Here are 100 books that Seating Arrangements fans have personally recommended if you like
Seating Arrangements.
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I’m a storyteller. I studied graphic design, animation, and film and became the title designer of Yorkshire Television’s game show 3*2*1 and directed an art-directed film and animation for British television and cinema. I was the Project Designer of the original Jorvik Viking Centre (1984). By 2008 I designed and built 25 award-winning cultural heritage centres and completed 150 international consultancies, producing and directing my exhibition documentaries. I learned how important writingwas to my work. When it came down to it, whatever technique I used in the telling, there was always the storybehind it as the way to transport the audience into a mentally immersive experience.
I love Cape Cod and I was fortunate to live on the edge of the sea between 1997-2003. Skillfully written by one of America’s greatest writers of the natural habitat, it transports you to a place. It reminds me of what it felt like to live far out in Cape Cod on the North Atlantic at its furthest reach on the east coast of the United States. Living there for several years and spending time in nature with the sea, beach, dunes, and my bicycle, I learned to love its moods, wildlife, and great sense of mystery. I totally identified with this man’s extraordinary experience and how it was years ago. A wonderfully descriptive book that helps you experience with all your senses what it’s like to live next to the sea alone.
The seventy-fifth anniversary edition of the classic book about Cape Cod, "written with simplicity, sympathy, and beauty" (New York Herald Tribune)
A chronicle of a solitary year spent on a Cape Cod beach, The Outermost House has long been recognized as a classic of American nature writing. Henry Beston had originally planned to spend just two weeks in his seaside home, but was so possessed by the mysterious beauty of his surroundings that he found he "could not go."
Instead, he sat down to try and capture in words the wonders of the magical landscape he found himself in thrall…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
Not only am I the author of seven women’s fiction novels, I’m a voracious reader who believes she was raised by Judy Blume and Sidney Sheldon. In our broken home, reading was an escape, a salve for the wound, a place where I felt heard and understood. My novels touch on deep emotions—real and relatable. If I don’t capture thatfeeling when I’m reading through my drafts, I dig deeper. And that’s the thing about a great book, that gut punch, that slide under my skin, I get you. There’s no better read than the one that pulls the heartstrings and gives you all the feels.
Every page ofThe Paper Palace is moving and evocative—the quintessential love triangle that had me torn between young, innocent love and mature, adult love. I’m a sucker for these tropes, so I sunk inside this story of then and now, shuffling through a range of emotions, just like the protagonist, Elle. That’s the best kind of book. When you feel alongside the characters. And the secret longing kept me turning pages until the climactic, tender ending. And that ending. It will keep you guessing. And discussing. And thinking about it. I still think about it.
I was never much of a history student. Facts and figures rarely stick in my brain until I have a character—their feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams—to pair them with, so I rely a lot on historical fiction to understand different places and times. I’m also a believer that our culture too often serves up the impression that marginalized people have forever hopelessly struggled, held back by those in power. But there are so many true stories that reveal the opposite, in this case, women fighting for their dreams and winning! I aim to bring these stories to light in a way that keeps the pages turning.
Maria Mitchell, raised as a Nantucket Quaker, was the first woman to discover and name a new comet, no easy task in the 1840s when women were not meant to study astronomy, let alone when her only instrument was a small telescope on an island roof. Brill takes artistic license with Mitchell’s story, adding nuance and detail likely outside the scope of her research, and delivers a riveting tale of a woman determined to live her dreams, no matter how high the barriers to achieving them.
Amy Brill's The Movement of Stars tells a story of illicit love and extraordinary ambition.
It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price dreams of a world infinitely larger than the small Quaker community where she has lived all 25 years of her life - for, as an amateur astronomer, she secretly hopes to discover a comet and win the King of Denmark's prize for doing so.
But she can only indulge her passion for astronomy as long as the men in her life - her father, brother and family friends - are prepared to support it, and so she treads…
When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…
Awe can make me feel simultaneously insignificant and fully, freshly alive. Witnessing a total solar eclipse or reading a story of remarkable human endurance, it’s easy to feel awestruck. It takes more patience and practice to experience awe in the subtle and ordinary, but it’s there too, in abundance, if I can see the mystery in the familiar. As a writer, longtime meditator, and lover of the natural world, I believe we can’t live meaningfully without wonder. We’re meant to be lit up, humbled, and curious about this life. To me, the world is magic, and we’ve been called on stage to participate in the trick.
