Here are 100 books that The Castle fans have personally recommended if you like
The Castle.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I am a philosopher and writer, but I have equally been a soldier, designer, educator, and farmer. Thus, I am a product of this history. At the center of my gravity are concerns with environmental and climatic issues, conflict reduction, social justice, and political change predicated upon conditions of sustainability. I live in Australia but have worked in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have written over twenty books because I am driven to understand the complexity of the world in which I live. I am an activist, and so I strive to act affirmatively based on the knowledge I have gained.
First published in Italy in 1972, it arrived in English two years later and is now regarded as a classic. It is based on a fiction journey by Kublai Khan to over fifty cities, each with particular features and qualities: they are all fictional. However, they all in some way reflect the character of Venice.
What makes it one of my favorite books is the way its evocative language animates a world of imagination. What unfolds is fantastic rather than fantasy. It has inspired my own writing, and I have recently written a companion workâDisappearing Cities. It also is a collection of short stories engaging around fifty imaginary cities. It is now with my publisher. Besides the influence of Calvino, it was also prompted by two books mentioned above: Amitav Ghosh fusion of climate change and fiction, and Ailton Krenak evocation of stories that postpone the end ofâŠ
In Invisible Cities Marco Polo conjures up cities of magical times for his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, but gradually it becomes clear that he is actually describing one city: Venice. As Gore Vidal wrote 'Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvellous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant.'
In an underground coal mine in Northern Germany, over forty scribes who are fluent in different languages have been spared the camps to answer letters to the deadâletters that people were forced to answer before being gassed, assuring relatives that conditions in the camps were good.Â
I am a lifelong lover of books. As a child, one of my most prized possessions was my library card. It gave me entrance to a world of untold wonders from the past, present, and future. My love of reading sparked my imagination and led me to my own fledgling writing efforts. I come from a family of storytellers, my mother being the chief example. She delighted us with stories from her childhood and her maturation in the rural South. She was an excellent mimic, which added realism and humor to every tale.Â
This book is part odyssey, part ghost story, and part passion play. Toni Morrison is one of the patron saints of American literature whom I was fortunate to discover at an early age. This is her masterpiece, an example of what is possible when a writerâs heart, mind, and spirit are aligned.
The fact that the unfathomable sacrifice around which Beloved is imagined is based upon an actual event speaks volumes about the innate horrors of slavery. In matters of race, Americaâs skeletons are buried in shallow graves.
'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times
Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved
It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit herâŠ
Iâm a human being who struggles with feeling human. When I was 17, I got my brain pretty shaken up after a traumatic event, causing a swathe of memory loss and mental health problems. How do you regain a sense of yourself when chunks of your childhood memories, your skills, and your sense of self have disappeared? Here are some books that grapple with that question, and others.
I believe this book is one of the classic staples of surreal fiction. Its disjointed, spiraling narrative and sprawling non-linear plot lines challenge the definition of what a âbookâ is. It uses everything from footnotes to text alignment to color schemes to make the act of reading itself increasingly difficult, which matches the houseâs influence on the narratorsâ memories and interests.
Reading it for me was like learning Latin or watching Casablancaâit gave context to decades of experimental media inspired by it, from TV shows to DOOM game mods. Love it or hate it, itâs a solid tool for any inhumanâs toolkit.Â
âA novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.â âThe New York Times
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,âŠ
In an underground coal mine in Northern Germany, over forty scribes who are fluent in different languages have been spared the camps to answer letters to the deadâletters that people were forced to answer before being gassed, assuring relatives that conditions in the camps were good.Â
Iâm a human being who struggles with feeling human. When I was 17, I got my brain pretty shaken up after a traumatic event, causing a swathe of memory loss and mental health problems. How do you regain a sense of yourself when chunks of your childhood memories, your skills, and your sense of self have disappeared? Here are some books that grapple with that question, and others.
I grew up with and write horror stories, so itâs very difficult for a book to unnerve me; this is one of the only books I can think of that earns the honor. It is half an ecological text and half a horror story, with its romantic prose balanced by intense natural research to create a surreal, unnerving description of the natural world.
This book made me hyper-aware of everything from the grass outside my window to the cells that make up my body, and I love how it uses both existential horror and the real, biological horror of being a living creature to leave a lasting unease. Are you aware youâre breathing? Can you feel your tongue in your mouth? Your heartâs nonstop beating? You can, now.
THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC
For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness.
The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic.
