Here are 100 books that Moo fans have personally recommended if you like
Moo.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
When I was a small child I used to stare long and hard at playing cards, absorbed in the mediaeval-ish drawings and with the feeling that they were trying to tell me something beyond the obvious; which was that they simply represented numbers and suits for the purpose of playing Whist or Rummy or whatever. Gradually I learned that the instinct was true, that ordinary playing cards have long been used for fortune-telling and are related of course to Tarot cards, which take the divination angle to a whole other level (and conversely can equally, if rather frivolously, be used for playing Poker if you leave out the Major Arcana cards).
Does Terry Pratchett seem a frivolous choice compared to my others? Not at all. There is deep and humane wisdom hidden in his Discworld humor.
In the eternally recurrent conflict between Dwarves and Trolls in the Discworld, the board game Thud (a parallel world echo of the Scandinavian hnefatafl games) plays a pivotal and, ultimately, crucial role.
The story's hero is Samuel Vimes, a favorite avatar of Pratchett's. Vimes is a recovering alcoholic, depressive policeman who through chance and a stubborn inborn streak of decency and sense of fair play, happens to end up as the Duke of Ankh Morpork (the Discworld equivalent of London) and mediator between the two warring tribes. It's his job to find the point at which they can at least agree to not slaughter each other.
Once, in a gods-forsaken hellhole called Koom Valley, trolls and dwarfs met in bloody combat. Centuries later, each species still views the other with simmering animosity. Lately, the influential dwarf, Grag Hamcrusher, has been fomenting unrest among Ankh-Morpork's more diminutive citizens—a volatile situation made far worse when the pint-size provocateur is discovered bashed to death . . . with a troll club lying conveniently nearby.
Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch is aware of the importance of solving the Hamcrusher homicide without delay. (Vimes's second most-pressing responsibility, in fact, next to always being home at six p.m. sharp to…
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…
The bottom has fallen out of my world several times now, but it’s much worse watching disaster strike someone you love. When my husband suffered a near-fatal stroke, it was inevitable I’d end up writing about his road to rehab. Grit and humour were what they said he’d need, and Scousers like me laugh at anything. We also cry and argue a lot. I’m on a mission to cheer people on and hand them arms as they battle through hard times. A life, or a state of mind, can change in a moment, and that’s what I read and write about.
This classic satire gripped me even though I only half-understood it.
Whatever disaster befell my family, my mother used to assert it was
surely for the best; so when, as an eye-rolling teenager, I found this
on the reading list—Mum’s philosophy, tested in the real world—I was hooked.
Voltaire
drags his dopey characters, led by the philosopher Pangloss, through
every type of horror, war, famine, and earthquake. World events now keep
driving me back to his conclusion: in an age of folly and random
misfortune, the best you can do is to dig your garden. Tend your own
patch.
OK, the eighteenth century was racist, sexist, and colonial… but
perspective is what Voltaire is all about. Didn’t quite cure me of
optimism, btw.
In Candide, Voltaire threw down an audacious challenge to the philosophical views of the Enlightenment to create one of the most glorious satires of the eighteenth century. His eponymous hero is an innocent young man whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that 'all is for the best'. But when his love for the Baron's rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own fortune. As he and his various companions roam over the world, an outrageous series of disasters - earthquakes, syphilis, the Inquisition - sorely test…
I consider myself not only a student of satire, but also as a master practitioner with an innate and instinctive aptitude for it—like those born with perfect pitch or hand-eye coordination, kind of like an idiot savant, only hopefully without the idiot part. Satire is the perfect literary platform because it allows both the writer and the reader to explore the landscape of the human experience, the absurdity, the grandeur, the mystery, the horror—not with a sermon or a polemic or a sigh, but with a laugh and a nodding smile of recognition.
Once again, I’d never read anything like it before. He was having a conversation with me. I was now a character in an Amsterdam bar with him, the war had just ended, we were smoking cigarettes and drinking gin.
He would respond to my silent questions, and wax and wane philosophically, metaphysically, morally, ethically, and occasionally comically.
And the beauty was that it had happened so randomly—a roommate had thrown the book in the trash, declaring it to be “bullshit.” I knew the lad to be an imbecile (an acceptable term at the time), so I fished the book out of the trash, read the first sentence, and loved it.
It was the quantumly entangled counter particle to Candide: one particle from the age of reason, the other particle from the age of existentialism.
Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.
