Books like Once in a Blue Moon Lodge — picked by fans

It is the captivating story of the five Wilson brothers from Iowa. Leora was their mother—Joy’s delightful grandmother. All five of these brave young men enlisted. Only two came home. All served their country during WWII, two in the Navy, and three in the Army Air Corps. Kidney provides her readers with a genuine and heartfelt glimpse into the life of an American family during one of our nation's most difficult times. It is so well-crafted, combining letters, photographs, and narratives that touch your heart. Joy Neal Kidney makes you feel like a member of her family. I hoped that all men would make it back safely. Unfortunately, war is never that compassionate and affects many lives in the process. It is an absorbing read and well worth the endeavor.

For all the highly enjoyable shenanigans around using time travel to prevent JFK’s assassination, I came away loving this book for reasons I don’t normally associate with King–I genuinely loved his characters. Jake Epping is a sympathetic lead, and I became far more invested in his love for Sadie than in the assassination-thwarting.

I’d hesitate to say this is King’s finest book, but of those I’ve read, it’s definitely my favourite. I found the climax so emotionally satisfying; it genuinely moved me.

A true story of a heroine who is a sharpshooter in WW II is not one that I would immediately gravitate to. But, she is complex and can compartmentalize her need to defend her country, while at the same time trying to live an ordinary life when not in the military. She meets up with U.S. dignitaries such as Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR, and charms them with her no-nonsense approach to life. It is a historical fiction piece based on a true story and has been a NY Times bestseller.

The Devil’s Highway is the 2001 story of the tragedy that befell 26 men and boys from Veracruz who cross the Mexico/Arizona border led by human smugglers who get lost on a stretch of desert known as the Devil's Highway.

Urrea is known for his direct and clear reportage style of writing. As he depicts what happened to these men seeking a chance at the American Dream, Urrea does not lose sight of the broken system of immigration, the border patrol, the smugglers or the criminal enterprise of which they are part.

The actual walk and the deadly mistakes made by their “guide” are not shared until Part Three of the book. Through the recollections of walkers and creative non-fiction he recreates dialogue that captures the motives and dreams of these ill-fated men.

Jack Reacher can’t catch a break. Who else steps off a bus at a random stop and ends up in a turf war between Ukrainian and Albanian gangs in the middle of the United States. This is one of my favorites from the Reacher series. Lee Child has crafted a character that strikes at the heart of all of us who cheer on the forces of good and want to punish the bad actors. Lovers of justice will love Jack Reacher. His means might be harsh, but the end is satisfactory.

This book made me swoon. Sam has all of Tate’s important firsts - first love, first betrayal, and first heartbreak. Twice in a Blue Moon is the story of reconnecting and rewriting the wrongs of the past. It’s emotional, tender, redemptive, and impossible to put down. Christina Lauren’s signature witty banter and descriptive writing style pulls you into the book and keeps you there until the last page. It was one of my favorite pandemic reads!

Although I knew that this novel was unlikely to have a happy ending because few women emerge intact after being accused of witchcraft, I couldn’t put this book down. I became attached to the characters, reading on well past midnight to find out whether they would escape a terrible fate.

Women who didn’t conform to the strict code of female behavior in seventeenth-century Norway were all possible targets of the witch hunters. I was filled with admiration for those imprisoned women who held out against demands that they incriminate others and even felt sympathy for those who succumbed to torture to become informers or were cleverly manipulated by promises of leniency.

For me, the plot and subplots were fascinating; all the characters were vivid, and some displayed unbelievable heroism.

Weary of people asking him what his plans for the future are, eighteen-year-old Dutch teen Tycho decides to travel from his Holland home to America to work at a camp for international kids. Along the way, he meets Oliver, who’s from Norway, and is also going to work at the camp. The two quickly become fast friends and then something more. When their love relationship is discovered, they’re expelled from the camp, and the two fly back to Norway where Tycho will stay with Oliver while the boy’s mother is gone. No, there are no wild parties, just a lovely examination of an emerging relationship that is challenged by Oliver’s keeping a closely guarded secret. If this sounds dull, trust me, it isn’t! Find out why I’m so crazy about this book by reading it. Tell them Michael sent you...

I love cold, northern places and dogs, and, if you haven’t already noticed, warts-and-all stories about women finding strength they didn’t know they had in the wilderness. Blair Braverman’s memoir checks all these boxes. As a teenager, she goes to a folk school in the Norwegian Arctic and learns to work with sled dogs, something she later continues as a guide in Alaska. (Braverman is now a professional musher and has run the Iditarod.) The book’s subtitle is Chasing Fear and Finding Home In the Great White North, and Braverman is unsparing in her exploration of fear rooted in both the human and natural world. I read this book on a series of airplanes in one long travel day, and I’m still reminded of it every time I see Braverman’s delightful Twitter stories about her dogs.

I set out very determined to despise this first book of Knausgard’s series. Knausgard’s life is no more fascinating than anyone’s. This is not necessarily his life but some reasonable facsimile that dips in and out of reverie, philosophy, and the hardcore reality of cleaning up after an alcoholic parent dies. Hoarding, self-loathing, and Nordic landscape are all features. I mean, what is NOT to love about that?

My lust for this book is not so much what it is about, though, as how it does this thing of drawing me along in its unadorned vocabulary to wholesale belief in everything that is put down. It is a supreme hoax that I am grateful to have encountered.