Here are 71 books that Goat Mountain fans have personally recommended if you like
Goat Mountain.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I was born and grew up in Seoul. My bestselling debut novel has been longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction and the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. My book is inspired by my great-aunt, one of the oldest women who had escaped alone from North Korea. It is available from Harper Perennial in the U.S. and Virago in the UK. The novel’s translations continue to meet readers worldwide, including in Italy, Romania, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and South Korea.
Eileen is one of the most twisted and unconventional literary heroines I’ve ever read. Behind her quiet demeanor and dull face hides her mind, which is like a killer’s, always furious and seething.
While working at a juvenile correctional facility, Eileen meets Rebecca, another key character far removed from most women of their generation. Seductive and deceitful, Rebecca cajoles Eileen into joining her act of crime–a violent, underhanded plan to restore her idea of justice.
Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and chosen by David Sedaris as his recommended book for his Fall 2016 tour.
So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes-a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Murder mysteries, thrillers, whodunnits, all in the context of the "Indian," or Native American, experience, that's my subject. But really I'm writing about family and friends. Love letters to a people and life. My mother's father was native, and I lived and worked near and on two reservations growing up, White Earth and Red Lake. My novel, for example, was written out of my experience of being a hunting/fishing guide for Sabaskong Bay Lodge. My current work, about the Indian Boarding School genocide, has been inspired by first-person witness to that atrocity.
Subversive, edifying, and laugh-out-loud funny, Yeatman’s satirical novel follows Victoria, a woman in a failing marriage, from her initial fantasies of dispatching her clueless husband to the act itself. And no less employing the necessary help of her too-sweet and clueless gal-pal, Holly.
A book about a bookworm, Victoria, it contains countless Easter Eggs and riffs on some of the greats while spinning out a wholly engaging and, by all means, original and captivating story.
“Imagine if Patricia Highsmith had written The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and instead of heroic daydreams she gave her protagonist murderous ones—that would be Bookworm. Robin Yeatman’s story is subversive, surprising, and satisfying in a way that only the best comic noir can be.”—Claire Oshetsky, author of Chouette
A wickedly funny debut novel—a black comedy with a generous heart that explores the power of imagination and reading—about a woman who tries to use fiction to find her way to happiness.
Victoria is unhappily married to an ambitious and controlling lawyer consumed with his career. Burdened with overbearing in-laws, a…
Murder mysteries, thrillers, whodunnits, all in the context of the "Indian," or Native American, experience, that's my subject. But really I'm writing about family and friends. Love letters to a people and life. My mother's father was native, and I lived and worked near and on two reservations growing up, White Earth and Red Lake. My novel, for example, was written out of my experience of being a hunting/fishing guide for Sabaskong Bay Lodge. My current work, about the Indian Boarding School genocide, has been inspired by first-person witness to that atrocity.
A tour de force thriller set in Paris, this book assembles, through a mysterious observer, a disparate and culturally rich cast of characters, all of whom, ultimately, converge over an act of terrorism.
The book's beauty is in its finely nuanced and richly sympathetic portrayal of otherwise marginalized individuals, the Witch, the tale-teller, being one of them. It has brilliant execution, is sly, mysterious at times, and profound.
The Witch of Matongé by Madison Smartt Bell, Concord Free Press, 2022, 258 pages. ISBN 978-0-9835851-8-3 The first thing that will strike you about Madison Smartt Bell’s new novel, The Witch of Matongé, is the beautiful language. This is not a typical narrative. It is startling, and the depth of what is described is thrilling. In the beginning, the viewpoint appears to be omniscient. However, the witch of the novel’s title is actually narrating and her unique manner of speaking is exquisite. She uses a bowl of water to understand what is happening in order to tell the story. And…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Murder mysteries, thrillers, whodunnits, all in the context of the "Indian," or Native American, experience, that's my subject. But really I'm writing about family and friends. Love letters to a people and life. My mother's father was native, and I lived and worked near and on two reservations growing up, White Earth and Red Lake. My novel, for example, was written out of my experience of being a hunting/fishing guide for Sabaskong Bay Lodge. My current work, about the Indian Boarding School genocide, has been inspired by first-person witness to that atrocity.
This book is a compelling and, at times, shockingly revealing story of a love that cannot be, should not be, but is.
Seventeen-year-old Mari, after an altercation at the hotel where she works, becomes involved with the perpetrator of it, a much older man of, to all but Mari, unacceptable morals. Through its unsparingly graphic depiction of the lovers’ sometimes extreme but mutual intimacies, Ogawa’s novel navigates the rarely explored region between violence and impassioned love.
A tale of twisted love from Yoko Ogawa―author of The Diving Pool and The Housekeeper and the Professor.
In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers. When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction. In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire,…
I spent twenty five years on active duty with nineteen months in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot. I served as a tactics instructor at the US Army Infantry Center; two years teaching the operational level of war at the US Army Command and General Staff College; two years teaching at the German Army Tactics Center. I commanded two rifle companies, one being an Airborne rifle company in Alaska and served two years as battalion commander of an air assault infantry battalion during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. I hold a Masters Degree in Military Strategy from the US Army Command and Staff College.
I recommended this book as it shows the mistakes that were made in the conduct of the Vietnam War from a military perspective and strategy. While I served in Vietnam, I could not understand some of the things we were asked and told to do.
This book shed new light on those orders and how those orders contributed to the end results of the war. I found it amazing that one man had the answers and yet was ignored by so many. I found it disturbing common sense threatened senior officers egos and the results were a war that America would be saddled with for ten years and countless lost lives.
Outspoken, professional and fearless, Lt. Col. John Paul Vann went to Vietnam in 1962, full of confidence in America's might and right to prevail. He was soon appalled by the South Vietnamese troops' unwillingness to fight, by their random slaughter of civilians and by the arrogance and corruption of the US military. He flouted his supervisors and leaked his sharply pessimistic - and, as it turned out, accurate - assessments to the US press corps in Saigon. Among them was Sheehan, who became fascinated by the angry Vann, befriended him and followed his tragic and reckless career.
I teach literature, Labor Studies, and writing at San Diego City College and have written three San Diego-based novels: Drift, Flash, and Last Days in Ocean Beach, along with Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, a radical history of San Diego that I co-wrote with Mike Davis and Kelly Mayhew. Both as a writer and as a daily wanderer on the streets of San Diego, I have a passion for the psychogeography of the city space and a deep curiosity for and love of the people I encounter there.
In this moving novel, the late great Oakley Hall took me back to World War II era San Diego. What I love about it is it paints a much fuller portrait of the lost city of old than he does in his first San Diego-based novel.
This book is filled with wonder, dread, love, and longing but what makes it noteworthy is its keen eye toward history and the darkness at the heart of the city’s streets and neighborhoods—and at the center of the war itself.
The Sweeping Novel of a Twentieth-Century California Life
Love and War in California tells the story, through the eyes of Payton Daltrey, of the last sixty years of an evolving America. The award-winning author Oakley Hall begins his newest work in 1940s San Diego, where his endearing, wide-eyed narrator must define his identity in terms of self, family, and World War II. As his classmates disappear into the war one by one, he becomes obsessed with abuses of power and embroiled with the charming, dangerous Errol Flynn; with the Red Baiting of the American Legion; with the House Un-American Activities…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
All my writing starts with the question, How did we get here? As the granddaughter of a grocer and the daughter of a food editor, I grew up wondering about the quest for new and better foods—especially when other people began saying “new” and “better” were contradictions. Which is better, native or imported? Heirloom or hybrid? Our roses today are patented, and our food supplies are dominated by multi-national seed companies, but not very long ago, the new sciences of evolution and genetics promised an end to scarcity and monotony. If we explore the sources of our gardens, we can understand our world. That‘s what I tried to do in The Garden of Invention, and that’s why I recommend these books.
This fascinating book answers questions you never thought to ask. What would Southern California be without citrus groves or palm trees? Why does the Australian eucalyptus cover so much of this western state, and who were the elite conservatives who saw their own survival in the battle to save the redwoods? Find out here!