Jean-Baptiste Clamence - refined, handsome, forty, a former successful lawyer - is in turmoil. Over several drunken…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
While doing a college humor column I was hoping to be the next Art Buchwald, but instead ended up first as a lawyer, then a film critic and college professor. When I finally got around to writing fiction, the blending of science fiction and comedy was a natural fit (with occasional forays into horror and fantasy). I’ve done four novels and a couple of dozen published stories to date and when readers tell me they’ve enjoyed them I answer, “If it made you laugh, I did my job.” When I came up with the mashup title of “Father of the Bride of Frankenstein” I said, “I have to write this.”
Oy, forget the mediocre movie. George Burns was perfectly cast but the reason God appears as a little old Jewish man is that he’s granting an interview to a Jewish freelance journalist, not a white bread grocery store clerk played by John Denver. This book taught me that a writer could be laugh out loud funny and still have something serious to say, something I’ve aspired to in my own fiction.
For a God whom philosophers have proclaimed dead, it’s time for a little PR in this novel from the New York Times–bestselling author of Kramer vs. Kramer. “God grants you an interview. Go to 600 Madison Ave., room 3700, Monday, at 11 a.m.” When a struggling writer receives this typed note in the mail one morning, curiosity wins out and he finds himself keeping this mysterious appointment. Soon he’s in an ordinary conference room with an intercom on the floor, furiously scribbling shorthand notes as he interviews God, a deity who badly wants to improve His public profile. Sometimes God…
Life is stories, man. Telling stories. Listening to stories. One day, somebody had the brilliant idea to start writing these stories down. And that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. Trading yarns. Figuring things out. Reading and writing. I wrote my first story in middle school. My first novel in college. My first published novel (This Way Madness Lies) in my late twenties. Now it’s thirty years, twenty-five novels, fifty short stories, and three books of poetry later, and I’m still as obsessed with and passionate about storytelling as I was as a young buck backpacking around Europe with a notebook and a beat-up copy of Down and Out in London and Paris stuffed into my leather satchel.
I’m the youngest of six sons. Our father read this book aloud to each of us. By the time I came along, he’d had lots of practice. He had distinct voices for all the characters. I can still hear him doing Jim’s voice after Jim gets whacked by the rattlesnake. I had nightmares for a week.
Your grasp of reality is altered when you read Huck Finn as a kid. Twain sweeps you out onto the Mississippi, where you mentally, emotionally, and physically, yes, physically, endure the journey with Huck and Jim.
I didn’t realize until I read the novel years later that this book was the first to blow my mind. And what was I? Nine? Maybe ten?
Thanks, Dad!
I love reading adaptations of classics which complicate the original texts in interesting ways, I have just written one myself, The Middle Daughter. Transcultural adaptations, particularly remind us that we are all members of one human family, dealing with the same kind of problems across time and space and cultures. In these times of deepening polarization, it's important to see that there's more that unites us than not.
FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2009 WINNER OF THE ORANGE YOUTH PANEL AWARD 2009 FINALIST FOR THE HURSTON WRIGHT LEGACY AWARD 2010
'A phenomenal book. It is so ingenious and so novel. Think The Handmaid's Tale meets Noughts and Crosses with a bit of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll thrown in. This should be thought of as a feminist classic.' Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast
Welcome to a world turned upside down. One minute, Doris, from England, is playing hide-and-seek with her sisters in the fields behind their cottage.…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I‘ve been thinking about the forces that drive humanity together and pull us apart at the same time since my late teens; back then, I started reading the classical dystopian tales. The (perceived) end of time always speaks to me, because I think it‘s in those moments of existential dread that we learn who we really are. That‘s why I like reading (and reviewing) books, and also why those topics are an undertone in my own writings. I do hope you enjoy these 5 books as much as I have.
Never before—or after—has the apocalypse been as funny and entertaining as in this novel.
What resonated deeply with me was not only the humour and the often deadpan way of delivering it, but that also killed me. I was chuckling or just laughing out loud while reading it. No, I also like the fact that despite all the funny stuff going on, there is a deep underlying warmth in the story.
This story shows me a mirror and tells me my shortcomings as a human being, but it does so in a nice and embracing way.
THE BOOK BEHIND THE AMAZON PRIME/BBC SERIES STARRING DAVID TENNANT, MICHAEL SHEEN, JON HAMM AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
'Ridiculously inventive and gloriously funny' Guardian
What if, for once, the predictions are right, and the Apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea?
It's a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon, now find themselves in. They've been living amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse.
