Here are 100 books that The Book fans have personally recommended if you like
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A while ago I lived with the extraordinary spiritual Findhorn community in Scotland and that experience opened my eyes to the mysteries that we are and that surround us. Subsequently, I became a professional travel guide writer and as I visited churches and megaliths, it gradually occurred to me that the ancients may have recorded information useful to us if only we could work out how to interpret it. Twenty years ago I settled in France, a country densely packed with extraordinary places. Here, I have been able to deepen my understanding of the universal, greater reality of which we are part.
If you want to be pleasingly perplexed for the rest of your life, start looking closely at Romanesque sculpture from the middle ages (preceding the more famous Gothic style). This doorstopper of a book covering all of Romanesque art and architecture is one place to begin. It’s a collection of essays by experts in the field but even if you don't read the text you can just enjoy the lavish photos that point to the most interesting churches to visit in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, Scandinavia, and central Europe. There is also an excellent pictorial feature explaining the basics of Romanesque building and decoration.
The Romanesque was the first period in medieval art to include all of Europe. It began around 1000 and did not end with the Staufen late Romanesque in Germany and Italy until about the middle of the thirteenth century. The borrowing of particular elements from Roman architecture, including the round arch, which is considered the hallmark of the Romanesque, led to the coining of the term "Romanesque.'? The majority of the works of architecture, sculpture and painting discussed in this volume can be properly understood only in the context of a Christian view of the world, and Christian way of…
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…
A while ago I lived with the extraordinary spiritual Findhorn community in Scotland and that experience opened my eyes to the mysteries that we are and that surround us. Subsequently, I became a professional travel guide writer and as I visited churches and megaliths, it gradually occurred to me that the ancients may have recorded information useful to us if only we could work out how to interpret it. Twenty years ago I settled in France, a country densely packed with extraordinary places. Here, I have been able to deepen my understanding of the universal, greater reality of which we are part.
One of the inspirations for Mystical France was this classic published in the 1970s, a guide to the earth mysteries and traditions of the British Isles by two photographers fascinated by standing stones, UFOs, and ley lines. It’s a matter-of-fact assembly of all the strange things they could find. The images are in black and white but this only adds to the aura of the places described. The text mainly consists of extended captions making it easy to pick up and flick through without having to commit to reading hefty chapters. As in the best-illustrated books, the words explain the pictures and the pictures explain the words with nothing superfluous.
A while ago I lived with the extraordinary spiritual Findhorn community in Scotland and that experience opened my eyes to the mysteries that we are and that surround us. Subsequently, I became a professional travel guide writer and as I visited churches and megaliths, it gradually occurred to me that the ancients may have recorded information useful to us if only we could work out how to interpret it. Twenty years ago I settled in France, a country densely packed with extraordinary places. Here, I have been able to deepen my understanding of the universal, greater reality of which we are part.
Every mystery hunter needs a guide to symbols and this profusely illustrated book is the best I have found so far. Symbols, by definition, point directly to the non-obvious aspects of a greater reality. In religious buildings they are a way to escape the material and approach the numinous, which is beyond the scope of words. Sometimes the meaning of a symbol is clear but in other cases the explanation has been forgotten and you need suggestions as how to interpret it. This is where this book comes in.
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…
A while ago I lived with the extraordinary spiritual Findhorn community in Scotland and that experience opened my eyes to the mysteries that we are and that surround us. Subsequently, I became a professional travel guide writer and as I visited churches and megaliths, it gradually occurred to me that the ancients may have recorded information useful to us if only we could work out how to interpret it. Twenty years ago I settled in France, a country densely packed with extraordinary places. Here, I have been able to deepen my understanding of the universal, greater reality of which we are part.
John Michell needs to be mentioned somewhere on my list for his pioneering work into seeing the earth as a living creature with which human beings interact. This is part of a legendary series of illustrated books, Art and the Imagination, which gives serious treatment to subjects that are too often treated in a less rigorous way. Each has an expert introduction and extended picture captions. Other titles cover astrology, alchemy, the Holy Grail, Tao, Zen, the mythical spiral, and sacred geoometry.
Since I was young, I’ve suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, coupled with chronic pain that surfaced when I was in middle school. Being in constant pain—mental and physical—obviously drains the spirit. I found no hope whatsoever in phrases such as, “It gets better.” When you have chronic pain, that statement means nothing, because you know it won’t. These books, however, offered me something that I hadn’t encountered before: someone acknowledging that, although it may never get better, there is still something for me here, whatever form it takes. These books do not shame depressives, they console (and even commiserate) with them, and I hope you find them as fulfilling as I have.
The Savage God destroyed me upon finishing it for the first time.
Alvarez travels through history in this non-fiction study, tracing the perceptions of suicide from ancient societies to the present day, all with an empathetic eye. Alvarez views suicide both as a societal phenomenon and an intimately personal experience.
His own experience with suicide so closely mirrored my own that I still remember the final pages of the book vividly. To be frank, the book’s a bit dated—it was written in the 70s and some of Alvarez’s comments (as well as his reverence of Freud) haven’t aged well. Nevertheless, the worthwhile sections—of which most of the book is composed—are unforgettable.
"Suicide," writes the notes English poet and critic A. Alvarez, "has permeated Western culture like a dye that cannot be washed out." Although the aims of this compelling, compassionate work are broadly cultural and literary, the narrative is rooted in personal experience: it begins with a long memoir of Sylvia Plath, and ends with an account of the author's own suicide attempt. Within this dramatic framework, Alvarez launches his enquiry into the final taboo of human behavior, and traces changing attitudes towards suicide from the perspective of literature. He follows the black thread leading from Dante through Donne and the…
I am fascinated by the things people do and the reasons they give for doing them. That people also do things in culturally specific ways and that their culturally specific ways of doing things are related to their culturally specific ideas about what makes sense and what does not inspires in me a sense of awe. As a professor and historian, thinking anthropologically has always been an important tool, because it helps me look for the hidden, cultural logics that guided the behavior of people in history. It helps me ask different questions. And it sharpens my sense of humility for the fundamental unknowability of this world we call home.
