70 Books Like The Confessions

Every couple of years–or whenever I’m feeling very blue–I pick up Dicken’s novel and reacquaint myself with the beguiling Samuel Pickwick, Esq., the only saint whose company I can bear. Samuel is a retired businessman who now wants to enjoy life with a jolly band of dim misfits like himself, and they set off for adventures across Britain.

Mainly, though, his jolly naïveté gets them into scrapes. Pickwick is a true innocent, ignorant of the ways of men and ignorant of himself. And so, in the end, he must be bailed out by the less deceived. Yes, ignorance can be bliss for beautiful souls–but only if someone else is driving.

“This book was written in good faith, reader.” It’s hard not to love a book that begins with a lie. Written in the late 16th century, during the Wars of Religion, Montaigne’s Essays purport to be the occasional, delightful jottings of a distracted nobleman.

In fact, his large ambition was to ease his readers into a revolutionary new way of thinking about themselves that would temper their passions. He wanted to persuade us that we are always changing our feelings and, tastes and ideas; the only thing constant seems to be our inconstancy. And “that’s ok,” purrs Montaigne, because I’m the same way. Forget sin, you can’t be fully responsible for yourself. Forget heaven, learn to live happy on earth. Saint Augustine fumes….

The Oedipus myth, which seems so familiar to us, shakes me every time I return to the version written by ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus. The reason is that no one in the story is to blame for the carnage that ensues. At the center of the tragedy is Oedipus, who does and does not want to know the truth about himself: that he unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.

I am struck over and over again by the intricate ruses he uses against himself, and which we are all susceptible to. I put the book down every time, wondering if self-knowledge is always such a good thing and what I might be hiding from myself.

No work of the great psychologist Sigmund Freud has been more maligned than this book. When the first edition was published in Germany, it was rightly hailed as a literary masterpiece. But Freud kept expanding it over the years, aiming to make it more “scientific,” but only managed to turn it into a turgid object of mockery.

My first attempts to read the final edition all failed. But when, a few decades ago, a fresh and highly accessible English translation of the first edition was published (by Oxford University Press) all my simple minded views about self-knowledge and self-deceit underwent a transformation. It was like growing a new set of eyes.

This book recommendation is a bit unusual because it is not officially a children’s book, but I promise your kids will love it!

When I taught third grade, I had this book in my classroom, and it was a very hot commodity during independent reading time (although it wasn’t so much read as marveled at). With stunning, close-up images of all the planets, as well as moons, comets, asteroids, and more, this book will inspire your children to consider the magnificence of God’s creation and God himself as the one who created it all!

This is a book you’ll want to have out on a table, ready to be explored and discussed as a family. I guarantee you and your kids will be fascinated!

I absolutely love reading this book to my son. No matter how many times we read it, he keeps asking for us to read it again! He went through a phase (pun intended!) where he was obsessed with the moon and wanted to learn all about it.

This book is educational and teaches kids about the moon, but it is still a fun and engaging read with adorable illustrations. 

I especially love reading historically important scientific works themselves. Reading them, you participate in the thinking of a great scientist and get a feeling for the thinker. Many of these are accessible to the general reader, among them this book, an important contribution to the creation of modern science.

It so angered the Pope that he turned Galileo over to the Roman Inquisition, who found him guilty of heresy for not-so-subtly arguing the truth of Copernicus’ theory that the Earth is not motionless at the center of the universe, as was then believed and defended by the Church but moves around the Sun just like all the other planets. In exchange for publicly recanting this view, he was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. 

Whimsical but devilishly accurate, authors Olivia Koski and Jana Grcevich take you on a journey through the solar system as told from the perspective of an overzealous travel agent. Ski Mercury's volcanic sands; paraglide through Venus' clouds; explore Europa's deep-sea oceans. Vacation Guide to the Solar System is the "official" guide from the Intergalactic Travel Bureau. Although the book is written tongue-in-cheek, filled with campy illustrations reminiscent of 1950s travel guides, you will learn critical details of our neighboring planets and moons. There's so much to see and do on Mars. But danger lurks: Although you'll feel only 38% of your weight climbing the cliffs of the Valles Marineris (the largest canyon in the solar system), you can still fall to your death, as they are four miles high. 

This is a great book to start your little ones on their very first space adventure. Tish Rabe takes the Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat character on a journey to teach children about the planets, the moon, and the sun. But it doesn’t stop there! The book also touches on famous constellations, the moon landing, and lots of cool and wacky facts about the solar system. Neptune’s bright blue color and Saturn’s incredible lightness are just a few of the fun snippets of space knowledge scattered throughout the book. Wonderful illustrations combined with whimsical prose will keep young readers turning the pages. 

“But there’s a lot to discover, and it might be you who looks up in the sky and finds something that’s new!”

I find this book the most engaging and innovative among several others by the same bestselling author for its novel approach to historical writing.

In her signature style of explaining key scientific concepts in accessible and enjoyable terms, the author integrates into one of the most fascinating histories of the so-called Scientific Revolution of early modern Europe and the Sun-centered universe proposed by Nicolas Copernicus and published by his pupil Rheticus, a two-act play.

Set as an imaginary dialogue between them next to a few others, mostly in their own terms, is an effective way of retelling that fascinating story.