Some creative writers believe that stories carry a responsibility. The duty to entertain, of course, but also to educate, challenge and question the character(s) of the most powerful, the wealthiest. I am one of them. As an author, screenwriter, stage, and film actor, I’ve always believed in using stories as a platform to convey positively disruptive ideas, to highlight potentially destructive ideologies, to combat imperialism, expansionism, racism, and other toxic practices while delivering a neutral message devoid of political affiliations and emotional responses with no logical ground. Not unlike my latest novel, America is a Zoo, I am the product of a passionate soul, one who’s apolitical by design, yet political by conviction.
In an age of codified and tropey stories with uninspired characters and safe plots designed to satisfy whatever market drivers the Big Five publishers are pushing, Trump Sky Alpha gives me hope. It is not about aesthetics, or one-dimensional coffee shop, shirtless Brads, or conforming political views. It is bonkers, aggressive, and hilarious.
In the aftermath of a nuclear war initiated by Trump, the “Orange Man”, an American journalist, finds herself in a containment zone, documenting the defunct internet’s wild humorous takes: viral memes and twitter’s heated exchanges. The journalist’s assignment soon uncovers references to an enigmatic figure, only known as Birdcrash, one who might know how to stop Trump from flying in a luxurious zeppelin for "the very best people who look terrific.” Yes, you read that right.
A novel on the political madness of our time and the Internet’s deep workings, by the author of The Infernal
One year after the president has plunged the world into nuclear war, a journalist takes refuge in the Twin Cities Metro Containment Zone. On assignment, she documents internet humor at the end of the world, hoping along the way to find the final resting place of her wife and daughter. What she uncovers, hidden amid spiraling memes and twitter jokes in an archive of the internet’s remnants, are references to an enigmatic figure known only as Birdcrash, who may hold…
I have been writing for more than 40 years, and while I don’t normally write gothic literature, it is a genre that has fascinated me since my early youth. While I have written a couple of gothic or horror short stories, I tend to write other types of literature. However, I was pulled into this novel by something I saw on the TV news, and so I put away the novel I was originally working on and set to work on this one instead. The setting and the characters immediately pulled me in. I hope that it’s mystery and unusual characters will do the same for you.
I loved this book because it combines the gothic tradition with politics. Written during the Soviet era, it deals with the Devil and his entourage who visit Soviet-era Moscow and reveal Soviet society.
While not truly a gothic novel, it is an imaginative work and kept me mesmerized as an undergraduate student so much that I have gone back to read it again as an adult.
'Bulgakov is one of the greatest Russian writers, perhaps the greatest' Independent
Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign, The Master and Margarita became an overnight literary phenomenon when it was finally published it, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere. Bulgakov's carnivalesque satire of Soviet life describes how the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow one Spring afternoon. Brimming with magic and incident, it is full of imaginary, historical, terrifying and wonderful characters, from witches, poets and Biblical tyrants to the beautiful, courageous Margarita, who will…
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…
I've benefited from (or perhaps been cursed by) a diverse life. I've lived and worked in six countries on three continents. I've been an English teacher, copywriter, magazine columnist, internet entrepreneur (in Bangkok, of all places), author, and creativity consultant. But before that, I was a child with an overactive imagination. I delighted in science fiction, surrealism, and humor. Outlandish ideas inspire me. And I love absurdity when done well. It is easy to come up with nonsense. Creating meaningful nonsense is far more difficult. But when it works, it is brilliant!
In my teenage years in the 1970s, I read science fiction voraciously. I loved the ideas and imaginativeness, but it was all rather serious stuff. So, I was delighted when I discovered Robert Sheckley, a rare humorist and absurdist in a largely serious genre.
I reckon his best novel is this one. It tells the story of a rather dull civil servant who wins the grand prize in a galactic lottery. He is whisked across space and time to Galactic Central to receive his prize: a shape-shifting, talking device/creature. Unfortunately, there is no provision for returning home, so an absurd journey begins from galactic bureaucracy to bizarre alternative Earths and homes. Maybe.
In addition to this book, I recommend diving into any of Sheckley's short story collections.
'Hilarious SF satire. Douglas Adams said it was the only thing like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, although written ten years earlier. It's wonderful' Neil Gaiman
This madcap cosmic farce relates the adventures of the hapless human Carmody, as he attempts to make his way home to Earth after winning the grand prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstake, encountering parallel worlds, incompetent bureaucrats and talking dinosaurs on the way.
'The greatest entertainer ever produced by science fiction ... a feast of wit and intelligence' J. G. Ballard
