100 Books Like The Eden Express

This might be my favorite book ever, and while it is not about business, career, or personal development, it speaks to me about the power of opening our eyes and seeing a world filled with possibilities.

I believe in our ability to explore, wonder, and imagine what could be possible.

This American classic by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Larry McMurtry, is read by university students worldwide. It’s set in its own time of indulgent decadence where little value is placed on the lives of individuals met by Danny Deck, the sad-sack protagonist, who denigrates his published work to the point of tearing up a copy of the novel he carries with him before drowning his own sorry self in the river of the Rio Grande. Yet, Danny is as much at fault for the sloppy treatment of the company he keeps as his company is for being disingenuous.   

What McMurtry calls normal life, or mundane happiness, through the voice of novelist Deck, is seen as obtainable if one wants to pursue the creative arts. His conclusion is that the two simply don’t mix. As he explores this idea in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, Deck sets about self-destructing, which has nothing to do… show more.

Before I was an author, I was primarily a national magazine copy editor, a job I finally scored after eight years of climbing up the magazine journalism ladder.

I wrote once in a while, but this mostly meant TV recaps by the time I was entrenched in magazines. But one day, an article about a safe-driving activist crossed my desk, and soon I was speaking with him in high schools.

Around the time I checked off “swim the width of a river” from my father’s bucket list, I also read Huckleberry Finn, as the setting seemed only right. I wrote a tribute to it in the second chapter of my book. My dad’s favorite author was Twain, but what I appreciated about him was that he wrote the novel as veiled propaganda. It’s a book that professes Twain’s anti-racism perspective. He just put his cause into a novel.

I… show more.

The “Knight Prisoner” Malory must have found the world a tough place to get along, and his collected work, which publisher William Caxton didn’t know what to make of, is a veritable bible of striving amidst chaos. From the early tale of “Balin or the Knight with Two Swords,” in which the hapless hero, involved in a fast-moving pursuit through a castle, unwittingly delivers the Dolorous Stroke, blighting the world, to the piteous tale of the “Morte d’Arthur,” in which the knights of the round table turn against each other, all is confusion. In between can be read “The Tale of Sir Gareth” and the story of La Cote Male Tayle, which seem identical – but are they? Why is everything so easy for Sir Gareth and so difficult for LCMT? The answer may very well provide the key to life itself. Be sure to read these stories in the… show more.

This is the funniest book I’ve ever read. The hero, Ebenezer Cooke, seeks to earn his estate in colonial Maryland, in spite of losing it by a misplaced act of justice (the Dolorous Stroke of the story). Nearly every important man he meets turns out to be his childhood tutor in disguise. Nearly all the women in the book are prostitutes. Pure mayhem.

This book remains the pinnacle of memoirs, in my opinion.

Didion’s ability to weave biting social commentary with vivid, unforgettable anecdotes continues to inspire me. I’m grateful to my creative nonfiction professor, Michael Hofmann, for assigning this book. Her language is rich, precise, and full of wit, and it kept me hanging on every word until the very end.

Here we see Jonathan Franzen, the master of the family novel, at it again. Like all of Franzen’s books, this one is both hilarious and poignant. Though it tips the scale at nearly 600 pages, I blew through it in a day or two, amazed by Franzen’s plot-making abilities and his keen insights into the human condition.

Bonus points for The Corrections and Freedom, either of which could easily have made this list, too. 

Popularised as a 1960s counterculture book, its author, Brautigan, playfully breaks all the rules in a modern Dadaistic style of commentary which is a sort of stream of consciousness that verges on playful and purposeful madness. Thoughts of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass come to mind when trying to make any sense of this author’s zany work here. In a word: trout? No trout. This is no commentary about fishing. It’s a mishmash of essay-like commentaries on an ‘on the road’ lifestyle which does occasionally mention fishing.

This is an inciteful and practical guide, written by clinical psychologist Xavier Amador, that addresses anosognosia—the common inability of people with severe mental illness to recognize their condition. Drawing on his own experience as both a clinician and a family member of someone with schizophrenia, Amador offers compassionate advice for helping loved ones accept treatment without coercion. No small feat when the symptomatic persons truly believe nothing is amiss.

The book introduces the LEAP (Listen, Empathize, Agree, Partner) approach, a communication strategy designed to build trust and reduce family conflict. It’s a must-read for anyone supporting a sibling or parent with schizophrenia or other psychiatric disorders. I found myself deeply empathetic to family members who experience burnout when the symptoms of psychosis seem insurmountable.

Before my sister became so ill, people used to say we looked alike. But ours was just a resemblance. In this novel, Dominick looks exactly like his brother, who has schizophrenia. Dominick encounters his identical twin every time he looks in a mirror. And he is terrified.

I first read this book 25 years ago and inhaled every one of the intertwined subplots in its 900 + pages. Recently, I re-read the “story within the story,” a memoir by Dominick’s grandfather. I became fascinated by his story about the Sicilian market where one chicken transforms into two whole ones—a bit of magical realism about twinning, schizophrenia, and hope. I too excavated old family documents to understand why my sibling suffered so much.