual friendships and the healing power that comes when people just shut up and listen to each other. Many of my stories have the odd-couple dynamic on full display and I love to explore what would happen if people with very different backgrounds and opinions are forced to deal with each other. I do have a couple of novels that wouldn’t seem to be humorous on the surface, but there is an element of humor or comedy that runs through all of my work. My next novel, The Codger and the Sparrow, will be published by TCU Press in 2024.
Named one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2018, this indie novel proposes that a beer-guzzling car enthusiast can also be a philosopher about time and Einstein’s incorrect (!!!) theory of relativity. Main character Selraybob (also the author of this fictitious novel) is left astray by his wife. When she walks out the door, he notices two clocks that are off by seven minutes. He has an epiphany: time is simply a count! Beer is consumed, the nature of time is pondered, and a picaresque adventure begins, one that will have you laughing until the end.
Mark Twain meets Vonnegut in this witty and uplifting redemption romp that Kirkus Reviews (starred review) called "funny, wise and poignant”. BlueInk Review (starred review) called it “quirky and picaresque” and said “Selraybob is lovable and easy-to-root-for.”
Ne’er-do-well Selraybob is beaten down and uninspired. He spends his days on his lounger, drinking quarts of beer and talking to his buddy on the phone. Until, during his fed-up wife’s long overdue kiss-off speech, Selraybob notices two clocks. They’re seven minutes off. And he has an epiphany. Time, he decides, is a count. It’s only a count.
Hi there, I’m Lucie and I’m a writer (allegedly) but before that I’m a human and I know how hard it is to be a human. It’s a constant battle with yourself, the people around you, the world, and it’s exhausting and sometimes it can be too much but we find ways to keep going and books help me do that (as well as crying, screaming, potatoes). I find life absurd most of the time so I have to laugh about it or I’d go insane. And I’m still alive, despite constantly being in a fight with my brain, so I think I’ve got this.
This book got me out of a funk when I couldn’t feel like reading anything. It’s a book about a robot that wants to write a movie to save humanity after he becomes self-aware. It’s funny and sweet and will make you laugh and cry maybe not worry so much about the imminent robot uprising.
“Science fiction satire in the Vonnegut mold.”—Cory Doctorow
*SET TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY EDGAR WRIGHT (SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD)*
‘A beautiful, funny, heartfelt analysis of what it means to be human.’—Simon Pegg
‘One of the most unique books ever crafted.’—Mike Chen, author of A Beginning at the End
Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart to Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening.
As a writer, I’ve always been interested in ambiguity and ambivalence. How does that apply to the self? What does it mean to present myself to others? How do I appear to the world and how close is that to what I see myself to be? Are we ever truly seen—or willing to be seen? In a world where cameras exist everywhere and we are encouraged to record rather than simply be, how do we look in a mirror? Hannah Arendt said that we could tell reality from falsehood because reality endures. But I feel that nothing I experience endures; nothing remains the same, including the reflection. If anything lasts, it may be my own make-believe. Everything I write is, in some way, this question. Who is that?
The relentless and erudite work of Arendt never ceases to challenge me. In the books included here—Thinking and Willing—she explores what it means that the self knows itself to be a self, and how that knowledge refracts and splits upon encountering others, and then changes when returning to solitude again. I read her knowing that she has not just considered but felt her ideas. “To be alive means to be possessed by an urge toward self-display. . . .Up to a point we can choose how to appear to others.”
The most intriguing…and thought-provoking book that Hannah Arendt wrote (The New York Times Book Review), The Life of the Mind is the final work by the political theorist, philosopher, and feminist thinker.This fascinating book investigates thought itself as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from Arendt's previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this is an exploration of the mind's activities she considered to be the most fundamental. The result is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
Like many people, I have experienced my share of suffering. I have also spent a lifetime exploring the suffering of others through great works of literature and art. My attraction to Japanese literature–imbued with a Buddhist sensitivity to loss–reflects my taste for the melancholy beauty of works of art that transmute suffering into aesthetic form. The qualities I find in Japanese literature are in wonderfully long supply in writings from around the world. My list of favorite books is a small testament to that aesthetic work which has the potential to heal us.
Who among us has never felt shame? Who has never felt one’s spirit crushed? I myself have returned for relief from that periodic loss of inner spirit to this brave, unsentimental memoir of the ravages on Lucy Grealy’s face of a disease that condemned her to a punishing self-loathing.