At the intersection of plants and politics, Trees in Paradise is an examination of ecological mythmaking and conquest. The first Americans who looked out over California saw arid grasslands and chaparral, and over the course of generations, they remade those landscapes according to the aesthetic values and economic interests of settlers, urban planners, and boosters. In the San Fernando Valley, entrepreneurs amassed fortunes from vast citrus groves; in the Bay Area, gum trees planted to beautify neighborhoods fed wildfires; and across the state, the palm came to stand for the ease and luxury of the rapidly expanding suburbs. Meanwhile, thousands…
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know that its climate is unique in the U.S. and that there are many microclimates within the region. It’s all mediterranean, as you can tell by its dry summers and mild, wet winters. But near the coast, summer fog carpets the land for weeks and winter is rarely frosty, while inland summers are hot, winter frosts are frequent. I live here and use my academic and first-hand experience with plants to help regional gardeners create year-round beauty and harvests in all of our wonderful, often perplexing microclimates.
An
introductory chapter describes our greater Bay Area climate and its
microclimates. The plants listed are ones that will thrive in the region with a
minimum of summer water. The glory of the book is in the photographs by Saxon
Holt, which include close shots for identification and wider shots that will
inspire you to combine plants handsomely in your garden.
The biggest compliment a reader can give me is to tell me my book made them cry. Yes, I love a great tear-jerker. I love writing them, and I love reading them. When we feel more deeply, we can live more fully. Books that evoke emotion can help us tune into our authentic selves and confront falsehoods that have held us back from full victory in our lives. Plus, reading is cheaper than therapy! I seek to bring hope, healing, and freedom through fiction. You have to feel to heal, so bring on all the feels.
This was a hard pick because I could easily have chosen any of Joanne Bischof’s other books.
She writes with such excellence and depth of feeling that you bond with the characters and go through their trials alongside them. I chose The Gold in These Hills over her other equally loved books because I read it with tears streaming down my face. The theme of restoration after loss and betrayal resonated with me. Deep despair gives way to soul-stretching hope.
Beautiful, quotable prose stuck with me long after I finished. If you want a novel about second chances that speaks deeply to the heart, give this one a try.
When mail-order bride Juniper's husband vanishes, she writes to him-but fears she's waiting for a ghost in a ghost town. A century later, Johnny Sutherland discovers her letters while restoring her abandoned farmhouse. Can her loving words from the distant past change his present?
1902: Upon arriving in Kenworthy, California, mail-order bride Juniper Cohen is met by the pounding of the gold mine, an untamable landscape, and her greatest surprise of all: the kind and charming man who awaits her. But when the mine proves empty of profit, and when Juniper's husband, John, vanishes, Juniper is left to fend for…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
As a second-generation immigrant, I knew very little of my family’s migration story. My grandparents never really learned English despite living in the US sixty or more years. In my twenties when the country was undergoing turmoil about immigration reform once again, I began looking at the immigrants all around me (and in literature) and identifying what we had in common—how our lives intertwined and were mutually dependent on one another. In 2007 I traveled 8,500 miles around the perimeter of the US by bicycle on a research trip to collect stories from immigrants and those whose lives they impacted. I wrote two books based on that experience.
I read The Brick People when it was first published in 1988.
At the time, I was already familiar with Morales’ work, but this historical novel about the Simons Brick Factory in Southern California and the Mexican migrants who the Simons brother depended upon for their success seized my imagination.
The author blends folklore, history, myth, and magical realism into a novel that relates the story of Mexican migrants and their complicity with or rebellion against the Simons brothers and the mores of the early 20th Century Los Angeles region.
Morales shows how history from the ground up is manifested in people’s lives. His characters work and play hard as they seek to build community and pursue dreams of social mobility even when customs and laws prohibit them.
This engrosing historical novel traces the growth of California from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries by following in the development of the Simons Brick Factory. With an attention to historical reality blended with myth and legend, the prolific Morales recounts the epic struggle of a people to forge their destiny, along with Califonia's.
