Here are 100 books that Take Me With You fans have personally recommended if you like
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I suspect my passion for this topic was born when my doctor came into my C-section recovery room and uttered the words “chromosomal abnormality.” My daughter has Down syndrome, and full disclosure: I had zero interest in being a disability mom. Yet as I fell in love with this beautiful, funny, sassy girl, my whole worldview shifted. I am a far better person than I was when she entered my life. She has taught me the beauty and the blessing wrapped up in the things that first appear to be the most difficult.
When I think of The Girl Who Could Breathe Underwater, the first thing that comes to mind is how nuanced and sensitive it is. It tackles an exceptionally difficult topic—sexual trauma—with a finesse and respect for the goodness of humanity that takes my breath away. There are Bad Guys in this book, but Erin Bartels reminds us that they, too, have back stories and reasons why they became the people they are. This book is the epitome of finding beauty amid life’s toughest challenges.
"Emotions leap off the page in this deeply personal book . . . . Expertly written."--Library Journal
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The best fiction simply tells the truth. But the truth is never simple.
When novelist Kendra Brennan moves into her grandfather's old cabin on Hidden Lake, she has a problem and a plan. The problem? An inflammatory letter from A Very Disappointed Reader. The plan? To confront Tyler, her childhood best friend's brother--and the man who inspired the antagonist in her first book. If she can prove that she told the truth about what happened during those long-ago summers, perhaps she can…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I suspect my passion for this topic was born when my doctor came into my C-section recovery room and uttered the words “chromosomal abnormality.” My daughter has Down syndrome, and full disclosure: I had zero interest in being a disability mom. Yet as I fell in love with this beautiful, funny, sassy girl, my whole worldview shifted. I am a far better person than I was when she entered my life. She has taught me the beauty and the blessing wrapped up in the things that first appear to be the most difficult.
I have adored everything I’ve read by Nicole Baart, and they all fit this theme. I chose this one because all the characters in it are so real. It features two women who are both punishing themselves for a tragedy they believe to be their fault. In this book, the main characters are so true, you almost can’t believe they’re made up. They’re complex people whose struggles and brokenness end up making ripples that bump into other people’s struggles and brokenness. Just a bunch of people doing the best they can and messing it all up and having to start again. This is a book that makes you feel like maybe all hope isn’t lost, after all.
From the author of Little Broken Things, a "race-to-the-finish family drama" (People) following a mother who must confront the dark summer that changed her life forever in order to reclaim the daughter she left behind.
Juniper Baker had just graduated from high school and was deep in the throes of a summer romance when Cal and Beth Murphy, a childless couple who lived on a neighboring farm, were brutally murdered. When her younger brother became the prime suspect, June's world collapsed and everything she loved that summer fell away. She left, promising never to return to tiny Jericho, Iowa.
I suspect my passion for this topic was born when my doctor came into my C-section recovery room and uttered the words “chromosomal abnormality.” My daughter has Down syndrome, and full disclosure: I had zero interest in being a disability mom. Yet as I fell in love with this beautiful, funny, sassy girl, my whole worldview shifted. I am a far better person than I was when she entered my life. She has taught me the beauty and the blessing wrapped up in the things that first appear to be the most difficult.
Sometimes you hear about someone who’s experienced something truly terrible, and you think two things in quick succession: “Thank God that’s not me” and “How can anyone possibly recover from that?” Some people who find themselves contemplating the unthinkable—like, say, instant and permanent paralysis, as the main character of How to Walk Away—sink into bitterness, wallowing in their victimhood.
But some rise to meet the challenge and find richness and joy and a meaning to life that they didn’t even know they were missing.
That’s this book. It’s heartbreaking and inspiring and absolutely gorgeous.
Margaret Jacobsen is just about to step into the bright future she's worked for so hard and so long: a new dream job, a fiance she adores, and the promise of a picture-perfect life just around the corner. Then, suddenly, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, everything she worked for is taken away in a brief, tumultuous moment.
In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Maggie must confront the unthinkable. First there is her fiance, Chip, who wallows in self-pity while simultaneously expecting…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
I suspect my passion for this topic was born when my doctor came into my C-section recovery room and uttered the words “chromosomal abnormality.” My daughter has Down syndrome, and full disclosure: I had zero interest in being a disability mom. Yet as I fell in love with this beautiful, funny, sassy girl, my whole worldview shifted. I am a far better person than I was when she entered my life. She has taught me the beauty and the blessing wrapped up in the things that first appear to be the most difficult.
Sometimes you get caught up in who you’re “supposed” to be, or the image you’re supposed to project, and you end up losing your authentic self—and your connection with those you love suffers because of it. In True Places, Suzanne’s life of quiet desperation is interrupted when a girl emerges from the forest right in front of her—a girl who’s never encountered civilization. As Suzanne takes this girl under her wing, she starts to question everything she has accepted as sacrosanct. In that, she stands in place of us all: caught in the rat race, longing for permission to cut through the crap and be who we are meant to be. The courage with which she faces the opposition of her family—and finds her way to a new, healthier relationship with them—is inspirational.
"True Places is a beautiful reminder that though we may busy ourselves seeking what we want, what we need has an uncanny way of finding us." -Camille Pagan, bestselling author of Life and Other Near-Death Experiences
A girl emerges from the woods, starved, ill, and alone...and collapses.
Suzanne Blakemore hurtles along the Blue Ridge Parkway, away from her overscheduled and completely normal life, and encounters the girl. As Suzanne rushes her to the hospital, she never imagines how the encounter will change her-a change she both fears and desperately needs.
I'm the author of the best-selling books How to Tell Depression to Piss Off: 40 Ways to Get Your Life Back, How to Tell Anxiety to Sod Off: 40 Ways to Get Your Life Back, The Recovery Letters, and What I Do to Get Through. My sixth book will be, How to Smash Stress: 40 Ways to Manage the Unmanageable.
He describes the death of his partner from alcoholism and the events leading up to it in an unflinchingly honest and moving way. It's raw and personal but that's what grief is. It's beautiful and respectful and shows how grief is both a shared experience and so completely individual at the same time.
'Immensely moving and disarmingly witty' Nigella Lawson 'Such a moving, tough, funny, raw, honest read' Matt Haig 'Beautifully written, moving and gut-wrenching, but also at times very funny' Ian Rankin 'Captures brilliantly, beautifully, bravely the comedy as well as the tragedy of bereavement' The Times 'Will strike a chord with anyone who has grieved' Independent
Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, discussions about the afterlife, or being called out to perform the last rites, death is part of the Reverend Richard Coles's life and work. But when his partner the Reverend David Coles died,…
My two passions in life have always been music and reading. I was a punk rock girl, with wildly colored hair and a plethora of tattoos, who has never missed a chance to lose herself in a romance novel. I love it when my two favorite things collide in wonderful ways. I still read whatever I can get my hands on, but now I write some of those beloved books as well. Several of them have been bestsellers and many are published in various languages. My mosh-pit days are long gone, but you can still find me at a Social Distortion concert whenever they come to town. If you’ve got a rebellious heart and an ear for music that isn’t as mainstream, I’m sure you will love these books I recommended as much as I do.
Freefall deals with some really heavy issues facing a lot of young adults, and because this is one of the few books I’ve ever picked up where the hero is into rockabilly and physcobilly. He even plays a standup bass in a garage band. This book is also very age-appropriate, so it can be enjoyed by a wider audience than my books and some of my more grown-up recommendations.
I loved it because I felt like it dealt with the subject of depression and self-harm in a really relatable and compassionate way. I could feel the struggle of these kids through the pages. I also liked how it relayed that music can be healing no matter what genre the music may be.
I read this book as an adult and remember thinking that I wish I had something similar to read when I was younger. And as an adult, I…
Seth McCoy was the last person to see his best friend, Isaac, alive, and the first to find him dead. It was just another night, just another party, just another time when Isaac drank too much and passed out on the lawn. Only this time, Isaac didn't wake up.
Convinced that his own actions led to his friend's death, Seth is torn between turning his life around . . . or losing himself completely.
Then he meets Rosetta: so beautiful and so different from everything and everyone he's ever…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I teach literature, Labor Studies, and writing at San Diego City College and have written three San Diego-based novels: Drift, Flash, and Last Days in Ocean Beach, along with Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See, a radical history of San Diego that I co-wrote with Mike Davis and Kelly Mayhew. Both as a writer and as a daily wanderer on the streets of San Diego, I have a passion for the psychogeography of the city space and a deep curiosity for and love of the people I encounter there.
Jim Thompson’s novel is arguably San Diego’s greatest classic noir work.
While not a crime novel, it captures wartime San Diego through the glass darkly, and I was moved and unsettled by Thompson’s unsparing forays into the alienation of those who were the most exploited in the city.
