Here are 100 books that Observer fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve always been drawn to the quiet mystery behind ordinary lives, the sense that something sacred hides in the margins. As a caregiver, teacher, and author, I’ve seen how small moments carry enormous weight. That’s why I created this book list: each title touched me deeply and helped shape my own writing, especially Midrash Whispered By Stars. I write to honor forgotten souls, overlooked stories, and the quiet transformations that happen when no one’s watching. These books aren’t just favorites, they’re part of the emotional and spiritual DNA behind everything I create.
I recommend this book because it shook something loose in me, the idea that consciousness might not come from the universe, but might actually come before it.
That possibility filled me with wonder, and it stayed with me long after I closed the book. I loved how Lanza’s ideas didn’t fight against a God-based faith but seemed to sit comfortably beside it, almost whispering, “Why not? Consciousness could have been God’s.” This book inspired several of my own short stories, pieces that may find their way into my next book.
Readers who enjoy big questions about life, reality, and the unseen architecture of existence will feel right at home here. And it fits my theme because it explores the mystery behind everything, the same mystery I try to touch in my own writing.
Robert Lanza is one of the most respected scientists in the world--a US News & World Report cover story called him a "genius" and a "renegade thinker," even likening him to Einstein. Lanza has teamed with Bob Berman, the most widely read astronomer in the world, to produce Biocentrism, a revolutionary new view of the universe. Every now and then a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world. For most humans of the…
The Rocket Scientist is a science-driven thriller about what might happen if microbes from Mars reached Earth.
When her Mars rover detects living microbes capable of absorbing carbon dioxide, Dr. Julie McCray believes she’s found the key to reversing Earth’s climate crisis.
But within hours, the mission is mysteriously shut…
I’ve been a fan of horror—specifically, supernatural horror—for as long as I can remember. Though the topic of life after death is perhaps one of the most long-standing debates in existence, almost every family has a story or two about things that can’t be explained. I’ve turned my lifelong interest in death, the occult, and how the two can coexist, into slow-burn horror stories for people who like a little weird with their fear. Stories that explore the beautiful complexity of queer people. Stories for the strange at heart.
I originally picked up this book because I really like the author. Seanan McGuire never disappoints. Parasite is part one of a series, and is a completely fresh take on what some people might call zombies (although there is a lot of room for speculation there). The characters were compelling, and the plot kept me reading when I should have been doing countless other things. I love everything I’ve ever read by McGuire (alternate pen name Mira Grant), and this book was no different.
From New York Times bestselling author Mira Grant comes a vision of a decade in the future, where humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease.
We owe our good health to a humble parasite — a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the Intestinal Bodyguard worm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system — even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.
But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives .…
I am a pediatric emergency physician turned author, and I am passionate about sharing an insider’s view of the emergency room, as well as addressing larger health issues that should be more visible to the general public. The emergency room is a world unlike any other, filled with humor, drama, emotions, and energy twenty-four hours a day, and I like to bring that energy to my stories. I’ve worked in many different medical settings, and every day, I find a new story that is worth sharing.
I love this book because it features an ordinary radiology resident, Dr. George Wilson, who gets caught up in an international conspiracy. Stories that feature an ordinary person faced with extraordinary circumstances and overcoming them are always going to keep my attention.
This story takes me back to my medical school days and makes me wonder what I would have done if I had been faced with a similar situation. Any Robin Cook story is a winner, but this is my favorite by far.
A doctor's life gets turned upside by a dangerous new technology in this thought-provoking medical thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Robin Cook.
George Wilson, M.D., a radiology resident in Los Angeles, is about to enter a profession on the brink of an enormous paradigm shift, foreshadowing a vastly different role for doctors everywhere. The smartphone is poised to take on a new role in medicine, no longer as a mere medical app but rather as a fully customizable personal physician capable of diagnosing and treating even better than the real thing. It is called iDoc.
The Rocket Scientist is a science-driven thriller about what might happen if microbes from Mars reached Earth.
When her Mars rover detects living microbes capable of absorbing carbon dioxide, Dr. Julie McCray believes she’s found the key to reversing Earth’s climate crisis.
But within hours, the mission is mysteriously shut…
Suspense thrillers were staple “reading food” in my college and young adult days, and my love for them continues. I always craved thrillers that are based on WWII, the Cold War, and secret scientific advances and that offered fresh historical perspectives and dared to challenge popular narratives while delighting the readers with dexterously woven fictional tales. And then, most importantly, it is the feeling the author has conducted genuine, painstaking research bringing out captivating, reasoned nuggets of history that I find most satisfying.
I love thrillers that meld ancient history and modern settings. This book is that rare page-turner wherein an amazing story takes place in Egypt that revolves around the pursuit and plunder of Pharaohs’ treasures buried in the pyramids.