Iâve been told Iâm a visionary, but labels are of little significance to me. What I know for sure is that Iâm a storyteller of the visionary variety, who has won numerous awards in that genre. Dating back to cave dwellers, myth-tellers, and folk minstrels, visionary authors have been consciously or unconsciously laying paths and building bridges between paradigms for eons. Such bridges are constructed of new language, perilous journeys, and transformative visions. My particular stories connect the path of perceived human limitations to true, unlimited potential. My characters are quirky, endearing, and often funny. They are each of us stumbling through an infinite, low-lying thicket for higher purpose. Until one day, we look up.
This is a timeless visionary tale of the power of otherness.
Its hero, Moojie Littleman, struggles through life with physical handicaps that pale in comparison to the social handicaps of the grownups who are supposed to be caring for him. His is a heroâs journey about light and love, the power to heal, and the moral convictions that are only revealed in solitude.
Young Moojie, a disappointment even to himself, must look beyond his life circumstances for the answers he seeks. He must be open to new friends, new dimensions, and new possibilities. He must learn to employ his otherness as a tool, not only of survival, but of abundance.
The lyrical prose and unique voice of this tale enhance the strong character and storylines that are sure to inspire generations of young adults and older readers alike. Author, Robin Gregory, is an exceptional storyteller in the classical styleâŠ
Moojie Littleman is not just another disabled orphan, he is not just a kid who falls into a series of magical, mystical adventures involving goats, bees, and watermelons. He is, above all, the most unlikely hero ever known. Through friendship with alien outcasts, Moojie discovers his healing powers and a surprising destiny ... if only he can survive one, last terrifying trial.
Welcome to Moojie's mythical world of mayhem and merriment, where miracles are standard fare, mistaken identity is rampant, and the desire to belong can be dangerous.
From screenwriter and award-winning novelist, Robin Gregory, comes a masterful debut aboutâŠ
As the fourth âoldest daughterâ in my motherline, and my interest in genealogy and family history, my trajectory was set decades ago to become the keeper of the family letters, telegrams, photos, pilot logbooks, and stories. After researching
what happened to the three brothers lost during WWII, I also have casualty, missions reports, and more. Before publishing the first book, I had bylines in newspapers and magazines, and Iâve blogged regularly for several years. Because of the wealth of historic photos and stories, I began history Facebook pages for three Iowa counties, as well as one for cousins to share memories and photos. If you enjoy family stories, youâll enjoy the books on this list.
I'm drawn to family stories and saw the author interviewed on a local TV station, so I knew I'd enjoy reading her book. It's a story that needed sharing, about sisters who immigrated from Germany. The much younger one (Bernadine) was so ambivalent about leaving Germany, about being left behind in Iowa when the older sister (Elizabeth) married and moved away. Even after marrying and having so many children of her own, then was widowed, Bernadine struggled.
Bernadine's life became even more fascinating after she married a man who wasn't really as she'd thought. And there were unpleasant surprises with two adult daughters. By then, I'd forgotten about the original secret, so when it was revealed, it came as a surprise.
From author, Diane Holmes, comes a story inspired by the life of her grandmother, Bernadine. In this work of historical fiction, the relationship between Bernadine and her older sister Elizabeth is complicated. Bitterness between them develops when Elizabeth asks Bernadine to keep a deep dark secret about her past. The author shows throughout the novel how the impact of keeping that secret is far greater for the one sister than it is for the other. The bitterness is intensified when the younger sister must leave her home in Germany and say goodbye to her best friend, Judith.
I am a philosophy post-doc at Unesp and a poet who has always felt that politics is not the exclusive business of politicians; that violence is not the exclusive business of warfare or of âvulgarâ people, say, drunkards in bars. Violence, I have felt while doing philosophy in the USA, Brazil, Germany, and France, is likewise expressed by well-educated and apparently âpeacefulâ philosophers who are engaged in implicit politics and practice âsubtleâ violence. To handle the relation between politics and metaphysics is to do justice to this feeling. The Politics of Metaphysics, I hope, does that. I believe that though more tacitly, the same is done by this listâs books.
I love this book because it problematizes a popular assumption among contemporary Anglo-American authors who like to call themselves âanalytic philosophersâ and who only care to acknowledge the existence of a few past philosophers, e.g., Russell and Ryle. The assumption is that philosophers, such as the latter two, tackled in an apolitical ânobleâ fashion metaphysical matters.
Akehurst, by his turn, indicates how the likes of Russell and Ryle aligned themselves with a right-wing British policy whose âvulgarâ propaganda is echoed throughout works published by British philosophers in the first half of the 20th century.