San Diego in the years before World War II. James Dillon is barely scraping by working a menial job in manufacturing, trying to raise a family and support his elderly mother and sister Frankie at the same time. He drinks too hard -- just like his father and nearly everyone in his extended family. With so many people crammed into one home, sometimes there's so much fighting he can barely stand it. But if James can survive the chaos of everyday life long enough, maybe -- just maybe -- there's a chance it'll all get better.
I’m a fiction and humor writer whose imagination was initially sparked by superheroes and comic books. The idea of an otherwise average person who could turn themselves into a superbeing was transformative and powerful. As a teenager, these early heroes faded, and I became fascinated by The Twilight Zone’s compact and poignant storytelling that contained moral messages. This eventually led me to the fiction of Stephen King where the idea of average people encountering the supernatural and overcoming obstacles was a recurring theme. In my own work, I have tried to carry forward the idea that our everyday lives are more absurd, complex, and magical than they appear.
A master class on “less is more,” the stories in this collection are set in everyday, locations: a suburban front yard, an airport lounge, a kitchen, and are populated by working-class people in the midst of one or more traumas such as alcoholism, divorce, or financial trouble.
Though Carver doesn’t employ fantasy, the tight, accessible writing lures you in and immerses you in a comic-tragic world that is uniquely his own. This collection taught me the power of economical prose and that writing about the kinds of people you encounter at the supermarket can be just as transportive and resonant as stories that involve characters who live in exotic places, or universes.
This powerful collection of stories, set in the mid-West among the lonely men and women who drink, fish and play cards to ease the passing of time, was the first by Raymond Carver to be published in the UK. With its spare, colloquial narration and razor-sharp sense of how people really communicate, the collection was to become one of the most influential literary works of the 1980s.
I vowed at a young age to never drink alcohol. I dove headfirst into psychology, earning a doctorate and I believed generational alcohol chains were broken. I became the "LA Shrink" and "Life Coach" on some pretty cool TV pilots! But life threw me a curveball, and after two decades of moderate, responsible drinking, I found myself addicted to alcohol. However, I cured it, and I've been passionately helping others do the same. I'm now a coach at WearetheAFR.org, an amazing nonprofit community dedicated to supporting individuals with alcohol addictions. My journey is filled with passion, resilience, and joy. I'm living proof that it's possible.
I resonate so deeply with Craig’s journey. His ability to maintain a thriving career and family life while sliding deeper into addiction for two decades was so relatable and inspiring.
His refusal to conform to the stereotypical image of an "alcoholic" echoes my own sentiments, and his courage in sharing his story is truly remarkable. This personal connection made his story a source of genuine inspiration and joy for me.
Craig Beck is a well-regarded family man with two children, a beautiful home, and a successful media career. A director of several companies & at one time the trustee of a large children’s charity. Craig was a successful & functioning professional man in spite of a ‘2 bottles of wine a night’ drinking habit. For 20 years he struggled with problem drinking, all the time refusing to label himself an alcoholic because he didn't believe he met the stereotypical image that the word portrayed.He tried countless ways to cut down; attempting ‘dry months,’ banning himself from drinking spirits, only drinking…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All the Birds in the Sky, which Time Magazine listed as one of the hundred best fantasy novels of all time. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night, Victories Greater than Death, and Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories. She organizes the long-running spoken word series Writers With Drinks, helps to organize tours of local bookstores, and also co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, Slate, and the Boston Review.
A really great short story collection can sweep you off your feet and take you to a lot of different places, in a way that novels can't quite manage. And Swamy's debut collection is haunting in the best possible way. These dreamlike stories feature characters who are lost and dislocated, carried along by other people's desires, and the best of them have something to say about art as well as relationships. In one story, an artist who is descending into alcoholism gets into a relationship with the god Krishna, and in another, a "laughter artist" has perfected her laughter to the point where all laughter seems artificial. Swamy conveys the feeling of being lost but seen, in a really beautiful, arresting way.
In "A Simple Composition," a husband's professional crisis leads to his wife's discovery of a dark, ecstatic joy. And in the title story, an exhausted mother watches, hypnotised by fear, as a California wildfire approaches her home. Immersive and assured, provocative and probing, these are stories written with the edge and precision of a knife blade. Set in the United States and India, they reveal small but intense moments of beauty, pain, and power that contain the world.
