Here are 100 books that The Boy with a Bird in His Chest fans have personally recommended if you like
The Boy with a Bird in His Chest.
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When I was young, I used to ask every new person I met if they believed in magic. No caveats, no explanation of what I meant by that. Their response – generally either an unequivocal no, a tentative what does that mean, or a delighted yes, cemented the direction of our relationship.
One of my favorite quotes is Yeats’ statement that “the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” This conviction fuels my writing and my life. Whatever genre I write is informed first by magic, and there is no higher form of magic than the natural world and the science that explores it.
First of all, how could anyone not love a book with an author’s name like that?
This book was on display mere inches from me while I was signing books at an exceptionally enchanting indie bookstore called Sudden Fiction in Castle Rock, Colorado. I couldn’t wait for the signing to be over so I could get a copy for myself. And it did not disappoint, the contents being as beguiling as the cover.
Sheldrake describes not only the incredible and seemingly irrepressible capacity fungi have for survival and thrival (yep, I made that word up), but also encourages us to practice the same spells. I may have to become a mycologist in my next iteration – it’s good to remake oneself every few months, I think.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems.
“Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday
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 started in publishing at the Advocate magazine, twenty years ago in its heyday, then moved to Alyson Books, who first published Emma Donoghue among many others, offering a place for queer writers showcasing queer stories to find their audience. Afterwards, I became involved with Gertrude literary journal, a beloved, 25-year-old non-profit, LGBTQA journal that has now evolved to The Gertrude Conference. All the while, I read, wrote, and supported queer stories, like these gems!
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’?
"If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives."
From the brilliant mind of Charlie Jane Anders ("A master absurdist"-New York Times; "Virtuoso"-NPR) comes a new novel of Kafkaesque futurism. Set on a planet that has fully definitive, never-changing zones of day and night, with ensuing extreme climates of endless, frigid darkness and blinding, relentless light, humankind has somehow continued apace-though the perils outside the built cities are rife with danger as much as the streets below.
But in a world where time means only what the ruling…
I’ve been a science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. As someone who never quite felt like I fit in, these stories became a kind of refuge and revelation for me. They taught me that being on the outside looking in can be its own kind of superpower—the ability to see the world differently, to question it, and to imagine something better. I’m drawn to characters who are flawed, searching, and human, because they remind me that courage and belonging are choices we make, not gifts we’re given. That’s the heart of every story I love and the kind I try to write.
From the first page, this story felt intimate and infinite all at once.
It’s written like a love letter and a battlefield, all at once. What I loved most was how it turned connection into an act of defiance, how two people trapped by duty and ideology choose to reach across time anyway.
Every line feels deliberate, like poetry disguised as science fiction. I was completely undone by how much humanity could fit into such a small space.
It reminded me that love, friendship, and understanding don’t need to make sense to be real; they just need to be chosen, again and again.
WINNER OF The Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella, the Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella AND The British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella
SHORTLISTED FOR 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award The Ray Bradbury Prize Kitschies Red Tentacle Award Kitschies Inky Tentacle Brave New Words Award
'A fireworks display from two very talented storytellers' Madeline Miller, author of Circe
Co-written by two award-winning writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I’ve always wanted my work to have meaning beyond the paycheck, and for some reason, my mind automatically seems to drift toward the bigger picture. During my career, I have watched environmental issues change from being distant concerns to a flat-out crisis that we may well have ignored until it is too late. I think the issue of humanity being able to thrive with respect for each other, other species, and the planet itself is the one that matters most.
When I started reading this book, I thought, ‘I don’t even care if it’s a load of rubbish, because it feels so good just to read something nice about our species for a change’. A bonus is that, far from rubbish, it turns out to be extremely well-grounded and evidence-based.
I found this challenge to the negative stories we tell about human nature to be so refreshing and uplifting.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Daily Express Book of the Year
'Hugely, highly and happily recommended' Stephen Fry 'You should read Humankind. You'll learn a lot (I did) and you'll have good reason to feel better about the human race' Tim Harford 'Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective' Yuval Noah Harari
It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have…
I’m chronically ill. Whether I’m swept up, terrified, swooning, or trying to solve a mystery, I love my fiction to take me elsewhere. The dichotomy of wanting to share my experiences, discuss disability, open up the conversation around the topic, and have others lose themselves in story has been a fine line I’ve walked with all of my work. With Joyce, I wanted to bring grief and disability to life in a more resonate way. The words pain and fatigue mean drastically different things to different people. When magic is involved, it transcends your definition or mine, allowing us to focus on the experience with less personal context.
Some say this book is horror. I recommend it not as a horror book, but as a glimpse into illness, grief, and uncertainty through the lens of magical realism.
I see the moments along the way that are scary, but for me, those are just jump pads to the action of living, of existing, of the complicated state of being unwell, and how love will allow you to accept more than you thought you were capable of.
Does Julia know she showcased the slow decline of a chronically ill person in the way she did? I do not know. But as a chronically ill person myself, I saw poignant vignettes of tenderness around the topic.
Though the dual storylines, the unknown, the fear, are interesting and creative, it’s the quiet moments between two women who love each other, just wondering what’s next, that will stay with you.
Named as book to look out for in 2022 by Guardian, i-D, Autostraddle, Bustle, Good Housekeeping, Stylist and DAZED.
Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.
To have the woman she loves back should mean a return…
Between my upbringing and my personal flavors of mental health, I spent a good portion of my adult life trying to perfect myself, whether by suppressing my queerness or by going to extremes with the facets of my personality that others liked best. The last five or six years have been devoted to unpacking those thought processes, and reclaiming a life guided by kindness towards myself and others. I believe books are crucial to the introspection, expansion, and connection we all crave so much; I know they’ve been indispensable to me in rediscovering my own heart.
This book became an instant favorite for the way it zeroes in on each of the four titular cities—only one of which I’d ever heard of—and sifts its layers in a way that makes it feel alive from top to bottom. Reading through it was a beautiful reminder of how little we know about the past, and yet, how similar our ancestors are to us in the things that are important to them. The gift of this book is its curiosity and tenderness towards its subjects, and it inspires the same open-mindedness.
In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the centre of a sophisticated civilisation: the Neolithic site of Catalhoeyuk in Central Turkey, the Roman town of Pompeii on Italy's southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia and the indigenous American metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.
Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
Reading was my one true refuge in a childhood marked by uncertainty and chaos, which was also my gateway to writing; I wanted to create the kinds of stories that also saved me, and I found the novel to be my form. Fortunately, I grew up a feral GenXer in Northern California in the 70s and 80s, before computers and video games were handheld, with plenty of time to dream. I was drawn to fierce and outspoken characters, girls and women standing up against powerful forces, and parallel or alternate realities where bad guys are beaten. I hope you’ll find power and inspiration in the badass protagonist of these books!
Witches and women and underground societies? Yes, please! I love this book, which explores the idea that the very qualities that often make women so special—their sensitivity, empathy and ability to connect to nature and others—is often seen as a threat by men in power.
Disagreeable, independent, outspoken women have long been called witches—what would it look like if they actually were? That kept me reading until my eyes were red and sandy and rooted for the protagonist who fears her own power as much as she craves it.
'For fans of Margaret Atwood' Elle 'Thoughtful...wry, magical' Guardian 'brimming with wonder' Raven Leilani, author of Luster
Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother's disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behaviour raises suspicions and a woman-especially a Black woman - can find herself on trial for witchcraft.
But fourteen years have passed since her mother's disappearance, and now Jo is finally ready to let go…
I’m a queer, nonbinary writer who has always loved reading and writing speculative fiction, whether it be dystopian novels, sci-fi, fantasy, and beyond. I think speculative fiction is such an effective and creative way to hold a mirror up to our society, explore traumatic and heavy themes, and ultimately, show us what it means to be a person, no matter how strange or unfamiliar the world is. Like many millennials, I grew up reading that awful transphobic woman’s magical series but soon realized how limiting that series was, and how there were so many better, smarter, more inclusive books out there, especially those that center queer and trans characters and know how to break my heart ten times over.
