79 Books Like Moments of Being

This contemporary, quirky tale centers around the life of Keiko, a young woman who has never done anything in a conventional way and has her mother very worried that her daughter will never find a man and settle down into a conventional life. No, Keiko’s ways of thinking are startling and odd in ways that are both amusing and somewhat horrifying, as she really does fall outside the realm of conventional thinking and socially rewarded behavior. The reader comes to love her as she grows into womanhood (and personhood) as a worker in a fast-paced convenience store, where she memorizes hundreds of products and practices behaving more “normally” by mimicking the actions and words of her co-workers. Then a man named Shiraha enters the picture, for a new twist.

I was moved and delighted by this highly original novel, which blends murder-mystery with heartfelt philosophical explorations into animal rights, mysticism, existential anxiety, and our own humanity.

Narrator-protagonist Janina, a woman who translates Blake, studies horoscopes and feels a deep connection to the animals around her; she tells the story of what happens one winter when a series of men in her Polish village are murdered by a culprit yet to be found.

I adored this book’s intelligence and blending of tragedy and humor. Its narrative combines a compelling plot with a distinctive first-person voice and deeply thoughtful reflections about the beauty, cruelty, and wonder of life.

I’m recommending this book because it brilliantly captures the overwhelm and mania of a woman whose husband of fifteen years has left her for a younger woman. This novel likewise brilliantly captures the overwhelm and mania of being responsible for children and living within the flimsy identity of being a wife and mother. 

What I like best about this book is its darkness and strangeness. Raising children is full of paranoia, fear, and threats of danger at every turn, and a mother’s state of mind trickles down to all aspects of childrearing. It is refreshing to read such well-rendered (even darkly funny) desperation of a mom. 

It’s mid-20th century, Budapest, and the narrator, a Hungarian writer named Magda, interviews Emerence about cleaning her house. I fell in love with this book early on, when Emerence makes it clear that she, not Magda, will decide whether she’ll take the job. To this day, Emerence haunts me. She’s a peasant, illiterate, an anti-intellectual, tall, and powerfully built. And she’s a relentless gift giver, a caretaker of the sick, and a tireless worker, sweeping the snowy or leaf-stricken street for the 11 buildings on the block. The contradictions and inconsistencies pile up, which is why she continues to roam around in my brain. And there’s the lovely mystery, which only reveals itself toward the end, as to why she’s never allowed anyone into her house. 

This book became a kind of hymnal for me during the writing of Love and Fury. It was Virginia Woolf who in 1929 resurrected Mary Wollstonecraft’s reputation and legacy, buried for a century because a tell-all memoir written by her widower, William Godwin, scandalized the world. It seemed natural to turn to Woolf, who found inspiration in Wollstonecraft’s “experiments in living”. I read a section of the diary every day before I started to write. Woolf’s profound creative visions, her anguish, and passions, her voice, helped me locate Wollstonecraft and my own voice in hers. 

I came late to this book, only having read it recently because one of my kids needed help researching for an IB school project.

It blew my mind. Woolf gave words to so many of the feelings that I had shoved down deep about being a woman and an artist. 

I was obsessed with this novel when it first came out, and every time I go back to it, it offers me another gift.

The writing is lean yet elegant, a perfect combination to tell such a heartbreaking story—of three women connected through time by Virginia Woolf’s singular novel Mrs. Dalloway.

It’s a book about how to sustain ourselves through challenging times—how to literally survive—but it’s also a treatise on creating remarkable characters, the call to be an artist, and a rare glimpse into the imagined writing process of one of the English language’s greatest wordsmiths. (I’m referring to Woolf, but I could just as easily be talking about Cunningham.)

The structure is inventive and compelling, but it is really what he shows us of the characters, how he opens their hearts and whispers their secret sorrows into our eager ears, desires they barely understand themselves, that makes this… show more.

Nietzsche studies are a cottage industry unto themselves. There are thousands of monographs, anthologies, and papers, which are conveniently searchable at the Weimarer Nietzsche-Bibliographie. My “five best books” are not necessarily the interpretations I personally consider by some measure the ‘best’, in the sense of being the most ‘correct’. They are instead the ones I find most helpful for a reader to interpret Nietzsche in a responsible, well-informed way for themselves. 

R. J. Hollingdale is a great starting point for a novice. He was that rare combination of translator, biographer, and philosopher—and as such, his work is approachable for any intellectually curious reader. It was first published in 1965, at a time when one really did have to argue for Nietzsche’s place as a canonical philosopher rather than just a brilliant writer, bombastic iconoclast, or politically-dangerous driver of the pre-war German Zeitgeist. Even if somewhat dated, his book… show more.

I have never read a book of historical fiction quite like this one!

In a distinctive and compelling narrative voice, the book explores the real-life figure of Margaret Cavendish, a seventeenth-century woman who exploded the rulebook when it came to women’s lives. Although shy, she was profoundly ambitious and a true polymath, conducting her own scientific experiments as well as writing poems, philosophy, plays, and even sci-fi. Known in the newspapers as “Mad Madge,” she was the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London.

I love how Dutton conveys the effervescence and wit of this brilliant woman as Margaret battles against an intellectual world determined to keep her out. 

This book unveils some of the mysteries of how our brains are designed and function.

Although not written from a biblical perspective, it unveils some of the reasons for the dual nature described in scripture—why we often hear two voices in our head and how we decide which one to follow. It also points out the challenges of group wisdom and convention versus thinking independently, thus avoiding the deception that creeps into group thinking.

As a Christian, I found this book unintentionally providing insight into biblical principles for decision-making and leadership. God is the owner and source of all truth, and we can see Him in everything.