100 Books Like So Many Ways to Begin

One thing about being adopted is you have an in-built radar to seek out others who are too. I read Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit when I was a teenager, and since then, I have been in awe of her as a writer and her ability to eloquently describe her personal experience as an adoptee. 

This book is her autobiography, and there were occasions while reading it that I had to stop and cry. Finally, someone else had written about what I had kept holed up inside me. Her final chapter, "The Wound," speaks so profoundly to me as an adopted adult. It is honest, sharp, and fierce.

Emily Bronte wrote one novel in her short life, but what an amazing novel it is. The anti-heroes Heathcliff (rough, bitter, and rude from early mistreatment) and his childhood beloved, Catherine (spoiled and willful), are unique in fiction, and when they go head-to-head, there’s no stopping them. But Bronte doesn’t make it easy to understand them.

Heathcliff obsessively pursues Catherine after she’s married, but what she feels for him has been debated by many scholars, such as myself–some say it’s not sexual, but I disagree. The scene where they finally kiss and cling to each other while she is eight months pregnant with her husband’s child, right before her death, was extremely shocking to the Victorian public. It was so powerful that it scared me when I first read it at age 14.

This book is the ONE book that would have helped me the most in the early days after I brought my adopted baby home from the hospital. My beautiful, healthy three-day-old baby was unhappy, fussy, and cried all the time. Little did I know that she was missing her birth mom. I was told by the adoption counselors that this baby was a clean slate, and I would do all the loving and nurturing and could raise her as if I gave birth to her. 

Verrier explained so much about how the wound that my child still carries with her today affects her behaviors. And she also gave me hope and insights that acknowledging the wound can lead to healing and hope even when the trauma cannot be erased. 

If you haven’t already, READ ERIC LAROCCA NOW! I have devoured all his published work, and this one was so bleak, subversive, gothic, and intense… in fact, I’m sure a whole dictionary would never completely describe how it made me feel. 

He has a way of slicing through the viscera and injecting words into your bloodstream. Whenever I read any of his stories, I feel inspired as a horror writer to up my game and insert more gore into my own writing. Yet, he makes it look incredibly easy, almost as if he is writing poetry using his own bodily fluids. Perhaps he does!? Proceed with care…

Eloisa James has long been one of my favourite authors, and I love her witty stories in the Regency romance genre, as well as her friends-to-lovers and second-chance tropes in this story. 

The hero, James, had always cared about the heroine, Theodora, who is known in London society as The Ugly Duchess. She wasn’t ugly–just “mannish” and dressed by her mother in a way that didn’t capitalize on her looks.

I liked the fact that she grew in herself and that her transition wasn’t instant. I also loved that James didn’t fall in love with her simply because of her looks but because of her capabilities and her growth in personal confidence.  

This book completely surprised me.

Kazuo Ishiguro is known for stories rooted in real world contexts. Even his various forays into science fiction (Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun) are deeply grounded in contemporary, true-to-life settings. So, when I stumbled upon this classic fairytale by one of my favorite authors, I didn’t know what to expect. Talk about a gut punch!

This book explores morality and hope in creative and magical ways. And the twist at the end will leave you reeling—in true Ishiguro form.

This is a surprisingly gentle memoir by the curator of fashion at the V & A Museum in London. She uses her own wardrobe to unfold the story of her own life. In exquisite prose she traces how, whether homemade or haute couture, what we wear catches significant moments in our lives and archives personal memories. It made me think of my own clothes in a different way and understand why I couldn’t throw out those that remind me of people I love and my own joyful or sad events.        

This book covers the comprehensive history of the Black presence in Britain. It had everything I needed and more when researching my own historical fiction novels. Growing up in the UK, the only part pertaining to Black history was a brief mention of the transatlantic slave trade and nothing that pointed to the Black presence in the UK.

I found this book very well-researched by the author and was fascinated by the wealth of information, some of which I did not know. It also reminded me of why I love writing historical fiction! 

This book is slim as a Hanzo knife and its sentences cut just as precisely.

It comes in at a scant 72-page read, so those of us trying to fit in a great read between all our other obligations should take a look at this scathing look at the microaggressions endured in a male-dominated corporate environment.  

This book gets into the mind of a Black British woman; overqualified, impeccably educated, and yet still somehow made to feel inadequate through multiple tiny attacks on her character and her competence. Her white, well-to-do fiancé wants to marry her, and this marriage could be a way to lessen the impact of the toxic masculine environment surrounding her, but our nameless protagonist can’t be sure if there is true love in the union or if it is just a rebellious addition to her fiancé’s heretofore bland pedigree.

Told in a series of vignettes, Assembly… show more.

We’re all familiar with wartime images of young evacuees gathered together on railway stations. But over fifty percent of children were not evacuated from British cities, and it is they that Penny Starns has studied. Once we get past the mothers’ ‘keep or send’ moral dilemma, there are the issues of discipline, education, health, food, and psychological development to consider. Starns takes these subjects chapter by chapter, relating stories of disease, poverty, criminality, and terror (including one child who spent the night in a shelter within reach of an unexploded bomb). These tales she counterpoints with examples of unexpectedly increasing emotional and physical wellbeing amongst some of the stay-behinds. This is an important record of the experiences of a demographic that war histories often ignore.