When I want to be astonished by the fierce and tender realities of the natural world—which is pretty much always—I read the late poet Mary Oliver. These are immersive essays by a writer who infused the very act of observation with a sacred energy—in her own words, “attention is the beginning of devotion.”
The essays are alive with animal life and soar with Oliver’s signature, forthright voice. In one essay, she rescues an injured gull. In another, she forages the eggs of a snapping turtle for dinner. Oliver humbly witnesses and partakes of the mystery and turns companionably to her reader with stirring questions: “Do you think there is anything not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else?”
One of O, The Oprah Magazine's Ten Best Books of the Year
The New York Times bestselling collection of essays from beloved poet, Mary Oliver.
"There's hardly a page in my copy of Upstream that isn't folded down or underlined and scribbled on, so charged is Oliver's language . . ." -Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
"Uniting essays from Oliver's previous books and elsewhere, this gem of a collection offers a compelling synthesis of the poet's thoughts on the natural, spiritual and artistic worlds . . ." -The New York Times
There’s nothing better than sitting down at the pool to read a fun, engaging story that transports you into another world and keeps you entertained. I’ve always loved reading to escape, and when I started writing and posting my stories for free online at 17 years old, I discovered my true calling. My first story amassed 140 million reads with millions of comments, where people shared how much fun they had reading the story and how it helped them escape from their lives. Since then, I’ve continued writing stories I’m passionate about and sharing them with people who love a good, fun, romance.
When I think of the perfect, fun, poolside read, this book is the first to pop into my head.
The Unhoneymooners follows Olive, who ends up having to fake date a man she hates while on their fake honeymoon in Hawaii. I love those tropes (fake relationships, enemies to lovers, forced proximity) but on top of that, this book is laugh-out-loud hilarious.
I was giggling in the pool the entire time I read this, and the light, fast-paced, engaging vibe makes this book the perfect poolside read.
Named a “Must-Read” by TODAY, Us Weekly, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Goodreads, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Southern Living, Book Riot, Woman’s Day, The Toronto Star, and more!
For two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime—maybe even love—in this romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling authors of Roomies.
Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is…
I’ve been fascinated by sisters, siblings, and my place in the family since I was old enough to realize I had an older sister and a younger brother. I asked my parents a lot of questions. Why am I blonde? Why is my sister taller? Lots of questions my parents didn’t have answers for. At school in biology, we studied genes, familial traits, and nature versus nurture. I was fascinated, and still am today. Why does my sister behave the way she does? Why do I? Is it because of our upbringing, or was she just born with an aversion to cheese? I wanted to know the answers. I’m still searching.
I laughed a lot reading Eligible. Yes, it’s silly, but this version of Pride and Prejudice had me hooked from the outset, probably for no other reason than that it forced me to consider the Bennet family and the sisters, in a new, twenty-first century light.
Liz, late 30’s, magazine writer, and her older sister, Jane, a yoga instructor, live in New York, whilst youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia, are busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to consider careers. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master's degree. And, yes, Mrs Bennet just wants to marry off her daughters.
I loved the five sisters’ dynamics: at times sweet, bitchy, caring, dismissive, rude, and compulsively dishing out home truths. I also appreciated the women were trying to break away from family expectations and controls. After reading this, I was very glad I only have one sister…
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK)
This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to…
Chasing Light is a lyrical meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile beauty of everyday life. At its core, it is a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformational power of human connection. It sheds light on the overlooked realities of homelessness and addiction, while emphasizing the importance of compassion…
Weddings are stressful for even the most functional of families. I should know—it took me nearly two years to plan my own! The process of manufacturing the big day, and attending to all the trappings of the wedding industrial complex, really brings out our best and our worst. In my most recent novel, I found that a big, splashy wedding provided such a fun and fascinating way to explore the tensions and enduring love within families, friends, and couples. If done right, plots involving weddings can smash tired “bridezilla” and “monster-in-law” tropes. As we enter the summer wedding season, I hope this list of books keeps you laughing and loving!
Just like the title suggests, this novel is not all fragrant flower bouquets and three-tiered sweetness.
Thank goodness—we get enough of that on Instagram! But if you’re down for a rowdy romp that is both cynical and tender, do come along with Ginder to London, to a wedding filled with alcohol, sex, and catastrophe.
I love how Ginder crafts such compelling portraits of people who we might otherwise dismiss as shallow or unlikeable.
Paul and Alice's half-sister Eloise is getting married! In London! There will be fancy hotels, dinners at "it" restaurants and a reception at a country estate complete with tea lights and embroidered cloth napkins. They couldn't hate it more.
