Books like Forbidden Notebook

I started writing about golf years ago… I went from freelancing to working for Golfweek and pretty soon had a career! I thought I had a brilliant idea: a series of mysteries with a golf theme! Then I learned there were about 267 other golf mysteries already out there, starting with Dame Agatha’s Murder on the Links! Oops.  I eventually wrote seven Hacker novels, finally getting my golf-writer-turned-sleuth through all four majors. I also published a historical novel set in Scotland (sorry, no golf) and just launched the new Swamp Yankee Mystery series, set in a small Rhode Island town remarkably similar to the one I live in!

I have always straddled between the worlds of fiction and poetry. I received my MFA in poetry in 2016, but during my time in the program, I was often told my poems were too narrative. Sometimes in my fiction workshops in undergrad, I was told my stories were too poetic. So when I finally jumped into the world of verse, I really fell in love with the intersection of poetry and story. Finally, there was a medium that felt “just right!” There are so many fantastic novels in verse out there—with so many more to come—but I hope you’ll enjoy these five favorites of mine!

I pride myself on my independence and sense of adventure. I started traveling the world with my family when I was 3 and I haven’t stopped since. When you travel, you have to cope with new situations on a daily basis and navigate different obstacles to meet your needs. An interest in adventure and how people cope with new situations are the biggest reasons why I have a passion for books dealing with overcoming obstacles. Before I retired to Spain, I was a teacher of students between 10 and 15 years old. I chose two of the books I recommended to read to my students when I was a teacher. 

I am a historian, and I am fascinated by the interplay and tensions between our moral and material lives. In my books, I try to recover how people in earlier periods thought about good and bad and why they acted the way they did. I try to understand how norms and customs change over time and how we came to think of our own as “normal,” which was all but normal not so long ago. I do not believe historians should play being prophets, but I do believe history can help us make better sense of the present.

My father was a Civil War historian, and literally, every vacation was spent traipsing over battlefields, with him pointing out the position of cannons and armies and, invariably, what military mistakes were made. Sometimes, we’d squat in the tall grass and imagine what it would look like when the enemy charged over the hill. My father related family tales with great relish, which are the basis of many of my historical stories. As a genealogist and family story lecturer, the past (especially the Civil War) has been a lifelong love. However, I must admit, I wouldn’t want to leave behind present-day comforts to live in the past.

I am a 1.5-generation Filipina who migrated to Australia in 1977 at the age of 17. As a migrant, I know the challenges of moving to a new country without friends and extended family. I have a PhD in history from the University of Michigan and am a professor of History at the University of New South Wales in Australia. I have written five books mostly on Filipino women’s history. My book on Filipino migration, which won the NSW Premier’s General History Prize (Australia) in 2022, analyses the migrant's heroic narrative—an account that resonates with my own migration story. 

I’m the author of a number of books for kids and teens, many of which imagine young characters having more influence than you might expect. My book The Museum of Lost and Found is about an 11-year-old girl who secretly curates a museum. The Campaign is about a 12-year-old who runs her babysitter’s campaign to become mayor of their town. And This Song Will Save Your Life is about a 16-year-old who secretly becomes an underground DJ. These characters have realistic and relatable kid problems, emotions, and relationships—but they also get to have responsibilities and power well beyond their years. 

As one of Australia’s bestselling observational comedy authors, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to write about the fact that I’ve recently become my parents’ go-to expert on just about everything. From solving technological dilemmas to coaching through society’s ever-changing correctness and reminding them to eat their greens, the elders in my life have inspired me to look at the funny side to aging, and to explore how a middle aged child sometimes crosses over from being helpful to just plain interfering.

Steve Patschke is a retired elementary school library media teacher of over thirty years, now living in Woodstock, N.Y. In November of 2022, his essay appeared in The New York Times' “Tiny Love Stories.” In February of 2023, his essay appeared in Chicken Soup For The Soul: Cat Lovers Edition. He has published six children’s picture books. His most recent is Don’t Look At It, Don’t Touch It. Steve’s rendition of the classic Nutcracker and the Mouse King will be published as a pop-up book through Templar books in the fall of 2023.

I’ve always been fascinated by the 1930s. In Britain, the decade was haunted by troubling memories of the Great War and growing fears of a more terrible conflict to come. In other words, it was a decade dominated by geopolitics. After more than 30 years as a journalist for the Reuters news agency, I’ve learned that geopolitics will never leave us alone. My novel is the first in a series of stories examining what geopolitics does to ordinary people caught in its grip. This selection of fiction and nonfiction titles is a fascinating introduction to what the poet WH Auden called ‘a low dishonest decade’.