100 Books Like Sparrow

Much of the story unfolds in China during the Cultural Revolution, then shifts into realms of imagination, physics, and mathematics. Concepts like stretching a proton to planetary dimensions, encoding information within it, and compressing it back into a spy particle are astounding.

I resonate with the author’s insight: our civilization itself may be the root of humanity's eventual downfall. Politics, religions, culture, and beliefs—rarely sources of pride—are more often causes for shame, a testament to human folly above all else. Breaking free from these constructs is no easy task.

On the planet of January, one side is in permanent daylight and the other side is permanent night, with people managing to live on a strip of moderate light between the two extremes.

Sophie, a shy teenager, breaks the rules and is sent to the dark side to die, only she survives.  While she is in the dark, she meets telepathic creatures who, despite their terrifying visage, are kind-hearted—a shock to someone raised in a community who believes the creatures (and others) are awful because of the way they look.

Together with her best friend, Bianca, they decide to save the human race, against all dark odds, including secret outlaws. 

This TV series would showcase all the strange glory of Anders, along with the emotional depth that will have us rooting for our young heroines who literally go between the darkness and the light. Hey, J.J. Abrams, you listenin’?

From the moment I first began listening to the audiobook, I fell in love with this story. I was all in the moment Ryland Grace stumbled through answering the question “What is 2 plus 2?” The layering of the story, the threat to Earth concept, the educational presentation of very high-level scientific concepts to an audience of all ages, and the way Andy Weir made this reader feel so many emotions over a rock just keep drawing me back to it.

I literally just finished another listen less than a month ago and already want to go back to a story. I still don’t see many people talking about it. And the ending? Every story has its own perfect dismount landing, and this one nailed it.

This book is such a smart novel. It draws its inspiration from Frankenstein, and although it is very different from the original (with its likable lesbian protagonist), it loses none of the original novel’s gothic themes and atmosphere.

The story moves quickly yet manages to convey rich language and explore complex themes. 

Tyson Klein, a quantum physicist at CERN, analyzes data from the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. He discovers a highly intelligent pattern in data broadcast over what he terms a “Quantum Radio.” The data has the potential to answer the deepest questions about human existence and the cosmos itself, a Theory of Everything. Because the data accurately describes history and alternate histories and projects their future outcome, he first questions whether it’s from another universe or from the future. 

As he closes in on how to control the quantum radio, he finds that someone else is after it and will stop at nothing to get it. The first one to uncover its operation will control the world and probably more.

Riddle seamlessly weaves grandiose ideas in science, psychology, history, and time travel throughout the fabric of the personal relationships of several individuals who “coincidentally” enter Tyson’s life to help in… show more.

This one was made into a long-short documentary (38 minutes) called Jeanne Cordova: Butches, Lies & Feminism that won the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest 2017 for Best Documentary Short, now I’d love to see this as a biopic feature! 

Let’s watch Jeanne Cordova come to life—her old school get-er-done butch energy out there in the 1970s fighting for lesbian rights, starting the West Coast Lesbian Conference in 1971 and the first National Lesbian Conference in 1973. Imagine the drama bringing people together and setting the platform for lesbian rights when many were fired if outed.

Maybe Fortune Feimster could play a role!? Oh yes, yes she could.

I vote that this novella by Cassandra Khaw be made into an animated limited series, opening on a mermaid who leaves her two children after they’ve devoured what is left of the city that had to be burned to the ground to prevent the spread of the plague.

They devoured because they have teeth, as mermaids do. The children also have “supple lips”, as their father had, a prince who abducted and forced the mermaid to marry him then cut her tongue out.

She leaves them and their destruction behind to wander the countryside with a plague doctor who wears a vulture mask. It was the plague doctor who insisted they burn everything to the ground. The unusual pair soon find their way to a village where saints decide which people can be brought back from the dead in (on theme) Frankenstein-ian ways. A perfect animation.

I love this book because of its excellent job of tackling the nature of free will and consciousness and their impact on the human condition.

In 2009, particle physicist Lloyd Simcoe designed a high-energy experiment for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), designed to detect the Higgs Boson. Success would bring him the Nobel Prize. During the experiment, all those present lost consciousness for two minutes and seventeen seconds.

As it happens, the loss of consciousness is global. Without warning, seven billion people on Earth black out for those two minutes and seventeen seconds. Millions die as planes fall from the sky, people tumble down staircases, and cars plow into each other. People experience a glimpse of their life twenty-one years and six months in the future. Some see only darkness, death? The interlocking mosaic of these visions threatens the present and the future.

This book pursues profound questions. Do we… show more.

Like many others, I have long been fascinated by the story of Spartacus and his fight for freedom (a story that has resonated with many activists and advocates around the world).

Strauss has a wonderful prose style that balances scholarly rigor with clarity for a popular audience. I still picture Kirk Douglas in my mind when I think about Spartacus, but reading this book also gave me a much fuller understanding of the sociopolitical context of this slave revolt.

I’ve been assigning this book to students for a few years now, introducing them to the ways that Americans dueled with one another over slaveholding and Black citizenship.

In 1779, British privateers attacked a few South Carolina plantations and took thirty-four enslaved people away (or maybe they went willingly in search of freedom). After a series of adventures, the men and women arrived in Revolutionary Massachusetts, and their enslavers wanted them back. The resulting dispute foreshadowed the debate over slavery that hides in the heart of the United States Constitution.

Because it’s not too long, I think this book is a great way to introduce students to slavery in the North and South. Blanck shows how Black people pushed back against the compromises that tried to box them in.