93 Books Like The Bone Clocks

What a weird and wonderful book. I've read and reread it several times now, and it always casts its spell. I've never been so willing—so eager—to suspend disbelief. It's Murakami's special gift.

The novel creates its own wondrous world out of what seems to be the stuff of this one—a young runaway, Colonel Sanders, alley cats, a beautiful librarian, a seashore painting, a demented old man—but the result is more magical than any fairy kingdom. I was completely carried along by the experience of an understanding beyond sense.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was a female astronomer who was prominent in the mid 20th century. Cecilia showed that stars are made predominantly of hydrogen, and thus that stars were not simply ‘hot earths’. This point of view was such a blow to the scientific establishment that she was laughed away and, in the end, added a sentence to her thesis saying her results were probably incorrect. Her results were quickly proved right of course... though she was given no credit. She loved astronomy, knitting, her children, her smallholding of chickens, and she wasn’t afraid to speak of the unfairness she faced… and so I feel some very faint parallels from which I drew strength from. Sexism in science has improved so much since her time, but there remain many, many challenges and so her writings are an inspiration.

This book is a poignant and very funny examination of the ridiculousness endured by and perpetrated on women cruising through midlife.

I’d never read such a bald exploration of the dark side of parenting adult children. It opened my eyes and made me feel seen at the same time.

This is the first self-help book I have ever read, and I read it in 2019. I have always been honest about my battle with my mental health, from anxiety to depression. This book was recommended to me by an excellent expert in the field and it changed my view of my relationship with mental health as a battle. It sounds corny putting it into words but when you learn to accept the different parts of your personality and how they help and protect you, then it is easier to say “not right now, I need to make dinner, not crawl into bed”. The analogy that stuck with me was pulling a rope opposed by a character representing anxiety on the other side, and a pit in the middle. You can pull and pull, trying to avoid the pit, or you can… let go of the rope and accept that… show more.

People kept telling me to read it, so I finally did–just in time to include it on this list. Rotating narrators–a White missionary’s wife and four daughters from the American South–represent disparate points of view concerning their family’s move to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

One thing I loved is the attention to historical detail and Kingsolver’s ability to include multiple, complex subplots to better frame the colonial history of this particular time/place and to better demonstrate the insidious ongoing brutality of colonization in terms of inequitable global wealth.

Language and religion play a major role in the plundering resource extraction industries, as do political and military interference, apartheid, and so much more. I loved her exploration of language(s): the power held in naming and misnaming. The youngest daughter sums it up best. “My life: what I stole from history, and how I live with it.” Characters are primarily White… show more.

A book rarely brings me to tears. I didn’t know what to expect when I first picked up this one. The main thing I love about this book is that it takes you right into the head of the main character, who happens to be a very precocious nine-year-old boy. Outwardly, the main character is on an adventure to solve a mystery, but inwardly, he’s on a journey to come to terms with his father’s death.

The protagonist–who, on the surface, is nothing like me–made me feel and address things I had not come to terms with in my life. I felt myself struggling along with the character, and then I ultimately began to heal with him, too. It’s a powerful, tragic, yet absolutely hilarious story that allowed me to forget myself for a while before realizing that I was learning about myself the entire time I read it.

When it comes to family sagas turned myth, it’s hard to top Calliope Stephanides tracing the passage of the hermaphroditic gene—transforming Callie into Cal—through three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family.

An epic origin story that moves from Asia Minor to Detroit, Michigan, complete with incest and a nuanced exploration of gender identity. It also has one of my all-time favorite novel openings ever. “Sing now, O Muse, of the recessive mutation on my fifth chromosome!”

This is one of my favorite stories from Gaiman who I absolutely revere.

His style is a perfect whimsical blend of mythological fairy tales with the insightful science fiction grit and truth-telling of Rod Sterling’s "Twilight Zone” tales. 

This particular story of Gaiman’s ushered me into this world with its poetic rhythm. A man returns to his childhood home and meets a girl named Lettie and her family. It felt like I stepped into a world where all things are possible, a homecoming is at hand, filled with the threat of danger and the loss of self. As the man remembers his past, he travels through time and crosses between our world and a darker one that brings terror as well as an understanding and protection.

It’s a beautiful story that informs my writing and deepens my love for a modern fairy tale. 

For a more traditional take on fantasy, Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria is lovely and immersive, a fascinating new world worthy of Ursula Le Guin and Gene Wolfe.

Reportedly, she created Olondria from a combination of regions in Turkey and North Africa, and it feels absolutely fresh and instantly powerful. A teenage merchant becomes haunted by the ghost of a young girl and must find a way to put her to rest.

But the story is really about the power of books and stories and language itself. It’s a love letter to adventure and open seas, harbors, and alleys, and snowy mountains in the distance.

Ms. Samatar holds several advanced degrees in language and literature, including Arabic and various African dialects, and you can feel the joy of her verbal artistry dancing on the page.

Stranger is not to be missed.

I absolutely love Sharon Shinn’s writing, both her luscious, sophisticated prose and the way she writes relationships between characters. She hits the perfect balance between well-planned, interesting plots, rich fantasy worlds, and the exact right amount of romantic subplot and character development.

This book—which follows a group of magic-wielding mystics and the reluctant, militaristic King’s Riders assigned to protect them as they travel the land, investigating a rise in anti-magic sentiment—is my favorite of her books, not least because it has some of the coziest found family dynamics and campfire friendships to be found outside of classics like The Lord of the Rings!