Also, I appreciate Akehurstâs way of showing that while contributing to the creation of the so-called âanalytic-continental gap,â this attitude helped to naturalize the attribution of the shortness of logos to German philosophers like Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.Â
British Analytic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century examines three generations of analytic philosophers, who between them founded the modern discipline of analytic philosophy in Britain. The book explores how philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin believed in a link between German aggression in the twentieth century and the nineteenth-century philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche. Thomas L. Akehurst thus identifies in this political critique of continental philosophy the origins of the hugely significant faultline between analytic and continental thought, an aspect of twentieth-century philosophy that is still poorly understood. The book also uncovers a tripartiteâŠ
I wrote my first romance with >40 characters in my mid-forties. It wasnât like I never saw people of my age in the genre, but I have to say they were (and are) still rare, especially in traditionally published books. I love to see how people navigate what partnership looks like when people are established and their conflicts and experiences have changed. Elder care, relationships with adult children, fighting age-related stereotypes and discrimination: these are just a few of the nuances that set these types of books apart. But you still get that delicious well of emotion and the satisfaction of a happy ending.
A historical sapphic novella with women over 60? And theyâre going to get revenge on a very bad man in very inventive ways? Do you really need me to sell this book harder to you?
Okay, fine: itâs Courtney Milan, whose wit, creativity, and compassion for humanity in general and her characters specifically always awe me. Iâm pretty sure thereâs nothing Courtney couldnât do.Â
Mrs. Bertrice Martinâa widow, some seventy-three years youngâhas kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew.Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of nine and sixty, crashes into her life. The Terrible Nephew is living in her rooming house, and Violetta wants him gone.Mrs. Martin isnât about to start giving damns, not even for someone as intriguing as Miss Violetta. But she hatches another planâto make her nephew sorry, to make MissâŠ
Growing up, books and music became a refuge for the feelings I found I couldn't express aloud. I loved artists like Garbage and The Dresden Dolls. I felt most at home in stories about female angst, sexuality, and rage. Female stories helped me understand the dichotomy of the madonna/whore complex. They helped me understand where my emotions clashed with societal expectations, and how to push at those boundaries in a constructive way. I've always been fascinated with female rage, and stories that poke a stick into the body of the "good girl" stereotype always make for a cathartic and validating read. Females can be anti-heroes too.
Thanks to my religious conservative upbringing, I grew up naive and innocent. I learned a lot about life really quick when I entered college. I partied and made mistakes and definitely have my fair share of shame and regret.
However, reading this book even as an adult was still eye-opening. Life of the Party follows Mia, a fashion student living in Milan who lives the most chaotic life imaginable. She parties hard. She drinks endlessly. She wears outfits I'd never dare try on.
Mia couldn't be anything like rigid careful me, but I still resonated with her choices. I empathized with her trauma. I reveled in every small victory she has. Mia helped me realize just how much of the female experience is universal.
Life of the Party will leave you with a hangover and a "VIP" stamp on your heart. Hacic crafts a Beat novel for the Instagram generation.
This dark comedy dives into the underbelly of Milanese fashion and nightlife, through the eyes of Mia, a young expat. She came to Milan to escape her problems but only found more glamorous ones... Mia indulges in the highs and lows Milanese decadence can offer. Between fashion class and clubbing, her narcissistic boss and abusive boyfriend push her to face bleak reality. Life of the Party asks, can you lose your innocence if youâŠ
As a historical romance reader, Iâm a sucker for stories about the glamorous aristocracy falling in love. While Regency and Victorian romances have explored feminism for at least the last two decades, the genre often falls short of asking more of itself. Of course the debutante shouldnât need a man â but while the story liberates her, it doesnât take any notice of the non-aristocratic, non-Anglican, non-White, less-abled, and/or non-cishet straight characters around her. I yearned for stories that required my favorite aristocrats to acknowledge, examine, and leverage their privilege. All five of these authors deliver â without forgetting our favorite tropes and genre conventions!
When I pick up a Courtney Milan historical romance, I know I will be hit in the heart with a story that is as insightful as it is moving.
The only question was which of her books to include in this list!
I choseThe Duke Who Didnât because it explores class, race, and gender roles in the delightful setting of a small town in the English countryside hosting an annual sports festival.
The plot reckons with the aristocratâs responsibility to his people, the challenges and joys of a working-class community, and the exploitation of non-British identities for profit.
And because it is a Courtney Milan novel, it does so with plenty of clever tropes and swoon-worthy romance!
