Here are 100 books that My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry fans have personally recommended if you like
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry.
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In 2018, my wife and I walked the Pacific Crest Trail southbound with our four children—Canada to Mexico, 142 days, 2,650 miles. Aiden was sixteen, Georgie eleven. You cannot walk that far with your kids without thinking hard about what you are handing them, because you are handing it to them in real time, in front of you, all day. The books I keep returning to are the ones that take that seriously: inheritance that isn't money. A father's temper. A father's schemes. A way of staying put, or not. These are five that ask those questions, and the trail sharpened them for me.
House arrest in a hotel, and a man raises a daughter in it.
The Count can give Sofia nothing—no country, no freedom, no future he can guarantee—so he gives her manners, music, attention, and wit, and most of all love. It turns out those are not nothing. They're the inheritance.
I love it for the opposite reason I love McCarthy: same question, no apocalypse, just a man with four walls deciding what to pass on. If you're a parent who feels you have less to give your kids than you'd hoped, this one's a gift.
The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series
From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and…
East of Troost’s fictional narrator has moved back to her childhood home in a neighborhood that is now mostly Black and vastly changed by an expressway that displaced hundreds of families. It is the area located east of Troost Avenue, an invisible barrier created in the early 1900s to…
I am a lover of romance. I feel love is one feeling that no one can get rid of; it is one of the elements that can patch up hurt, and it is also an element that can be expressed in many different forms. Having a wide imagination also adds to this passion. I grew up watching Disney movies such as Ariel and FairyTopia. Not only do I draw my inspiration from movies but also from books. I love reading romance books, the image we create in our mind can take us beyond some images created in movies. It takes us to a world we normally don't see in real life.
Jane Austin is a classical writer of romance and a perfect combination of well-written English. The love Mr Darcy had for Elizabeth was explained with passion through the English language.
It addressed issues within that time, and the beauty of a girl, as well as the strength of a man, was portrayed well. Jane Austin has other books, but my favorite was this one.
Jane Austen's best-loved novel is an unforgettable story about the inaccuracy of first impressions, the power of reason, and above all the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated by Hugh Thomson and features an afterword by author and critic, Henry Hitchings.
A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and…
I write and read fantasy that doesn’t play safe—where magic is messy, divine, rotten, or reborn in mud. I’m obsessed with stories that walk barefoot through forgotten folklore, eerie townships, and mythic detours. The Fallow Swallow grew from this exact craving: for fantasy that’s personal, poetic, and just a little unwell. I gravitate toward tales that embrace magical realism, morally grey characters, and dark humour—and these books helped shape my voice as a writer.
This was one of the first books that showed me fantasy could be bold and heretical.
The world was so rich—daemons, armored bears, oppressive religions—and Lyra felt like a character who’d been waiting to burst off the page for centuries. It’s a coming-of-age tale wrapped in cosmic questions and rebellion, and it sparked something in me that’s never gone out.
Philip Pullman invites you into a dazzling world where souls walk beside their humans as animal companions and powerful forces clash over the nature of the universe.
When fearless young Lyra uncovers a sinister plot involving kidnapped children and a mysterious substance called Dust, she sets out on a daring quest from Oxford to the frozen Arctic. With armored bears, witch queens, and a truth-telling compass as her allies, Lyra must face choices that will shape not just her destiny—but that of countless worlds. A thrilling blend of adventure, philosophy, and wonder, perfect for curious minds.
Liberty Bell and the Last American
by
James Stoddard,
Americans love their Constitution. In seventeen-year-old Liberty Bell’s era it has become a myth. Centuries after the Great Blackout obliterates the world's digitized information, America's history is forgotten. Only confused legends remain, written in "The Americana," a book depicting a golden age where famous Americans from different eras existed together.
As a nonfiction author, I’ve always been mystified by fictional character development. What qualities make one character fascinating and another a dud? How do great writers make us fall in love with their creations? If I had one wish as an author, it would be to create one truly beloved character. I particularly like quirky nonconformists who forge their own paths, making mistakes along the way, yet they remain sympathetic. When I finish reading the story, I miss their company. My five recommended books include some of my favorite characters in modern literature.
This book drew me in from the first sentence: “It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future.” I was amazed that in just eleven words, Wolfe conjured three time periods (the present moment, the future, and a later future while looking back).