Reading this boldly unabashed memoir of conquering shame, of finding an “inner eye” (and inner life) that could come to see as beautiful what the seeing eyes of the world saw only as ugly, I have felt buoyed by the possibility of reclaiming your own true self against the ravages of a hostile world.
"Grealy has turned her misfortune into a book that is engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of her own wit and style and class."—Washington Post Book World
“It is impossible to read Autobiography of a Face without having your consciousness raised forever.” – Mirabella
In this celebrated memoir and exploration of identity, cancer transforms the author’s face, childhood, and the rest of her life.
At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her…
Hi there, I’m Lucie and I’m a writer (allegedly) but before that I’m a human and I know how hard it is to be a human. It’s a constant battle with yourself, the people around you, the world, and it’s exhausting and sometimes it can be too much but we find ways to keep going and books help me do that (as well as crying, screaming, potatoes). I find life absurd most of the time so I have to laugh about it or I’d go insane. And I’m still alive, despite constantly being in a fight with my brain, so I think I’ve got this.
A funny book about suicide, what more do you want? If like me you’re prone to those dark thoughts, you really do have to laugh about it. This book is absurd yes but also has so much to say about human nature and spirit. It’s a cult classic that’s about life, not death, that will make you feel hopeful, the same way I hope my book does.
With the twenty-first century just a distant memory and the world in environmental chaos, many people have lost the will to live. And business is brisk at The Suicide Shop. Run by the Tuvache family for generations, the shop offers an amazing variety of ways to end it all, with something to fit every budget. The Tuvaches go mournfully about their business, taking pride in the morbid service they provide. Until the youngest member of the family threatens to destroy their contented misery by confronting them with something they've never encountered before: a love of life.
What is my passion? Why sociology? I love sociology for several reasons: first, because you study everything, and I mean everything can be “the sociology of….” Second, because it uncovers the layers of deceit, image, and make-up that cover the surface; third, because it deals with deviance and deviant behavior (see my other Five Best on Deviance); and fourth, it explains social conflict. I’m always learning something new, and I love to impart that love of the unknown and the everyday to my thousands of students.
One of the few true geniuses in sociology, he lifted the field up into new and innovation dimensions. If there were a Nobel Prize in sociology, he would most likely get it, followed by the three people above (Merton, Mills, and Gouldner). I knew him well. He could walk into a room and an hour later tell you all the power plays, conflicts, and inside dope.
Some of his terms have entered our language: front-stage, back stage (meaning what goes on in front of an audience, meaning your social interactions) are different from what goes on backstage, behind the scenes, kind of like a play. His book, Stigma, is used in many fascinating ways; not just someone blind or disfigured but also a Black person, a gay person, or a hippy; but mostly he shows in terrifying ways, how people hide or cope with their “stigma”—the subtitle tells it all…
One of the defining works of twentieth-century sociology: a revelatory analysis of how we present ourselves to others
'The self, then, as a performed character, is not an organic thing ... it is a dramatic effect'
How do we communicate who we are to other people? This landmark work by one of the twentieth century's most influential sociologists argues that our behaviour in social situations is defined by how we wish to be perceived - resulting in displays startlingly similar to those of actors in a theatrical performance. From the houses and clothes that we use as 'fixed props' to…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I’ve always been attracted to the overlooked, the obscure, the forbidden. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact I grew up in a time when it seemed natural to rebel against norms. Or maybe it’s that I inherited an oddball gene from some ancient ancestor. Anyway, it led me to interesting adventures—hanging out with a crew of gun runners in eastern Turkey—and interesting career choices—strike organizer, private detective, etc. It also shaped my reading and my writing. I read everything, but I’m particularly drawn to the quirky—Grendel, the fiction of Christine Rivera Garza for instance. And in my writing too: Lynerkim, the protagonist of my novella, is undoubtedly an odd duck.
Everybody knows Ahab, but do you know Bartleby? It’s a strange story about a strange man, which, of course, attracts me. Bartleby is a lawyer’s copyist who decides he doesn’t want to do this sort of writing anymore and meets every instruction with the words: I would prefer not to. You can read Bartleby as simply a humorous tale. Or you can read it as a story of the existential crisis most writers, myself included, face at one time or the other. Melville was feeling dissatisfied with his choice of a writing career—the critics were unfriendly—and, in my opinion, the title character reflects this. It’s also, in my view, an implicit critique of economic control in America—my SDS youth would approve! It’s not for nothing that the story’s final words are: “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!”
At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. In truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters.
