Books like How to Read a Book — picked by fans

First of all, this book is hilarious. Second of all, it made me cry.

A trans woman leaving a men’s prison? After twenty years inside? With nowhere to go that will meet the requirements of her parole? Never mind meeting her requirements in the way of wardrobe. So this novel was quite a ride for me, right from page one. Although I have nothing in common with Carlotta, I somehow found myself identifying with her, and I was hooked. I can’t explain it.

I’m fussy about grammar and punctuation—until this book, which had my head spinning with mid-sentence switch-ups between first person and third person, between prison-speak and whatever I speak, between using and not using punctuation and sentence structure. I loved every minute, every sentence.

This was the first book I ever read dealing with life in prison, and it took me into a world way beyond my own.

The prisoner who wrote it was, like me, a corporate office worker (although unlike me, he killed someone). This book took me right into prison with him, directly from the courtroom. I could feel and hear and see and smell this utterly alien place, this community of people that has its own structure and its own rules, and where nothing that worked in your past life has any relevance.

A big part of why I love this book is the humor in the author’s outlook and writing style—so I got to laugh occasionally, especially when he would describe trying to apply his MBA training to the situations he encountered on the inside. 

Allen Eskens is adept at melding literary fiction with crime, mystery, suspense, and psychological thriller.

In this book, his lawyer-protagonist (Boady) is trying to save two unrelated people: the teen-aged Emma, but also Elijah, who is locked up in a psychiatric hospital, convicted of murder. And he has to save himself.

I love how these stories are interwoven, how Boady struggles with family, his work with the Innocence Project, and his own grief, fears, and failings. I found the Elijah story especially gripping—to save Elijah, he must unpick the knots that keep Elijah from helping himself, and at the same time he must gently undo brainwashing at the hands of a devious aunt.

Women’s prison was something I never thought about, until I picked up this memoir because I was curious about the title (and was completely wrong about it).

How a Smith graduate with a job as a New York creative ended up in prison was interesting, but once she walked inside, I was spellbound. I got caught up in the sadness, the fear, the drama, the boredom, and the unfairness of (no period products??).

This book was as eye-opening as it was mesmerizing. 

I Killed Zoe Spanos is absolutely contemporary, even using a true-crime podcast as a (successful) device in the telling of the story. I’m a sucker for false confession stories and in the story of Zoe, the victim who disappears on New Year’s Eve and whose body is found the following August; and Anna, who bears a strong resemblance to Zoe, and confesses to the murder, you have the makings of a potential can’t-put-it-down thriller. And author, Kit Frick, doesn’t miss the mark. A creepy cast of characters, wonderfully spooky settings, plenty of twists and turns—all brought to life by a gifted storyteller—make this one of my great favourites.

This book is a fun story that shows the ups and downs of middle school life and has some fascinating bird facts.

Though a parrot isn’t the pet that Arden wanted, it turns out to be the pet she needed, and I loved her scientific approach to figuring out why Ludwig the parrot is so smart.

I read this in one sitting, not only because it’s a quick read but because I had to find out how Arden was going to stand up to her bully and figure out the mystery tied to Ludwig’s brilliance.

This novel is challenging in all the best ways. It took me three tries to get into it…but once I “got it” I was hooked. The story follows Anna and her (kind of awful) siblings as they try (and largely fail) to deal with each other and their elderly mother’s decline and impending death. As if this subject were not hot enough, the novel takes place against the backdrop of the climate crisis. This is an original, serious, and existentially charged read that definitely takes the fun out of family dysfunction. Yet amazingly, the darker and more abstract this book trends, the more emotionally authentic and impactful it becomes. And the writing is simply stellar.

The animal is a parrot who shows up suddenly, has been around, and won’t leave. The human is a thirty-year-old male who works alone in a night job with the Texas highway department and thinks he likes being a loner. A quirky, touching novel. It’s one of those books I look forward to reading again; it left me feeling so satisfied.

This is another great picture book about the death of a non-dog/cat pet––in this Mem Fox classic, the pirate Tough Boris loses his dear pet parrot.

This book is especially wonderful though because it shows how even the toughest of tough guys––and Tough Boris is a tough pirate––can absolutely fall to pieces when a pet dies. It’s okay to cry about an animal dying––even if you are a pirate!

The really beautiful thing about this story though is seeing how Tough Boris copes with the loss through making friends with a stowaway boy on his ship, because if I’ve learned one thing from my pets dying, it’s that you need the support and love of other people to help you through the loss.

Divorce lawyer Neil Hamel always seems to do more PI work than law. In Parrot Blues (A Neil Hamel Mystery) by Judith Van Gieson, she tries to locate a missing woman—and an indigo parrot. Oddly, the husband seems more concerned about the bird than his wife, who may be on her way out of the marriage anyway. But with the parrot as the only witness, it’s a tough case to crack. There’s plenty of New Mexico history and vistas to satisfy, but I found the information about birds and smuggling to be eye-opening. Her relationship with the “Kid” adds to Neil’s character. She’s her own woman, doing things her way. That alone gained my respect.