Here are 99 books that Jitterbug Perfume fans have personally recommended if you like Jitterbug Perfume. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Endurance

Neil and Ruchin Kansal Author Of The Kansal Clunker

From my list on ordinary people achieving the extraordinary.

Why are we passionate about this?

We’re Neil and Ruchin Kansal—builders, innovators, car lovers, and travelers at heart. In 2020, during the pandemic, we chased a dream: we bought a battered 1998 Acura Integra and, working in our garage, transformed it into a striking lime green showpiece. To celebrate Ruchin’s 50th birthday and Neil’s high school graduation in 2021, we drove it 5,000 miles to the summit of Mt. Evans, Colorado—the highest paved road in North America—learning along the way that, like life, the road demands resilience, adaptability, and courage to act. Our adventures are about more than cars—they’re about pushing boundaries, embracing challenges, and discovering what’s possible together.

Neil and Ruchin's book list on ordinary people achieving the extraordinary

Neil and Ruchin Kansal Why Neil and Ruchin loves this book

This book appealed to our spirit as travelers and explorers.

We read it after a trip to Ushuaia, Argentina—close to where the story of Endurance unfolded. We found in this story the essence of what it means to be human—to take on big, hairy problems, to expect the unexpected, and to survive against impossible odds.

What stayed with us is how human character is revealed in the most adverse situations, and how, when we are faced with life and death, nothing is truly right or wrong, only choices that must be made to survive.

By Alfred Lansing ,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked Endurance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted northwest before it was finally crushed between two ice floes. With no options left, Shackleton and a skeleton crew attempted a near-impossible…


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Book cover of The High House

The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

Book cover of On the Road

Robin Esrock Author Of The Great Global Bucket List

From my list on inspiring your bucket list travels.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a travel writer, author, broadcaster, speaker, and producer, I’ve reported from over 100 countries on 7 continents for major print and digital publications worldwide and networks like National Geographic and Travel Channel.  I kicked off my career with a solo, 12-month round-the-world backpacking adventure, largely inspired by the formative books I read below. Embracing the world with insatiable curiosity, an open heart, an open mind, a sense of humour, and enthusiasm to share my stories clearly resonated. Here I am, two decades later, author of a half-dozen bestselling books that focus on my own eclectic travels, which will hopefully inspire others as these books inspired me.  

Robin's book list on inspiring your bucket list travels

Robin Esrock Why Robin loves this book

A deserved, all-time classic, this book seems to transcend time to capture the spirit of wanderlust. I was young and impressionable when I read it for the first time, and it inspired a sense of profound restlessness to explore, grow, and hit the road to see for myself. 

Neal Cassidy and Jack Kerouac are wild, occasionally unhinged protagonists, and their journey consists of hustling, romance, and drinking their way to a good time. Kerouac’s writing made me long for similar misadventures, where life is simple and finding the road is all that matters. Subversively, the novel promotes a full life and whole human experience, which makes working 9 to 5 that much more difficult.

By Jack Kerouac ,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked On the Road as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition

Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed…


Book cover of The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Danielle Teller Author Of All the Ever Afters

From my list on novels that make you think without brain hurting.

Why am I passionate about this?

I read a lot of fiction, both out of love and as my job. One of my biggest frustrations is that it’s so hard to find novels that are both thought-provoking and fun to read. Books that are page-turners often leave me feeling icky, like I’ve mowed down a big, greasy mess of french fries, and I have regrets. Books that are intellectually stimulating are like a bowl of kale that I nibble at and find easy to put down. When I find a novel that is both propulsive and thoughtful, that is my holy grail, and all of the books on this list hit that sweet spot for me. 

Danielle's book list on novels that make you think without brain hurting

Danielle Teller Why Danielle loves this book

This book is an intensely philosophical novel that tackles big subjects, like the nature of love, the limits and desirability of freedom, the expression of sexuality, and the very nature of human existence, while at the same time being immersive and easy to read. The main characters, Tomas and Tereza, are full of love for each other but fail to truly connect because of their personal frailties, which I believe is true of all of us at one time or another.

