Here are 75 books that Tears of the Trufflepig fans have personally recommended if you like
Tears of the Trufflepig.
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As a child in Oklahoma and Texas during the 1960s and 1970s, I remember being told two things: “Oklahoma is OK” and “The Eyes of Texas” were upon me. My grandparents and great-grandparents helped carve the new state of Oklahoma out of nothing within the span of only a few years. For a long time, I accepted the party line, but as an adult, I realized I wasn’t—the picture was incomplete. Underneath the inspiring tales of grit and heroism was something darker. That’s a big part of what my writing is about.
As an ex-pat Oklahoma who writes crime fiction, I’ve long been enamored of my homeboy, the great noir-ist Jim Thomson, whose best novel this is. Like most of Thompson’s work, this is set in Texas, not Oklahoma, but as in all my choices, the world he evokes is indistinguishable, the one from the other.
Lou Ford, the main character, is the kind of guy who makes you want to sleep with both eyes open. A psychotic, small-town Deputy Sheriff, Ford openly mocks the idea of justice; he is a purely malign force, a glad-handing menace who rules his petty fiefdom with the wisdom of Josef Goebbels and the kind-heartedness of Charles Manson. Ford’s first-person narration reads like it’s been scrawled in Magic Marker on the walls of a men’s room in hell. No one did nihilism better than Jim Thomson.
Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he's a little slow and boring but that's the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his 'sickness'. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. But now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again and the consequences are brutal and devastating. Tense and suspenseful, The Killer Inside Me is a brilliantly sustained masterpiece…
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…
I write what I call civic noir, crime fiction where the real antagonist isn’t a person but an institution: a courthouse, a precinct, a city hall that already knows how the story ends. I’m drawn to these books because the most frightening thing in them is never the gun; it’s the machinery, the procedure, the quiet way a system decides who’s guilty before anyone enters a courtroom. As a writer, I’m less interested in the villain than in the architecture that produces him. These five novels taught me how to make a building feel dangerous, and how to keep ordinary people from disappearing into the gears.
She makes the law itself the source of suspense. Her Texas Ranger, Darren Mathews, carries a badge that protects him and endangers him in the same gesture, and every door he opens with it might be the one that gets him killed. I love that she refuses easy heroes. Everyone in that little town off Highway 59 is wired into the same old order, and justice has to be smuggled out past it.
She taught me a murder mystery can be a way of asking who the system was built to serve, and that the quietest scene is often the most dangerous one.
Winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award 2018 2018 Edgar Award Winner for best novel
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply conflicted about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him back.
So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town…
I was born and raised in Texas, and I’ve lived here most of my life. For good or for ill, Texas looms large in the American consciousness and, since everything is bigger in Texas, so are the stereotypes. While you can definitely still find cattle ranches and oil wells in our state, modern Texas is much more complex and diverse than many people might think. While I love books that show those traditional elements of Texas (looking at you, Lonesome Dove!), I have always delighted in finding books that give me a new lens on what it means to be a Texan. I hope you’re delighted by these too.
There’s a special pleasure in reading novels set in the place you’ve long lived, and there’s also a special pleasure—at least for me!—in diving into subcultures with strong and strange beliefs. Owen Egerton delivers on both in Hollow. Set in the Austin far removed from tech money and hip new restaurants, Hollowfollows Oliver Bonds, a former religious studies professor whose life unraveled after the death of his young son. Oliver finds distraction in Hollow Earth theory and the idea a whole different world lies inside the one we currently occupy. Hollowbroke my heart in the best sort of way with its exploration of grief, regret, and the lengths we go to in order to survive being human.
An NPR Best Book of the Year, Hollow is the story of a professor whose life is unended after an unspeakable tragedy.
When Oliver Bonds, a revered religious studies professor at the University of Texas, loses his toddler son and undergoes intense legal scrutiny over his involvement, grief engulfs him completely. His life as he knows it is over; Oliver loses his wife, home, and faith. Three years after his son's death, Oliver lives in a shack without electricity and frequents the soup kitchen where he used to volunteer.
It's only when befriended by Lyle, a con artist with a…
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
I was born and raised in Texas, and I’ve lived here most of my life. For good or for ill, Texas looms large in the American consciousness and, since everything is bigger in Texas, so are the stereotypes. While you can definitely still find cattle ranches and oil wells in our state, modern Texas is much more complex and diverse than many people might think. While I love books that show those traditional elements of Texas (looking at you, Lonesome Dove!), I have always delighted in finding books that give me a new lens on what it means to be a Texan. I hope you’re delighted by these too.