The incredible adventures of the narrator, Severian, span five books, and I’ve read them all several times. Shadow is also one of the most challenging science fiction books I’ve read because the author leaves mysteries behind for me to figure out myself.
“A major work of twentieth-century American literature...Wolfe creates a truly alien social order that the reader comes to experience from within...once into it, there is no stopping.” ―The New York Times on The Book of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by the Washington Post.
THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN is unanimously acclaimed as Wolfe’s most remarkable work, hailed as “a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis” by Publishers Weekly and “one of the most ambitious works of…
After thirty years in corporate America, I retired to learn the craft of writing literary fiction—publishing my first novel at sixty-two. I write about characters faced with seemingly impossible situations whose choices ultimately reveal who they truly are. Through mindful self-awareness, I want readers to search within themselves to think about what they would do in a similar situation. These are five books that shaped my understanding of what literary fiction can do through deep characterization.
In this highly character-driven book, Backman shows how a grieving man, an undeniable grouch on the outside, can influence an entire neighborhood in a positive way.
Sometimes the most unlikely people can change their behavior, and even the behavior of others. We learn from him that a change in one’s perspective helps us prioritize what is really important in our lives and even the world.
'A JOY FROM START TO FINISH' - Gavin Extence, author of THE UNIVERSE VERSUS ALEX WOODS
There is something about Ove.
At first sight, he is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots - neighbours who can't reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d'etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents' Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.
I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on, but my main loves have always been fantasy and sci-fi. Not so much because of the strange worlds their doors open onto, but because of what they tell us about being human. Because humans are odd and strange and beautiful and full of magic, and it seems more important than ever that we remember that. And not just remember it, but celebrate it, especially as it relates to those of us that are a little different and out of the ordinary. So I hunt out books that remind me how special it is to simply be delightfully, weirdly human. I hope you enjoy them!
A mix of coming of age in the first half of the twentieth century, and Bradbury’s peculiar brand of very earthly oddness and sci-fi strangeness, Dandelion Wine is full of all sorts of magic. It reminds you of what it is to be a small human again, when everything seems possible, and aliens and monsters are as likely (and as important) as long summer days spent outside, barefoot and sunburnt and a little feral. Even when we don’t recognise the details of the childhood described, we remember the feeling, and it reawakens a sense of wonder that’s incredibly precious.
Dandelion Wine is a 1957 semi-autobiographical novel by Ray Bradbury, taking place in the summer of 1928 in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois — a pseudonym for Bradbury's childhood home of Waukegan, Illinois. The novel developed from the short story "Dandelion Wine" which appeared in the June 1953 issue of Gourmet magazine.
In the small town of Grady, Montana, twenty-four-year-old Tad Bungley has a reputation for trouble. When he lands a job at Come Around Ranch, however, his life seems to take a positive turn. As he develops a soft spot for Sam, the ranch owner's disabled son, and a special bond…
I’ve always been interested in what drives people, their passions, and whether or not they’ve gone after them. I love it when something inspires them to emerge from a dormant state and give it their all. Show me a person who graduates from college at 85 or skydives at 99. Those people are inspiring! People go through the most incredible situations and use them as fuel for their lives. I funneled all of this into my latest novel. It’s a universal story that’s singular only to the person going through it. We can all take something positive away from this type of story.
I can probably find a way to put this novel into every book category there is – I love it that much!
Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist in the 1960s, a time when society accepted that only men could be brilliant or chemists. But through a series of opportunities and her defiance in the face of attempts to marginalize her, Elizabeth becomes a de facto leader of a small but mighty group of women who change their circumstances and thereby begin to change the world.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • Meet Elizabeth Zott: a “formidable, unapologetic and inspiring” (PARADE) scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show in this novel that is “irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel. It reminds you that change takes time and always requires heat” (The New York Times Book Review).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, GoodReads
"A unique heroine ... you'll find yourself wishing she wasn’t fictional." —Seattle Times
Absurdity gets a bad rap in fiction and storytelling, I think. “It’s too silly,” they say. But for those who can take a step back and appreciate how absurd our own world is—our everyday life—there’s nothing more real than absurdity. (I’m saying “absurd” an absurd amount of times. Let’s just say it’s purposeful.) It might be played for laughs at times, but if it’s done right, it gives you perspective. Sometimes we all need to look through a funhouse mirror to realize that we’re only human. These five books share that spirit and have made me laugh, think, and occasionally reevaluate my entire life in a spiral of existential dread—with a smile on my face.