There are concepts from this novel that have become part of my own philosophy, in particular, that responsibility gives meaning to life. 

By Milan Kundera ,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Unbearable Lightness of Being as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A cult figure.' Guardian
'A dark and brilliant achievement.' Ian McEwan
'Shamelessly clever ... Exhilaratingly subversive and funny.' Independent
'A modern classic ... As relevant now as when it was first published. ' John Banville

A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon; a man torn between his love for her and his womanising. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals; while her other lover stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by choices and events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems…


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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of The Living Mountain

Sara B. Franklin Author Of The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America

From my list on the stories we tell about women.

Why am I passionate about this?

Judith Jones became an important mentor and mother figure to me in my twenties, in the wake of my parents’ deaths. Her personal wisdom and guidance, which I received both in knowing her personally and from the incredible archive she left behind, have been invaluable to me during a particularly tumultuous and transformative decade in my own life. I wrote The Editor as I was coming into my full adulthood, and the books on this list helped shape my thinking along the way at times when I felt stagnant or stuck or needed to rethink both how to write Judith’s life and why her story is so vital to tell.

Sara's book list on the stories we tell about women

Sara B. Franklin Why Sara loves this book

I’ve never read anything like The Living Mountain. A book that is, at once, an autobiography of a remarkable yet under-celebrated woman writer and an exploration of the ecstasies of experiencing the world through the body and its senses.

In gorgeously vivid prose, Shepherd invites us to pursue depth over breadth and to rely upon our felt experience as a way of knowing in the world. This book challenges dominant “hero’s journey” narratives in both content and form and suggests that all we yearn to experience and know can be found right where we find ourselves, wherever that may be. 

By Nan Shepherd ,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Living Mountain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian

Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. Afterword by Jeanette Winterson

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.

Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and…


Book cover of They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

Jamil Hasan Author Of Re-Generation X: How Generation X Can Leverage Blockchain Technology to Save Themselves and Rebuild America

From my list on help gen x close the ‘analog to digital’ divide.

Why am I passionate about this?

Excluding every day since my birth, my Gen X studies started in earnest in 2016, when Fortune 100 companies aggressively laid off my Gen X peers across the board. I was an early entrepreneur in the crypto industry and saw firsthand how people in remote reaches of the world used Bitcoin to pull themselves out of poverty. Since 2021, I have been a podcast host, interviewing founders and entrepreneurs about the benefits of technology and how to bring the next billion people across the digital divide. Most of my nearly 600 podcasts discuss how to empower people, especially my age, to live better lives by embracing the new digital economy.

Jamil's book list on help gen x close the ‘analog to digital’ divide

Jamil Hasan Why Jamil loves this book

This book resonated deeply within me because, just like the author, I have always relied upon music to drive my emotions. Music played an integral role in shaping my life, especially during times of tremendous grief. This was especially true during the devastating death of a dear friend during my teenage years who succumbed to his demons and the quiet void left by my father’s passing. Each loss felt like a piece of my soul was gone. Music helped me grapple with my mortality.

Being let go from my corporate job was another brutal grief-ridden separation because it felt as if I had lost a part of my identity. Gen Xers like me often navigate the treacherous waters of untapped, sidelined potential. I was reminded that resilience spawns from pain and suffering. Personal battles forced me to confront my fears as I moved forward into today’s digital age. Like Hanif,…

By Hanif Abdurraqib ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

* 2018 "12 best books to give this holiday season" —TODAY (Elizabeth Acevedo)
* A "Best Book of 2017" —Rolling Stone (2018), NPR, Buzzfeed, Paste Magazine, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, CBC, Stereogum, National Post, Entropy, Heavy, Book Riot, Chicago Review of Books, The Los Angeles Review, Michigan Daily
* American Booksellers Association (ABA) 'December 2017 Indie Next List Great Reads'
* Midwest Indie Bestseller

In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib's is a voice that matters. Whether he's attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown's grave, or discussing public displays of…


Book cover of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Matthew Hooton Author Of Typhoon Kingdom

From my list on silenced histories of Korea, Japan, and China.

