100 Books Like Running with Scissors

Walls’ recounts her unconventional childhood marked by poverty, instability, and the eccentric choices of her parents.

The memoir offers an unflinching but often tender portrait of a deeply flawed family and the complicated bonds of love and loyalty. Walls’s voice is both clear-eyed and compassionate as she revisits her past.

Wanting to make sense of my own dysfunctional family, I reread this book several times.

In this classic book, Kuhn introduces the idea of a "paradigm" and shows that real progress comes through paradigm shifts.

That hit me like a rock when I first read it. I love how in the second edition, Kuhn talks about the difficulties of deep change: "the problem is that the new paradigm is always worse than the old one." 

The new paradigm may be better in some way, but it is also sketchy, unformed, and it creates lots of new uncertainties. So, for somebody to shift to a new paradigm always requires a leap of faith!

This book is nonfiction, so it’s about real people rather than fictional characters. I love this book because it gives a descriptive perspective on what was happening and what was going on in Nazi-occupied Germany and Poland during World War II, and the horrors of the concentration camps (mainly Auschwitz) that were built and used to kill everyone the nazis hated for whatever insane reasons they had.

I’ve always had an almost alarming interest in World War II. It was my favorite lesson from the history classes I’ve taken, and this book really put some of the evil things that were done during that time into perspective.

Raised in a survivalist family that rejected formal education and medical care, Westover never entered a classroom until age 17.

Her journey from rural Idaho to earning a PhD from Cambridge is a remarkable story of transformation through self-education, resilience, and the pursuit of truth, even when it means questioning your origins.

Like Westover’s father, my father held very strong beliefs separating us from others. But we both instinctively know there was more to life.

My father gave me a copy of this book when I was in 6th grade and it introduced the world of natural science to me. This was the first in a series of volumes that collected his monthly essays written for Natural History magazine.

Gould has an eye for unusual scientific phenomena that illuminate a deeper truth about the relationship between humanity and the natural world. He was not afraid to tackle moral issues, such as eugenics and the science of IQ, recognizing the importance of the popular scientist as more than just a translator.

But the most important thing for the 11-year-old me was that he was such a clear writer–I could follow all of his arguments without knowing anything about genetics, statistics, or anatomy. I still have the copy my father gave me–it is dog-eared, and the spine is long broken, but when I thumb through it, I… show more.

This is THE book to read on the senses, so I’m stating the obvious here. But let me tell you why it must be at the top of my list. Diane Ackerman takes us through a series of sensuous experiences, from extreme cold to a delicious massage to a thought-provoking meal.

But what’s remarkable is that because she’s a poet, her words pull you out of your mind and into your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin cells. Here’s just one line. “Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But they are shapes; they bring the world into focus, corral ideas, hone thoughts, paint watercolors of perception.” Like it? This book is full of them, and they left me tingling.

A gruesome story of murder and desire that also happens to have the most vivid olfactory descriptions of any genre.

Suskind’s preternatural ability to summon odor from the page makes you feel as if you are there beside him, walking through the flowered hillsides of Provence, or in the back room of a perfume shop on the Pont au Change. His twisted use of classic perfume techniques is as accurate as it is chilling.

I loved reading this book before it became tainted by fact checkers. That being said, it remains a fascinating, raw, and gripping read. His use of language as falls deeper and deeper into becoming hooked is similar to being a storm chaser. He can’t help himself chasing the highs, knowing full well the low may be the last one. “I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can.”

If there ever were… show more.

This is the only book I put in the hands of new memoir writers who want to understand the difference between memoir and autobiography, who are endeavoring to learn structure and who need to understand how to write a book that takes on one single aspect of their lives at a time.   

If you haven’t read this book yet, you absolutely must. I can hardly articulate the brilliance of its narrative. The profound bond of sisterhood depicted here has touched me deeply. The portrayal of female relationships is nothing short of exquisite, capturing the relentless urge to fight for one’s loved ones in a way I’ve never seen before.

I was completely absorbed in the roller coaster of emotions experienced by each character, feeling every high and low alongside them. This novel taught me invaluable lessons and that the pursuit of dreams should never be diminished by circumstance. Its beautiful storytelling and unforgettable message make it a truly remarkable read.