It uses a familiar trope—an alien inhabiting a human body to see our species with fresh eyes—but it does it so well. Simple observations turn into existential truths, and each carries that mix of wonder and dread that is so inherently human.
It’s weird in my favorite way: hilarious, heartfelt, and surprisingly life-affirming.
After an 'incident' one wet Friday night where he is found walking naked through the streets of Cambridge, Professor Andrew Martin is not feeling quite himself. Food sickens him. Clothes confound him. Even his loving wife and teenage son are repulsive to him. He feels lost amongst an alien species and hates everyone on the planet. Everyone, that is, except Newton, and he's a dog.
Who is he really? And what could make someone change their mind about the human race . . . ?
I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on, but my main loves have always been fantasy and sci-fi. Not so much because of the strange worlds their doors open onto, but because of what they tell us about being human. Because humans are odd and strange and beautiful and full of magic, and it seems more important than ever that we remember that. And not just remember it, but celebrate it, especially as it relates to those of us that are a little different and out of the ordinary. So I hunt out books that remind me how special it is to simply be delightfully, weirdly human. I hope you enjoy them!
In a not-very-distant future, Ben finds a robot at the bottom of the garden. Not one of the usual, fancy AI robots, but a rusty, creaky, and distinctly quirky one. Ben decides to keep the robot, whose name is Tang, over the protests of his wife. But Tang isn’t well, and Ben finds himself more and more invested in both Tang’s well-being and in finding out where the robot came from. This leads to a strange and beautiful buddy-road-trip style tale, as Ben and Tang trek across half the world to find Tang’s maker and, hopefully, the repairs Tang needs. And they find much more besides, as does the reader – discoveries about friendship and love and life and humanity.
For fans of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, THE FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST and ET.
'A MOST UNUSUAL AND DELIGHTFUL BOOK' Alexander McCall Smith
Funny, touching, charming, wise: a friendship novel that explores what it is to be human.
Some time in the future: Ben Chambers wakes up to find an old robot - rusty and dazed- sitting underneath the willow tree in his garden. It's not a new android model, the type people now use for domestic chores around the house, but an antique one, no longer of any use. Refusing to throw it on the skip…
Eighteen-year-old Bri Marshall is determined to do whatever it takes to get her newborn son back after he's taken by CPS. But the chances of reunification with Providence are slim. Her drug-addicted boyfriend is the only reason she has a roof over her head. With no job, no car, and…
We almost said “quirky” instead of off-kilter in this title. But quirky is becoming synonymous with cozy, which is weird because it doesn’t mean the same thing at all. So, off-kilter it is. Done well, playing with expectations makes for an especially engaging read. We’ve attempted that trick in our own Shady Hollow Mysteries, which uses the form of a traditional murder mystery, but in a world of anthropomorphic animals. So naturally we love when other authors play with the form. These five books all fit the description of “off-kilter,” and we hope you can find fun and joy in reading them.
If you aren’t ready for Scandinavian Noir, perhaps you’d like a dose of Scandinavian Blanc. Alexander McCall Smith excels at mysteries on the lighter side—which isn’t to say this book isn’t very strange, with its own hints of darkness. Detective Ulf Varg and his colleagues solve crimes that are deemed too weird for the regular police: a possible werewolf menacing a spa, a non-lethal knee-stabbing, and a missing (imaginary) person. AMS’s great gift is imbuing small puzzles with weight and humanity. And if the human cast here isn’t off-kilter enough for you, be reassured…there’s also a dog who can lipread in Swedish.
In the Swedish criminal justice system, certain cases are considered especially strange and difficult, in Malmö, the dedicated detectives who investigate these crimes are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division.
These are their stories.
The first case: the small matter of a man stabbed in the back of the knee. Who would perpetrate such a crime and why? Next: a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. But how on earth do you search for someone who doesn't exist? And in the final investigation: eerie secrets that are revealed under a full moon may not seem…