Full disclosure, I blurbed this knockout of a novel, and I would do it one hundred times over. It takes place in a near-future dystopia ravaged by climate change. However, a billionaire TERF has started a new climate relief program called Inside, which promises a safe and hopeful future for its members (but we all know that’s far from the real story).
Following an unforgettable cast of diverse characters, including some who get accepted to Inside, this book is at once suspenseful, haunting, and revelatory. It’s about queer community, survival, chosen family, paternalism, the harms of white feminism, parenting, freedom vs. control, and hope, always, always hope. It’s highly propulsive, and you’ll probably read it in one sitting just like I did.
The year is 2050. Ava and her girlfriend live in what's left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it's hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world. Soon, it won't be safe outside at all. The only people guaranteed survival are the ones whose applications are accepted to The Inside Project, a series of weather-safe, city-sized structures around the world.
Jacqueline Millender is a reclusive billionaire/women’s rights advocate, and thanks to a generous donation, she’s just become the director of the Inside being built on the bones of Manhattan. Her ideas are…
Like all of us, I was raised on promises, and now I’ve veered off to another perspective. I love football. I played in high school, college, and for a brief time, in the NFL (didn’t make the final roster!) Philosophy has been a life-long pursuit, but I didn’t find what I was looking for: the truth. Except for the existentialists, most of it is a mere history of how mankind thought. But philosophy has taught me how to examine the essence of important issues. That’s why I wrote a book about tribalism, because to me, tribalism is the strongest dynamic in humanity and morality is subordinate to tribalism.
Back to fiction. I loved how everyone, including the adorable young woman from a hardscrabble background, Charlotte, took their own big bite of hypocrisy pie. Everyone, except for one character, did it and I’m not going to spoil it for you (it was the star basketball player.) I think I’ve read everything Tom Wolfe had ever written and this is his finest work. This novel took me on a ride, I was there, the emotions I felt reading it were visceral and real. At the end, the feeling I had was—what the hell is college all about? And then I answered myself: it’s four years of summer camp and I can’t wait until my youngest graduates.
A scandalous exploration of elite undergraduate life from the author of The Bonfire of the Vanities
Dupont University: the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from Sparta, North Carolina, who has come here on a full scholarship. But Charlotte soon learns that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, status, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.
As Charlotte encounters Dupont's elite, she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I am uniquely qualified to assemble this list because I gave my heart and head to the fictional and true West in fourth grade. When I learned California history, enraptured by images of wild horses and vaqueros, the cruelty of bear and bullfighting (no one talked then about cruelty to “converted” Native Americans), and the myth of Zorro. I grabbed the chance to move to the cowgirl state of Nevada, where I learned to love the scents of sagebrush and alkali flats. Research for my fiction and non-fiction has given me license to ride in a Pony Express reenactment and 10-day cattle drive and spend all night bottle-feeding an orphan mustang.
When I taught Developmental Reading (aka English for Gang Members) in Los Angeles, this book made them cry. Sad stories that include animals can jab straight into the most sheltered heart, while books about suffering humans only evoke yawns.
Reading this as an adult, it’s clearly NOT a horse story, but that’s its camouflage. There’s a lot of death in this book–a beloved pony, an old man with a stolen old horse, a mare giving birth, and the main character’s innocence. Childhood innocence dies over and over again. Just when his faith in what matters resurfaces, it gets smacked down again. The older I get, the more this book hurts.
Jody, the boy at the center of all 3 parts of the book (there are different versions of the book…some have 4 parts), wants to put the adults in his life on pedestals, but his father is as callous as…
Written at a time of profound anxiety caused by the illness of his mother, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck draws on his memories of childhood in these stories about a boy who embodies both the rebellious spirit and the contradictory desire for acceptance of early adolescence. Unlike most coming-of-age stories, the cycle does not end with a hero "matured" by circumstances. As John Seelye writes in his introduction, reversing common interpretations, The Red Pony is imbued with a sense of loss. Jody's encounters with birth and death express a common theme in Steinbeck's fiction: They are parts…
