Books like Hold Still — picked by fans

For me, this novel combines the best of three sharply different types of books: It's a dystopian novel that paints an enthralling (and terrifying) portrait of an invented world. It's a page-turner.

And it's a story that hit some deep emotions in me. The basic narrative is that Frida, the harried and divorced mom of toddler Harriet, leaves Harriet alone while she dashes off to get herself a latte. Okay, that's stupid and risky, though Harriet is unharmed.

But in this book's world, that's enough to land Frida in a "reform school" from which it's almost impossible to prove yourself "perfect" enough to be released. As the story spiraled worse and worse, I couldn't believe this was happening.

I couldn't read another word; no, I couldn't put it down.

As the seemingly idyllic marriage between Eleanor and Cam unraveled, I kept wanting to scream at Eleanor.

Didn't she see what she was doing to her relationship with her kids, by either saying the wrong thing or doing nothing? Yes, it was because of Cam's carelessness that their son, Toby, was horribly injured in an accident, but why didn't she accept Cam's gestures of apology?

And when divorce became inevitable, why did she let Cam keep the farm that their three children loved? Why did she have to fight over every little thing with their elder daughter?

These characters were vividly real to me, and I felt like I was watching helplessly while the wrong person unfairly won the whole prize. 

I was hooked by the unexpected opening sentence: "The first time I saw my granddaughters, I was standing across the street, didn't dare go any closer."

What had gone wrong? Why was a grandmother so estranged from her own grandchildren?

As the novel unspooled, it double-backed into other surprise twists, and the characters and motivations weren't as clear-cut as they'd seemed. Leah, the mother of the two granddaughters, wasn't being juvenile, impulsive, or heartless when she broke off contact with her parents. Yoella, the grandmother, wasn't as loving and innocent as she thinks she was—and how much does she realize, in fact?

I loved the way the book sometimes said more between the lines than in the actual words. 

I had to shut this book about halfway through, and I couldn't pick it up again until my daughter was safely home from her weekend visitation with her father—because it was too real.

Too powerful, in the way it captured my (and many mothers') constant fear that my ex-husband would find some excuse not to bring my daughter back after each visit.

I've rarely read anything that grabbed me so personally. The overall plot itself was also enthralling, though less directly realistic for me.

Anna and her ex-husband, Brian, seem to have an amiable divorce, and Anna finds new romance with a sexy lover. But then things go too far: Will Anna lose custody of her young daughter, Molly? What did her lover, Leo, actually do? 

This memoir tells the true story of a literature professor in Iran who invited a small group of her former female students to secretly meet at her home and discuss banned Western books. Nafisi shares how, in a country where personal freedom was disappearing, these stories became a way for them to hold on to their voices and identities.

The book blends their real lives with the novels they read—like Lolita and The Great Gatsby—showing how fiction can offer hope and resistance, even in the darkest times. It's both a sharp look at life under an oppressive regime and a moving reminder of how powerful books can be.

This is the best book out there about the ups and downs, the value and the degradation, the profundity and the shallow pettiness of universities. 

It is also an achingly profound commentary on the disappointment of life, when beauty and fulfilment are always just out of reach. 

Stoner reminds me that the vast archive of books out there is always growing, and there’ll never be enough time to read the best of what’s already been written, never mind try to grapple with a steady stream of new classics. Even so, I know I’ll read this book again and again.

Whereas Hessler’s book is about a country gradually opening up to the west, Suki Kim’s book is about a country completely isolated.

Kim works for six months in North Korea at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a school for the boys of the ruling elite. While living there, rather than connecting with her students, she is unsettled by how deep the country’s deceptions are.

The university, although claiming to be a school for science and industry, has neither labs nor modern technology. Her travel is circumscribed and carefully scripted. The students lie effortlessly about things of little consequence. The entire country seems to be built on holograms and shadows. She travels as teacher, but in the end serves as journalist, seeking the truth behind a country that the world barely understands. 

Kay Redfield Jamison’s classic memoir of bipolar disorder captures the highs and lows of the illness with exceptional clarity. 

She describes the dilemma as a doctor of deciding whether to reveal her diagnosis, a dilemma that resonated with me as a law professor, but is common to many people with bipolar who can “pass for normal” most of the time.

Pictures from an Institution, to my mind, is the best novel written by a poet. It’s comical, biting, engrossing, moving, and flat-out entertaining. Once again, we are back in academia, at a woman’s college based loosely on Sarah Lawrence, and never has academia been skewered more amusingly. Regarding the college, one character muses, “You Americans do not rear children, you incite them; you give them food and shelter and applause.” The novel’s jokes—aphorisms, wisecracks, putdowns—come so fast and furious one could lose track of the story, if the story itself were not so interesting…and jovial. It’s funnier than throwing a hardboiled egg into an electric fan. Pictures from an Institution is also learned and wise and, underneath the drollery, there is a basic humanism that does not allow you to dismiss the book as mere satire.

This memoir by a brave woman who stood up to both Presidents Trump and Putin is a revealing look at the inner workings of the Trump administration’s dysfunctional foreign policy. Fiona Hill bears an uncanny resemblance to my heroine, Delphine Roget. Born to a poor mining family in the North of England, she worked her way to the top through sheer intellectual brilliance and willpower. When push came to shove, she told the truth to Congress about Trump’s outrageous misuse of presidential power. But the book is much more than that. It is a searching examination of how capitalism has left whole communities behind as industries crumble, posing a threat to democracies worldwide.