I spent my twenties watching in horror as Texas and then-Governor Bush executed more prisoners than any other governor in modern American history, only to be replaced by Gov. Rick Perry who executed even more. In Chammah’s deeply researched non-fiction exploration of the death penalty, he focuses on Texas, “the epicenter of capital punishment.” I better understood our justice system through his intimate focus on the individuals impacted by the larger system. And the book gave me a measure of hope, too—the societal problems that seem intractable can actually improve over time, through the work of many.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America
“If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review
WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural…
I’ve loved science fiction since I was a nerdy high school student acing all the math and science courses my high school offered and power-reading through the library’s sci-fi section. I saw Bladerunner on a mediocre date with a hot guy a grade ahead of me, slouched down in our seats, hoping to hold hands but it never happened. The film, however, blew my mind. Fast forward through my engineering degree where I saw every cyberpunk film and punk band I could, through a punk-fueled creative writing MA and anarchist English PhD, to today where I study grassroots media and sometimes teach Comics or Science Fiction.
Doctorow and I had a mutual friend in common—the incredible Possum who organized Toronto’s Anarchist Free University for many years until his early demise, Rest in Power—full disclosure, and that’s how I started reading his fiction. Walkaway is one of my favorites. This is a world where 3D printers have changed everything. People who are poor, exploited, unhappy, or maybe just feeling adventurous can—and do—walk away from the capitalist world within the city walls and live quite literally on the fringes, using 3D printers and their imaginations of a world without exploitation to construct whole new societies. Can they successfully build a utopia despite the many conflicts that arise? Who knows? But I do know I’m hoping for a sequel.
In a world wrecked by climate change, in a society owned by the ultra-rich, in a city hollowed out by industrial flight, Hubert, Etc, Seth and Natalie have nowhere else to be and nothing better to do.
But there is another way. After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life - food, clothing, shelter - from a computer, there is little reason to toil within the system. So, like thousands of others in the mid-21st century, the three of them turn their back on the world of rules, jobs, the morning commute and... walkaway.
I’ve been writing about women and girls who rock the boat for two decades. I’ve written about it from my own point of view, in award-winning essays, and from imagined points of view, in almost-award-winning women’s contemporary novels. Now, I’ve tackled it in the YA genre. I want to keep on exploring what it means to buck the system and live to tell the tale. We’re still making up for men writing women’s voices, for women’s voices going unheard. I’m trying to do my part to ask, what if we heard about history from the women’s point of view?
Terrible things happen to the women in this book, but they all, every single one of them, rock the boat to try and make their own lives. In this retelling of The Great Gatsby that centers the POVs of three women critical to the story (Jordan Baker, Daisy Buchanan, and Myrtle Wilson’s suffragist sister), we get the story that was always hiding between the lines.
I found myself proud of and mourning the lives of each of these women. I felt furious on their behalf and hopeful that the generations that came after them would reap the benefits of their mistakes and their work.
Perhaps most surprising to me, I found myself wanting to know these women more than I ever, ever wanted to get to know Gatsby’s world.
“Jillian Cantor beautifully re-crafts an American classic in Beautiful Little Fools, placing the women of The Great Gatsby center stage: more than merely beautiful, not so little as the men in their lives assume, and certainly far from foolish. Both fresh and familiar, this page-turner is one to savor!” —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code
“Jillian Cantor’s shifting kaleidoscope of female perspectives makes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic tale of Jazz Age longing and lust feel utterly modern. A breathtaking accomplishment.”—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue
Almost Home is a fictional retelling of the last great tragedy of the Civil War.
In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…
As both a lifelong traveler and reader, I cannot start an adventure without a great book. Having owned a Kindle since 2008, I consistently carry a virtual library, curating an assortment of captivating reads for every journey. As a travel journalist, I fly multiple times a month, which amplifies my need and understanding of the perfect in-flight companions; stories that transport and captivate. As an author with a memoir to my name, I appreciate the transformative power of storytelling. This blend of literary passion, frequent travel, and personal authorship has led me on my search for engaging, unforgettable books that mesmerize the reader.
When I read this book, I felt like I was back walking on the streets of India. Alka Joshi's vivid storytelling will transport you to a world of vibrant colors, rich traditions, and compelling characters.
In this first book of the Jaipur Trilogy, Lakshmi, a skilled henna artist, navigates a complex society, unraveling secrets and defying societal norms. Joshi's exquisite prose and the book's engrossing plot offer the perfect blend of escapism and depth, making it an ideal companion for a journey.
As you soar through the skies, it promises to transport you to another time and place, making the flight feel like a brief detour into an enchanting literary world.
For fans of Balli Kaur Jaswal's Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows and Thrity Umrigar's The Space Between Us, Alka Josh's The Henna Artist by is lushly-rendered, emotional book club fiction set in post-Raj 1950s Jaipur about a young woman struggling to shape her own destiny in a world pivoting between the traditional and the modern.
