Books like Gardens in the Dunes — picked by fans

I love this book for the poetic and multilingual effect in just about every line of writing. Although its explicit descriptions of bodily violence are visceral and challenging, there is something utterly compelling about the impossibility of disentangling literal from metaphorical descriptions.

I love the way the book revisits and also queers some of the themes of Maxine Hong Kingston’s A Woman Warrior (e.g., the story of immigration to the U.S., the woman warrior theme). Linguistically, it is even more complex than A Woman Warrior.

It combines American English and Chinese—sometimes breaking up the Roman letters with Chinese characters—and then subverts both English and Chinese through references to the indigenous Taiwanese language, Atayal.

I love the way this book moves between Scotland and Sudan, as told from the perspective of a devout Muslim woman working as a translator for a Scottish academic at Aberdeen University. The story itself is a work of translation and a highly original rewriting of the encounter between East and West, Islam and Christianity, English and Arabic.

All those binaries break down: the English, for example, is Scottish, and the way to pronounce Arabic turns on a difference between Arab-speaking regions so that in both speech and writing, the reader encounters subtleties of translation usually overlooked in the tiresome cliches about “West” and “East.”

I love teaching it to learn with my students the politics of translation. The book has my favorite rewriting of that famous map-pointing scene at the beginning of Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”—Aboulela restores as Arabic names the blank spaces on the map of… show more.

This is a book that keeps on changing my life. I was bowled over the first time I read it because it completely transformed my understanding of global history. The multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-national history I’d been piecing together studying Conrad’s work suddenly all made sense in a different way.

Pramoedya’s novel shows how Conrad’s novels are really all about the anti-colonial revolution. I love the book for the way it introduces all the most important historical, political, social, sexual, and philosophical questions bound up with decolonization.

It's a deceptively simple read, but cocooned within the sentimental coming-of-age story of its first-person narrator, the European-educated Minke, is an increasingly historical account of colonial oppression, anti-colonial resistance, and worldwide revolution that completely overturns European assumptions about what constitutes “this earth of mankind.” 

I love this book for the way it brings together in one place (a graveyard) a panoply of different characters from different walks of South Asian life. I find Anjum (the third gender “hijra” character who begins the narrative) most compelling. Her marginal relation to all the various mainstream cultures sets a template for how storytelling works across cultures, languages, and political perspectives.

I also love a part of the book critics found puzzling–when the novel shifts to the perspective of the former intelligence officer. It’s reminiscent of Conrad’s The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat, or House of Glass, the final novel in the Buru quartet of novels by Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

Like those novels, it compels a reader to undergo radical shifts in political and cultural perspectives. It’s simultaneously a political novel, a thriller, several coming-of-age novels spliced together, and… show more.

Nala's adventure shows how the love of an animal can change the trajectory of a man's life. Dean set out to explore the world on his bike. Along the way he met and fell head over wheels (!) with a kitten, whom he named Nala. Something about the piercing eyes and plaintive meowing of the bedraggled little cat proved irresistible. He couldn't leave her to her fate, so he put her on his bike and then, with the help of local vets, nursed her back to health. Soon on his travels, they forged an unbreakable bond -- both curious, independent, resilient and adventurous.

As the saying goes, especially in science, “we stand on the shoulders of giants,” but I was absolutely thrilled to find out about this man from the early annals of science, who was first a pirate!! Talk about being well-rounded!

As someone who dresses up as a pirate every Halloween and never misses celebrating an International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I hung on every page, nay every word, of this swashbuckling scientific drama. I could not believe that it was true. But it is, and I found it to be not only super fun but hugely informative and inspiring.

While I enjoyed reading One Girl One Dream and have unconventional ideas like the author, I’m torn about a child sailing the world instead of going to school.

Laura sailed single-handedly around the world when she was 14, finishing at 16. This fascinating achievement made her the youngest circumnavigator in the world. 

The first chapter is a page turner; the subsequent ones are written like a diary. I am usually not a fan of this style, but because her story remains an exciting and courageous feat from beginning to end, it kept me wanting to learn more. It was also fun to read Dutch words and traditions, because I grew up in Belgium. 

I wouldn’t call Laura’s memoir a high-quality narrative or good writing, but it held my attention and that means something for this picky reader.

Eighty Days takes readers behind the scenes of the lives of Bly and Bisland, two successful women who made a name for themselves during the late 1800s. It reveals the private women behind the public personas during an era when women were expected to mind house and home.

How To Make an Apple Pie and See The World is a whimsical book that starts by asserting that making apple pie is the easiest thing in the world. All you do is get the ingredients at the market then mix, bake, and serve… But what if the market is closed? In that case, adventure ensues! One travels the world to procure the ingredients—Italy, France, Sri Lanka, England, Jamaica, Vermont—and then you mix, bake, and serve.

The last spread of this wonderful picturebook features a round table and a gathering of friends eating apple pie—is there anything better?

I read this book as a young teenager and as soon as I finished, I started reading again. I’ve since learned that the best thing we can do as authors is to make readers feel like they are not just reading but actually living the story, and in hindsight that’s why it made such an impression.

I could easily imagine myself sailing around the world, just like this other sailing kid who was only a few years older than me—and who had already achieved a lifelong dream.