Why am I passionate about this?

I lived and worked in South Korea for four years, where I first became fascinated with the country’s history, from shamans on Jeju island to the twentieth-century politics of Seoul. I’m the author of two novels and dozens of short stories and essays published in venues around the world, many of which feature some element of Korean history. I’m originally from Canada and now teach creative writing at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Matthew's book list on silenced histories of Korea, Japan, and China

Matthew Hooton Why Matthew loves this book

This is a novel that I suspected I was falling into as much as reading—that is, I felt utterly and, at times, uncomfortably immersed in Murakami’s story universe.

I love the blending of contemporary realism in the novel (our protagonist’s day-to-day life) with the historical and the way the Japanese military’s atrocities in Manchuria in the 30s haunt the recognizably contemporary world so that even a man sitting at the bottom of a well contemplating existence and history feels like an acceptable and dreamlike weirdness.

I’m completely taken with such a strange and affecting representation of lesser-known histories and the ghosts such events leave us with.

By Haruki Murakami , Jay Rubin (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

INCLUDES A READING GUIDE

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

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…

Book cover of A Thousand Splendid Suns

Anthea T. Piscarik Author Of The Years In Between

From my list on historical fiction about overcoming loss.

Why am I passionate about this?

My favorite genre, historical fiction, inserts characters into real-life events. As a former news reporter, I enjoyed doing research when communicating factual information to readers. I love learning about different time periods and coming away with a fresh perspective on times gone by. History is subjective and always revised and revisited, but factual dates and occurrences remain the same. All the stories I chose to review reveal how fictionalized characters, in real events, deal with coming out on the other side of loss or pain with a stronger spirit. None of us escape loss. It’s inevitable. But there’s healing over time and trust in a God that loves us beyond expectations.

Anthea's book list on historical fiction about overcoming loss

Anthea T. Piscarik Why Anthea loves this book

I cried at the conclusion of this book. I cried because I cared so deeply for the women I met on their journeys. And I cried to release the anguish I felt from their rejection, constriction, and subjugation to arranged marriages.

I’m so very grateful for a book written by an Afghan with a clear-eyed perspective of his culture and sensitivity to the tyranny of suppression, especially for women treated as unequal to men. But there’s so much more to this book; it is an homage to courage, resilience, and, ultimately, love, namely, a mother’s self-sacrificing love.  The characters conquer despair and limited freedoms with enduring hope. 

By Khaled Hosseini ,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked A Thousand Splendid Suns as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE RICHARD & JUDY NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

'A suspenseful epic' Daily Telegraph

'A triumph' Financial Times

'Heartbreaking' Mail on Sunday

'Deeply moving' Sunday Times

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.


Book cover of Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds

Jeffrey Dunn Author Of Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance

From my list on big imagination and creative punch.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was a happy child until I went to school. When my teacher turned her back, I ran home. My mom sent me back. The umbilical cord broken, I held a grudge. That enmity remained until my ninth-grade English teacher read us Richard Brautigan’s post-apocalyptic, proto-hippie fantasy In Watermelon Sugar. There was much to imagine: a multicolored sun, an infinite garbage dump, and mathematical, parent-eating tigers. Like the narrator, I wanted to live in a shack, not have a regular name, and hook up with a proto-hippie, hot cake-making artist girlfriend who made “a long and slow love” possible. Since then, I have devoured fiction, poetry, art, film, you name it. 

Jeffrey's book list on big imagination and creative punch

Jeffrey Dunn Why Jeffrey loves this book

I saw my first raven near Mount Rainier. The bird looked me in the eye, hopped to the left, sized me up, and continued his business. The advancing Russian army drove Bernd Heinrich and his family into the forest near Hahnheide, Germany, where they lived in a small hut for five years.