Reading Sphinx, I immensely delighted in how the master storyteller and physician Robin Cook, taking a slight detour from his normal “medical/hospital” based stories, produced a mesmerizing tale that was as gripping as his other works.
New York Times bestselling author mines the mysteries of Egypt’s magnificent past to deliver a one-of-a-kind thriller packed with compelling realism and unrelenting suspense.
Traveling to Egypt is a dream come true for Erica Baron. An Egyptologist, she longs to walk among the temples and monuments of its long-dead civilizations. But when she stumbles upon a clue to a legendary treasure, the most fearful curse of the ancient world and the most savage menace of the modern one threaten to destroy her. It was the magic and mystery of an empire long past that drew Erica to explore, but now,…
I’m an award-winning author of three books on near-death experiences across cultures and throughout history. I’ve had a lifelong interest in the ancient world, anthropology, myth, religions – and extraordinary phenomena such as near-death experiences. So it was natural to combine these interests, which I first did while studying Egyptology. While reading the ancient texts describing otherworld journeys after death, I was reminded of NDEs and their counterparts in medieval visionary literature. This sent me on a decades-long “otherworld journey” of my own, earning various degrees, fellowships, and awards. In addition to my other books, I’m now embarking on a second PhD project, on NDEs in Classical antiquity.
This long-lost early book on near-death experiences was written around the same time as Raymond Moody’s classic Life After Life, but totally independent of any knowledge of that more famous work.
Hampe was a German philosopher, and while the book made a huge splash in Germany it’s practically unknown to the English-speaking world, even though an excellent translation was published in the 1970s (finally now reprinted).
Hampe is a deep thinker though has a very engaging style. Knowing that he had his own NDE makes the book poignant and moving to read. What I find most interesting about it is the very different approach he took compared to Moody.
Rather than looking at the phenomenon as a scientific puzzle and focusing on the possibility that NDEs are evidence for an afterlife, Hampe was interested in their metaphysical implications.
"If dying is not oppression, my knowledge that I am going to die will no longer oppress me. Instead of making me feel melancholy it will expand and deepen me."
Simultaneous with Raymond Moody's landmark book Life After Life, Johann Christoph Hampe independently "discovered" near-death experiences in the 1970s. Though both authors explored the phenomenon as possible evidence for life after death, Hampe took a very different approach and produced a profound, thoughtful, meditative exploration of "dying before we die." Hampe wrote To Die is Gain after he himself recovered from temporary clinical death caused by a serious illness and…
From the ages of 1-4, my son Finn deeply rooted himself into the detailed world of Richard Scarry. These books could be such slow reads that we only needed two of them for long airplane rides. Through Finn’s love of Scarry books, I began searching for more books that delighted with detail. And when I did not see my family’s bicycle-rich lifestyle reflected in books, I created Cycle City.
Welcome to the future in the city of Mamoko! A list of questions launches readers to discover a story about each seek-and-find character. What is strange about Otto Flash’s new jumper? Why is Amelia squeal so excited? Inventive, cross-sectioned interiors and exteriors, a top-notch, delicious color palette. This book sparks future-curious imaginations. Also in this series: Welcome to Mamoko and The World of Mamoko in the Time of Dragons.
It’s the year 3000 in Mamoko, but what does the future hold? This is the second book in the revolutionary Mamoko series, in which the reader becomes the storyteller, sharing their discoveries as they use their eyes to uncover the cosmos of characters packed into every page!
Bestselling author Candace Havens has published more than 25 books. Her novels have received nominations for the RITA’s, Holt Medallion, Write Touch Reader Awards, and National Reader’s Choice Awards. She is a Barbara Wilson Award winner. She is the author of the biography Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy and a contributor to several anthologies. She is also one of the nation’s leading entertainment journalists and has interviewed countless celebrities from George Clooney to Chris Pratt. Candace runs a free online writing workshop for more than 2000 writers and teaches comprehensive writing classes. She does film reviews with Hawkeye in the Morning on 96.3 KSCS, and is a former President of the Television Critics Association.
Okay, technically, Malice is a futuristic young adult novel, but there's a fantastic mystery here with a strong female protagonist. I did mention these books would be genre-bending. In this one, a young girl knows part of the future--the part where one of her classmates releases a virus that kills two-thirds of the population. Now she's in a race against time to find out who he is before he kills everyone she knows.
Could you kill an innocent life today to save millions in the future?
Seventeen-year-old Alice has spent her entire life in the shadows of her charismatic twin brother. And she's utterly content to stay there, as not taking risks means that she doesn't get hurt. Until the day a strange voice appears in her mind, demanding that she approach Bandit, the cute Thai boy in her physics class - and kiss him. Never mind that she's never spoken a word to him before.