After fleeing an arranged marriage as a fifteen year old to an abusive older man, Lakshmi Shastri steals away alone from her rural village to Jaipur. Here, against odds, she carves out a living for herself as a henna artist, and friend and confidante…
As a writer and a professor, I love sharing knowledge of my birth country (India) and the experiences of Indian immigrants in America. My first book, Arranged Marriage, is about the transformed lives of immigrant women and won an American Book Award. Mistress of Spices is about a spice-shop owner who knows magic, was a national bestseller, and became a film. One Amazing Thing is a multicultural novel about nine people trapped by an earthquake, was a Citywide Read in over 25 US cities. Recently, fascinated by the richness of Indian history, I have delved into it in novels like The Last Queen, set in the 1800s, and Independence, set in the 1940s.
Set in the present-day cosmopolitan city of Mumbai, India, the novel follows the lives of two women: Serabai Dubash, a middle-class widow, and her maidservant, Bhima. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. They both have pregnant daughters, a fact that becomes significant as the novel progresses.
This book shows us the difficulties faced by women in Indian society but also their courage. Ultimately it is an upbeat book with great spirit. The plot twist at the end, and the resolution, blew me away.
In this beautifully crafted novel about the interlinked lives of two women, Thrity Umrigar explores the complex relationships between the classes in India, rarely addressed in contemporary fiction.
'Bhima is real. She worked in the house I grew up in, year after year, a shadow flitting around our middle-class home, her thin brown hands cleaning furniture she was not allowed to sit on, cooking food she was not allowed to share at the family dining table, dusting the stereo that mainly played American rock and roll, music that was alien and unfamiliar to her, that only reminded her of…
As someone who was born into a legacy of stewarding philanthropy, I was always on a journey to figuring out how I had won the uterine lottery. I hadn’t earned or inherited that wealth, and yet I was to be inheriting the responsibility and opportunity to steward it. Along the way, I met other next gen who wanted to make an impact with their resources, and so for the last twenty-plus years, professionally at 21/64, I've coached next gen donors, consulted with multigenerational philanthropic families, and trained professionals who support them. I’m always looking for research and resources to share with my clients and colleagues, and I hope the below are useful resources for you.
Many years ago, Kristin helped me to name that next gen can be “paralyzed by predecessor, privilege, and possibilities.” First-world problems that most people don’t get to experience.
However, if you are the child of a successful entrepreneur or have inherited wealth and philanthropic interests to allocate, there can be real challenges with finding your purpose.
She’s now dedicated a whole book to finding your way through growing up with wealth to find a life full of meaning alongside the ability to make an impact.
The next generation within wealthy families are often said to be born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Perceived as free from life's toughest challenges. "Having it all." But being raised in affluence brings a unique set of pressures and hidden tripwires. Great wealth casts a long shadow. Inheritors commonly face intense familial expectations, public scrutiny and judgment, and confusing or debilitating self-narratives, under which many flounder. And we-as family, friends, and society-slowly lose their contribution to our lives and the common good.
The Myth of the Silver Spoon helps guide the next gen of the affluent, their…
Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration
by
Mark Doherty,
I have woven numerous delightful and descriptive true life stories, many from my adventures as an outdoorsman and singer songwriter, into my life as a high school English teacher. I think you'll find this work both entertaining as well as informative, and I hope you enjoy the often lighthearted repartee…
As a former journalist, I was trained to look at all sides of a story. When I read, I am drawn to books that have multiple characters with their own narratives. Sometimes the stories intersect with an “aha!” moment, and sometimes they’re told side-by-side inside each character’s head. Either way, it’s intriguing to have different perspectives—especially in a mystery or thriller. That’s why I use the points of view of three wives in An Inconvenient Wife to give my readers insight into each of these fascinating women.
I have always been drawn to stories that are ripped from the headlines but are still so entirely their own.
When I first got the book, I was a little daunted by the length but as I read, I discovered I couldn’t put it down and was so sorry when it was over. A missing girl, a desperate mother—all set against the backdrop of an island that’s the playground of the ultra-wealthy. What’s not to love?
'Gripping, stomach-churning . . . Marwood is in a class of her own' LISA JEWELL
'Heart stopping' SUNDAY TIMES, CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH
'A ripped-from-the-headlines thriller . . . I couldn't put it down' MARK EDWARDS ________________
Sun-drenched glamour and obscene wealth hide the darkest of secrets and lost girls in this ripped-from-the-headlines thriller.
1985 For twelve-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is the place she calls home. It is an island untouched by the modern world, with deep-rooted traditions - though that is all about to change with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his spoiled young daughter,…