There, he began his lifelong quest to connect with insects (especially bees), owls, trees, antelope (he runs ultramarathons), geese...and ravens. The mind of the Raven is a deep, scientific meditation on the intersection between being human and raven. It concludes that “ultimately [our differences are] less a matter of consciousness than of culture” (342).

I wonder how culture has dulled my imagination, a struggle Heinrich clearly has fought more successfully than I have.

By Bernd Heinrich ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Mind of the Raven as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Heinrich involves us in his quest to get inside the mind of the raven. But as animals can only be spied on by getting quite close, Heinrich adopts ravens, thereby becoming a "raven father," as well as observing them in their natural habitat. He studies their daily routines, and in the process, paints a vivid picture of the ravens' world. At the heart of this book are Heinrich's love and respect for these complex and engaging creatures, and through his keen observation and analysis, we become their intimates too.

Heinrich's passion for ravens has led him around the world in…


Book cover of In Watermelon Sugar

Jeffrey Dunn Author Of Radio Free Olympia

From my list on where imagination and nature run free.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been a child of the woods. I preferred to leave my home and wade a creek or explore a hillside. Nothing compared to the sight of a black snake or the feel of a mud puppy. School was a torture until an English teacher introduced me to Richard Brautigan and then read my first serious story to the class. Since then, this dyslexic nature lover has become a dream fisher and history miner with a Ph.D. in English Literature and Cultural Studies. Retired from forty-one years of teaching, I now write and publish cultural fiction.

Jeffrey's book list on where imagination and nature run free

Jeffrey Dunn Why Jeffrey loves this book

I love Richard Brautigan, and In Watermelon Sugar was my first Brautigan book.

I was in the ninth grade and ready to be transported to a land that was hippie without trying to be so. A living room with trees and a stream. A sun that shines a different color every day, especially on Thursday when the sun shines black and there is no sound.

Written three years before the summer of love, the seeds of the hippie dream-turned-nightmare are already sown. Too much whiskey. And yet, this book lit the way for a life of creativity. Still does.

By Richard Brautigan ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked In Watermelon Sugar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A charming and original work... The parable itself is extremely relevant' The Times

iDEATH is a place where the sun shines a different colour every day and where people travel to the length of their dreams. Rejecting the violence and hate of the old gang at the Forgotten Works, they lead gentle lives in watermelon sugar.
In this book, Richard Brautigan discovers and expresses the mood of the counterculture generation.

'Delicate, fantastic and very funny... A highly individual style, a fertile, active inventiveness... It's cool, joyous, lucid and pleasant to read' Malcolm Bradbury


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

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…

Book cover of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Bill Burkland Author Of The Misconceived Conception of a Baby Named Jesus

From my list on books to make you laugh and also make you think.

Why am I passionate about this?

I believe that laughter is the best way into a person’s heart and also into their head. Life is beautiful, but it is also incredibly fragile. Satire and humor are effective ways to raise the level of awareness of destructive behaviors and/or controversial topics that are otherwise difficult or unpleasant to address. I think satire and humor make it easier to hold up a mirror and look critically at our own beliefs and our actions.  

Bill's book list on books to make you laugh and also make you think

Bill Burkland Why Bill loves this book

I loved the book because it went in a direction, humorously describing the teen-age years of Jesus Christ, that no book had gone before.

Not only is the storyline clever and the dialogue sharp and humorous, but it also forces you to think critically about the origin stories that are handed down through centuries and millennia.

By Christopher Moore ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Lamb as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years - except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in this divinely hilarious, yet heartfelt work 'reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams' (Philadelphia Inquirer). Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes, Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the…


Book cover of Endurance
Book cover of On the Road
Book cover of The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in pilgrimages, fables, and France?

Pilgrimages 28 books
Fables 44 books
France 975 books