Compelled by the excruciating pain in her head, Alice reluctantly obeys. But submitting to the voice sets…
I’m an award-winning author of three books on near-death experiences across cultures and throughout history. I’ve had a lifelong interest in the ancient world, anthropology, myth, religions – and extraordinary phenomena such as near-death experiences. So it was natural to combine these interests, which I first did while studying Egyptology. While reading the ancient texts describing otherworld journeys after death, I was reminded of NDEs and their counterparts in medieval visionary literature. This sent me on a decades-long “otherworld journey” of my own, earning various degrees, fellowships, and awards. In addition to my other books, I’m now embarking on a second PhD project, on NDEs in Classical antiquity.
This is the most comprehensive book on Native American afterlife beliefs ever written.
What makes it especially interesting is that the author focuses on myths and legends of afterlife journeys – what he called “Orpheus myths.” He looks at them from many perspectives – historical and cultural – but most importantly experiential.
Writing almost 20 years before the popularization of near-death experiences in the Western world, Hultkrantz identified NDEs as a different type of experience from dreams or shamanic visions – and found that indigenous people did, too.
He also suggested that such experiences contributed to afterlife beliefs – that is, that they weren’t simply culturally created “stories” or hallucinations. Readable and entertaining as well as scholarly, it’s wonderful that this book is back in print after languishing in obscurity for decades!
"Visionaries who have made their way to the realm of the dead and then returned have told of its secrets."
In this scholarly but highly readable book, the famed anthropologist and historian of religions Åke Hultkrantz takes us on an in-depth exploration of Native American afterlife journey myths and shamanism. Anticipating the western "discovery" of near-death experiences by nearly 20 years, Hultkrantz recognized them as phenomena distinct from other extraordinary experiences such as dreams and vision quests. Equally remarkable, Hultkrantz found that Native American afterlife myths were actually influenced by NDEs and shamanic otherworld journeys. Weaving this discovery together with…
As someone who has experienced a lot of loss in my life, I’ve done a good amount of research and exploration into the soulful nature in all of us (the living and the dead) through reading nonfiction (Laura Lynn Jackson, Brian Weiss, Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts, John Edward and Suzane Northrop among them) and fiction that deals with strong soulful connections. Through my own work as an author, I seek to provide the message love, in any form, transcends life and death. We only have to be open to the possibility to know it and experience it. Nothing is a coincidence and we are all connected. I hope these selections open you to the possibility.
This book, written by psychic medium Laura Lynn Jackson, was gifted to me shortly after the unexpected passing of my sister.
The book validated for me what I already believed: everything happens in the time it’s meant to and everything (and everyone) is connected. Jackson reports story after story about how souls in the afterlife remain connected to their loved ones on earth.
And, for those who are open to the possibility, signs (and messages) are provided when most needed.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned psychic medium teaches us how to recognize and interpret the life-changing messages from loved ones and spirit guides on the Other Side.
“A collection of incredible stories . . . that speak to the universe’s endless capacity for magical moments.”—Goop
Laura Lynne Jackson is a psychic medium and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Light Between Us. She possesses an incredible gift: the ability to communicate with loved ones who have passed, convey messages of love and healing, and impart a greater understanding of our interconnectedness. Though her abilities are…
I grew up with the cartoon Beetlejuice, fascinated by the composed Lydia running around a bright and insane afterlife. Any cheerfully gothic story I would latch on with glee. Perhaps this is why fantasy has always been my favourite genre, and why I cannot help but mix dark and light, and why my first novel naturally took place in the afterlife. I wrote my first book for my brother, because he was as interested as me in all the weird in the world, but unlike me, he had dyslexia and hated reading. He received the story in instalments and to my amazement and pride, he just gobbled them up.
Like all of Neil Gaiman’s works, this comic book is haunting and meaningful. Laced with DC references, philosophy, and nightmares, we lose ourselves in its strange world, or should I say, worlds? We follow Tim, a 13-year-old on the brink of becoming one of the greatest magic wielders of all time. But magic comes at a cost, and perhaps he should know that, or at least that’s what the four unlikely guides of our hero believe. And here starts the trip into magic and its many worlds, including a great meeting with Death herself in the afterlife.
This must be my favourite personification of Death ever, managing to be both fun and kind. This is a great meaty adventure comic that really makes you travel and gives you an experience like no other. Don’t expect childishness here, and don’t put it in the hands of too young an audience as…
What do two dead boys and a normal 13-year-old have in common? The ability to save the world. Charles and Edwin are dead. They re also detectives. Tim Hunter is alive. He could be the world s greatest mage once he masters magic. And that s just the beginning. Readers can now enjoy The Books of Magic #1-32, The Children s Crusade #1-2, Vertigo Gallery: Dreams and Nightmares #1, Vertigo Preview #1, Vertigo Visions - Doctor Occult #1, Who s Who #15, Arcana Annual #1, Mister E #1-4, and The Books of Faerie: Auberon s Tale #1-3 all in one…