For me, the power of both history and anthropology as disciplines of knowledge is their shared capacity for taking a thing you thought you knew and showing you that you didn’t actually know anything about it at all—in fact, you didn’t even know what questions to ask about it. I would be seriously remiss in a list like this if I did not mention the book that first fascinated me, as a historian, with the anthropologist’s way of posing questions. In this towering classic of British social anthropology, Professor Douglas forces us completely to rethink something we actually never think about at all: dirt. But trust me, once you pose the question, “what is dirt?” you can never think about filth (and its structural counterpart, purity) in the same way again.
Is cleanliness next to godliness? What does such a concept really mean? Why does it recur as a universal theme across all societies? And what are the implications for the unclean?
In Purity and Danger Mary Douglas identifies the concern for purity as a key theme at the heart of every society. In lively and lucid prose she explains its relevance for every reader by revealing its wide-ranging impact on our attitudes to society, values, cosmology and knowledge. This book has been hugely influential in many areas of debate - from religion to social theory. With a specially commissioned preface…
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’m a Canadian science fiction writer who writes very, very slowly. I’m interested in experimental fiction and books that are unique, both thematically and stylistically. I’d like to think my books fall into this category, or at least that’s what I aspire to. I used to read science fiction exclusively, and the five books I’ve listed here were all read during those formative years; they were fundamental stepping-stones for me, as a writer, and each of them left a profound mark on my idea of how good, or effective, novels can be.
Hand’s sentences are always beautiful, and this novel, her first, is dense with new ideas and original imagery. She evokes a bizarre future in a post-apocalyptic city where twins go on a hallucinogenic quest. Reads like a somewhat disturbing mythology. Gods and talking animals, autistic prophets, feral children, and death is personified. Unforgettable.
The “sensuous and evocative” debut of the Nebula Award–winning author of Waking the Moon: A dystopian journey through a world unburdened by moral taboos (Library Journal). Set in the surreal, post-apocalyptic City of Trees, Winterlong centers on Wendy Wanders, a girl who can tap into the dreams and emotions of the people around her, and her long-lost twin brother, Raphael, a seductive, sacred courtesan to the City’s decadent elite. During their voyage, they encounter man-made and godlike monstrosities—both hideous and gorgeous—in their effort to stop an ancient power from consuming all. Blending science fiction and fantasy, Winterlong is a dark…
Back in the dark ages, before the internet and cell phones, the most common form of off-duty soldiers’ entertainment was reading. I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on, but I was always most excited to read fantasy and science fiction. If a book has a wild new world, magic, or tech, I’m in and usually can’t get enough. I remain a cross-genre reader to this day, but fantasy and science fiction always feel like home. Bonus points for dragons.
This fantastic desert world where fire magic is common, but taboo, sucked me in right from the start. Although the main character is a young adult, I connected with her right off the bat. Her struggles as a possessor of fire magic and learning to control it, are daunting, but I couldn’t help rooting for her. Then, there are many strange and dangerous creatures to boot. I was left guessing and worrying if she’d succeed right to the end.
At age five, I was reading under the blankets with a flashlight far past my bedtime. It’s an often told story of how I believed I was getting away with something while my makeshift tent, held up by my head, was lit up like a snowglobe. By age eleven, when I picked up my aunt’s book, I discovered romance novels. I was hooked. I’ve read thousands of romance novels in the almost four decades that have since passed, and I’ve learned that each person who reads a book takes something different from it, and I hope these five books that gave so much to me, might do the same for you.
I loved the entire series for which this book is the fourth, but this book ensured that I can never go back and read the series again; it hurt that much. Still. I loved it. The characters in this series are family in the deepest, most loving and loyal sense of the word, and it is that sense of family that drives the storyline of this book. This series is sexy and taboo, and yet the biggest thing I took from it was the love and trust that pulsed between them. I wondered, often, if there could not have been a different way, if the author could not have chosen a different storyline, but it is in the difficulties that we sometimes find the stunning. And this story was stunningly beautiful.
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…
While The Woman in the Sun Hat is my debut novel, as a seasoned playwright, I have often gravitated to character studies in a variety of genres, usually blending comedy with pathos. What was exciting for me in writing a novel was that I could really explore an even more nuanced arc of the central character. I am a Brooklyn, NY-based Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Actor, and Poet. Recent publications include my play Day of the Dog (Broadway Play Publishing) and my debut poetry collection 104 Days of the Pandemic (fandango 4 Art House). My latest novel is Graphic Nature, due out later in 2022.
While, yes, this is not a novel, there is a true character journey in reading the complete works of Ms. Sexton in sequence; a sort of poetic analysis the likes of which I have not read to such a soul-baring degree, as she depicts her thoughts and struggles with marriage, relationships, motherhood, her own parents and various other facets of her life. To me, Ms. Sexton is very much the symbol of what became the confessional poetry movement. The eloquence and depth of her writing, especially in poems like " The Double Image", "Flee on Your Donkey" and " For My Lover Returning to His Wife", are remarkable.
The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton comprises the poet's ten volumes of verse, including the Pulitzer Prize-winner Live or Die, as well as seven poems from her last years.
From the joy and anguish of her own experience, Sexton fashioned poems that told truths about the inner lives of men and women.
"Women poets in particular owe a debt to Anne Sexton, who broke new ground, shattered taboos, and endured a barrage of attacks along the way because of the flamboyance of her subject matter...Sexton has earned her place in the canon."—from the Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin
