Books like Pilgrim's Wilderness — picked by fans

Unlike Ivey’s other book The Snow Child, which grapples with the grief of infertility (a book I also love!), this book considers the opportunities a life without children allows for.

It opens with Lieutenant Colonel Allan Forrester as he prepares to lead an expedition into Alaska in 1885. His wife, Sophie, is an explorer in her own right and plans to accompany him—until they realize she’s pregnant and decide she has to stay behind.

Spoiler: Sophie miscarries and learns she will likely never be able to carry a baby to term. But this isn’t an endpoint for Sophie: instead, it sets her on a path toward professional and creative success, as well as love and happiness in her marriage.

We’re used to reading about how motherhood gives life meaning—I loved Ivey’s portrait of how not having kids can do the same.

This is an ancient, novel-length tale of a hero in the Alaska wilderness near the dawn of time, confronting the cruelty and grief endemic in a world in which survival always hangs on the luck and skill of the hunter. Oman, who died in 2018 at 102, told me 30 years ago about holding onto the Qayaq story, even through the years when her cultural practices were effectively outlawed. She grew up at a time in Kotzebue when her father, a shaman, could only tell the ancient stories of her Inupiaq people at night, in secret, vouchsafing them with her for another generation. As an adult she continued collecting them, and then, in her old age, published this graceful and haunting story, which seems to reach to us from another world.

Haines was best known as a poet, highly respected by other writers but uncompromising and without much commercial success or recognition. This collection of essays in the form of a memoir similarly makes no compromise, dispensing with plot, characters, or even a clear sense of time and geography. Instead, Haines takes the reader deep into the mind of a lone man surviving for decades in the harshest wilderness, thinking, observing, and writing—his own mind. And the writing is so strong, it turns out, that he doesn’t need those usually necessary tools of narrative he pointedly ignores. Instead, we feel the cold, see the hypnotic stars above the snow, and feel the brittle edge of aloneness. Through sheer stylistic austerity, those dark lonely nights are real.

This book is the most gripping and true-to-life tale I’ve ever read about growing up in the wilderness. As a young boy in northern Alaska, the author learned as much from wolves as from his few friends.

Mesmerizingly beautiful, frightening, and touching, this book made me cry when I finished it.

Once again I became interested in a book thanks to a documentary!

When I watched the documentary about Sarah Lawrence College, I wanted to know more. Daniel Barban Levin’s story really demonstrates how a fragile young mind can be influenced by someone with sinister intentions.

He vividly describes his time spent with a manipulative cult leader (Larry Ray), and his narrative disturbingly shows us just how easily something like this could've happened to us. Very sadly relatable, for people who lose their voice when they fall victim to gaslighting or abusive friends, mentors, or partners. 

I had the privilege of spending some time with Dr. Lalich, and during that time I found her to be witty, funny, and extremely interested in the experiences of children who were raised in cults. As someone who grew up in a cult, I am grateful that she spent the time to concentrate on the children, as they are the ones who almost always fare the worst. This book chronicles the lives of several people who were raised under the sway of repressive religions. I am honored to be one of those people.

Dr. Lalich conducted the first in-depth study of its kind, conducting interviews with sixty-five individuals who were either born into or raised in thirty-nine distinct cultic groups spread across more than a dozen countries. Many of these individuals eventually made the decision to leave the cultic lifestyle on their own, which is something that is very unique… show more.

This is a brilliant scholarly examination of the Neopagan movement. What differentiates this book from other Witchy titles is that, although Ms. Adler was, in fact, a Pagan herself, this is not a “how-to” book. Instead, the author uses her background in anthropology, journalism, and historical academia to offer much-needed perspectives.

I was fortunate to have met the author at a large Neopagan convention called PantheaCon back in 2008, where I expressed profound gratitude for this book and for her poignant journalism. Not only was she an incredible journalist for NPR (National Public Radio), but her book was imperative in my early years of realizing and recognizing myself as a natural Witch. During my early Pagan studies, this book helped offer me a well-rounded approach to the Craft, even having influenced my future calling to pursue a degree in cultural anthropology!

I came to this one after watching and loving the television version and found the book even more fulfilling (although very different). It focuses on what happens when millions of people suddenly disappear from the world’s population and it looks not only at how people deal with this massive loss but also how they deal with the mystery of it, the not knowing why. People don’t only lose loved ones in this book but also their own sense of how the world should work, leaving them with a lot to deal with. I loved the characters, the tight focus on one community (and mostly one family within that community), and I loved how Perrotta made such a wild possibility seem entirely plausible.

The story follows Jack and Elizabeth who meet when they are young, struggling artists in Chicago and moves into their midlife years where their marriage strains amid parenting, the wellness culture, polyamory, and a yearning for their ‘best lives’.

What I found most intriguing first was the great writing, but also the contrast between pre-digital life and the way our immediate environment shapes our self-perception, and in that, the ways we relate to each other.

A science fiction novel that has as much focus on fleshed-out character development as the science? Amazing. The plot of this fascinating novel, even more so. Imagine a world where all the stars you see in the night sky suddenly go out. How would you react when you learned the reason for this was a world-spanning barrier which is not only blocking out the starry night but is also vastly increasing the rate at which time passes beyond the barrier—to the point where the sun ages billions of years in a matter of decades.

From exploring the implications of this time-bending device to witnessing the world as it copes with this new reality, this is one story that—after reading it decades ago—still holds a fond place in my heart.