The People We Hate at the Wedding is the story of a more than dysfunctional family as they reunite for the wedding of their oldest daughter. As the bride's walk down the aisle approaches, Grant Ginder brings to vivid, hilarious life the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, and the complicated ways we hate the ones we love the most…
Weddings are stressful for even the most functional of families. I should know—it took me nearly two years to plan my own! The process of manufacturing the big day, and attending to all the trappings of the wedding industrial complex, really brings out our best and our worst. In my most recent novel, I found that a big, splashy wedding provided such a fun and fascinating way to explore the tensions and enduring love within families, friends, and couples. If done right, plots involving weddings can smash tired “bridezilla” and “monster-in-law” tropes. As we enter the summer wedding season, I hope this list of books keeps you laughing and loving!
I read this novel while I was in my twenties—during a time I called The Age of Everyone Getting Married.
It absolutely captures that whirlwind of bridal showers, bachelorette parties, and wedding registries, but also the love, jealousy, and heartbreak of being young and just figuring life out in New York City. Close writes beautifully about real women doing the best they can with their bad choices.
Ever feel like everyone but you has their life under control?
Isabella, Mary and Lauren feel like everyone they know has a plan, a good job, and a nice boyfriend.
Isabella, on the other hand, thinks she might hate her own boyfriend, Mary is working so hard she's hoping to get hit by a car just so she can have some time off work and Lauren is dating a man who can't spell her first name.
All three of them have been friends since college, and now - more than ever - they need each other, as they struggle through…
I’ve been fascinated with the macabre since childhood and have always been drawn to the darker sides of humanity. In nearly every story, the villain is my favorite character, and I’m most intrigued with their motives. From The Magic Tree House to Artemis Fowl to The Hunger Games to The Purge, I’ve consumed as much sci-fi, dystopian, thriller fiction as possible my entire life. I’ve written several thriller novels and dystopian books and have worked with Bradley Fuller, the producer of The Purge and A Quiet Place, on the possible movie adaptation of my debut novel. If you also like dystopian thrillers, feel free to check out my recommendations!
The Patient is a very quick read and easy to get sucked into, questioning everything you might know or think. I love how it was told through a series of online posts during which the narrator, a young psychiatrist, slowly reveals his story, never quite knowing if what he experienced was real or if he was going crazy.
I love how the sci-fi aspect took it out of our real world just enough to feel fantastical but not too much to be unrealistic or like a classic high-fantasy novel. The pace was fantastic, the twists and reveals were perfectly placed, and it was just the right amount of horror. I appreciate any book that is unexpected and leaves me thinking about it for days after I’m finished.
In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient.
We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility's most difficult, profoundly dangerous case - a forty-year-old man who was originally admitted to the hospital at age six. This patient has no known diagnosis. His symptoms seem to evolve over time. Every person who has attempted to treat…
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
When I was a little boy growing up in Philadelphia, I couldn’t have dolls. So I collected Hot Wheels, gave them all wild names and backstories, and moved them around through scandal and adventure on our pool table. As a voracious reader, I devoured hefty novels from my parent’s bookcase as a teenager, and in the 1980s, I adored prime-time soaps like Dallas and Dynasty. I also discovered great midcentury melodramas from filmmakers like Douglas Sirk and Mark Robson, leading to reading related books. Today I review books for the New York Times, and I remain passionate for period melodrama. (Don’t get me started on my Mad Men obsession!)
The first great American trashy novel, Peyton Place today seems rather tame, but in its day, it was scandalous. Plucking it from my mother’s bookcase when I was 14, I was engrossed by its roaring passion and sensational secrets.
Set in a small New England town, the book set the stage for the modern soap opera, and I wolfed it down like a big box of candy. It reminds me of those great, heady melodramas of the 1950s (and was itself made into a fabulously sudsy film in 1957), an intoxicating mix of all things forbidden.
I adored the fact that it was literary, which it doesn’t get enough credit for. I think its opening line—“Indian summer is like a woman…”—is one of the best in mid-20th Century literature.
When Grace Metalious's debut novel about the dark underside of a small, respectable New England town was published in 1956, it quickly soared to the top of the bestseller lists. A landmark in twentieth-century American popular culture, Peyton Place spawned a successful feature film and a long-running television series—the first prime-time soap opera.
Contemporary readers of Peyton Place will be captivated by its vivid characters, earthy prose, and shocking incidents. Through her riveting, uninhibited narrative, Metalious skillfully exposes the intricate social anatomy of a small community, examining the lives of its people—their passions and vices, their ambitions and defeats, their…
