Here are 100 books that The Great Santini fans have personally recommended if you like
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My passion for this topic of women overcoming the odds stems from having worked with powerful, resilient women as a life coach and therapist for the past 15 years. I witness and continue to be inspired by women who surpass what they or those around them believe is possible internally and externally. Women are powerful in unimaginable ways, and I love to read a great story that depicts this truth.
Kaya Clark is the wild child I longed to be growing up. Although her family story is tragic and well-explored, how she inhabits her world of nature and allows it to inhabit her is stunning. Once again, she is a young woman who is an outcast who manages to rise above her limitations and those placed on her by society.
Beyond the incredible storytelling and intriguing plot lines, I was mesmerized by the natural world of the North Carolina marshes, being as much a main character as Kaya herself. The intricate details of the lushness and cruelty of the natural world were incredible. In looking back at my favorite novels, one of the commonalities is the writing’s ability to come alive in my head and to take up a permanent space as much as my own lived memories. This novel is one of those.
OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I love to read. I always have. I also love to write mysteries that, hopefully, keep my reader guessing until the end of the book. I look for books that not only provide me with a mystery to solve but also inform me of situations and/or places I would otherwise never learn about. I have found all the books on my list to fill that need. They are just an example of the many I have found and read.
I found this book suspenseful and couldn’t put it down. I was kept on the edge of my seat as to the fate of the characters until the end.
The fact that one of the characters was a Vietnam veteran and it affected his life interested me. I also found the setting of Alaska in the 1970s interesting and informative.
In Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, a desperate family seeks a new beginning in the near-isolated wilderness of Alaska only to find that their unpredictable environment is less threatening than the erratic behavior found in human nature.
#1 New York Times Instant Bestseller (February 2018) A People “Book of the Week” Buzzfeed’s “Most Anticipated Women’s Fiction Reads of 2018” Seattle Times’s “Books to Look Forward to in 2018”
Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter…
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Virginia, so I am very familiar with America’s southern lands and culture. The South—also known as the Deep South—is a unique part of America’s tapestry of identities, and I love books set in this locale. Southern literature tends to focus on themes such as racial politics, one’s personal identity, and rebellion. When I wrote my book, I knew the story would have to take place in the southern states.
I must be honest: this is perhaps my favorite novel. I love Stockett’s narrative voice, showcased wonderfully in the POVs of three characters: Abilene, Minnie, and Skeeter. Stockett recreates the Jackson, Mississippi, of the early 1960s, and I easily got sucked into the dramas of each character. The only downside to this book is that it’s a one-hit wonder without a sequel. The movie was excellent, too.
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film-a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't-nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.
Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a great-great-great-great-grandchild of Irish immigrants, I come from a long, proud line of alcoholics, especially on my mother’s side. My childhood was a masterclass in chaos: family scream-fests, flung insults, and someone cracking a joke while dodging a punch. It was painful, yes, but also absurd and often hilarious. That’s where my dark wit comes from. Razor-sharp humor was how we made it out alive. It becomes a lens you’re trained to observe the world through since you were a wee lad. I’ve always been drawn to stories where grief and laughter sit at the same table, clinking pints. Satire and absurdity aren’t interests for me. They’re muscle memory.
Amazing title aside, I love David Sedaris because he makes discomfort feel like a private joke you’re lucky enough to overhear. The way he writes about insecurity, awkwardness, and deeply flawed family life struck something real in me. His humor sneaks up on you, often in the middle of a sentence you weren’t prepared to laugh at.
What I admire most is how he never tries to impress. His voice is honest, a little absurd, and somehow both cynical and strangely tender. I didn’t just laugh; I felt understood. Sedaris showed me that writing can be honest without being sentimental, funny without being safe, and deeply human without needing a resolution.
A new collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers and cashiers with 6-inch fingernails. Compared by The New Yorker to Twain and Hawthorne, Sedaris has become one of our best-loved authors. Sedaris is…
I was a military spouse for 26 years. My husband was stationed at MCAS Cherry Point NC and MCB Camp Lejeune NC, both for two years. We (he and I and our four children) lived on the base. He also served two tours in Vietnam, just like Doreen’s husband, and also at Headquarters, Marine Corps later. The fictional Marine base and town where this takes place is modeled after Camp Lejeune and the adjacent town. I did see the same sign welcoming us to Klan country, on Easter Sunday morning 1972 and have never forgotten it. I also knew Queenie’s counterpart. This novel is in no way autobiographical—I was never as brave as Doreen.
Mudbound is about post-WWII in the Jim Crow south. It tells the stories of two returning soldiers in a muddy farm setting. I was raised on a dairy farm with plenty of mud, so I easily identified with the setting. The situation of the two men, one White, one Black, and their families' struggles, physically with the constant mud, and emotionally with the politics of both the era and the place, were graphic. It was a book that was difficult to put down and also difficult to read. In ways I was reminded of 12 Years A Slave.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CAREY MULLIGAN, GARRETT HEDLUND & MARY J. BLIGE
When Henry McAllan moves his city-bred wife, Laura, to a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in 1946, she finds herself in a place both foreign and frightening. Henry's love of rural life is not shared by Laura, who struggles to raise their two young children in an isolated shotgun shack under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.
I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Virginia, so I am very familiar with America’s southern lands and culture. The South—also known as the Deep South—is a unique part of America’s tapestry of identities, and I love books set in this locale. Southern literature tends to focus on themes such as racial politics, one’s personal identity, and rebellion. When I wrote my book, I knew the story would have to take place in the southern states.
You may have watched the movie, but have you read the novel? Fannie Flagg gave us a beautiful novel about friendship, family, second chances, and good old-fashioned southern food in the form of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.
Using a mix of narrative voices, Flagg’s charming novel goes deeper than the movie, exploring the internal lives of the various interesting characters. I thought it was fascinating and compelling in equal measure.
Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who’s in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who’s telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Laughing through the storm, really? It sounds so romantic. Creativity beckons like a muse, I enjoy writing, painting, and daydreaming. But honestly, I imagine creativity more than actually completing the idea. Having a day job and writing novels is a bit Sisyphean. I can see the dream fulfilled at the end, but may get smushed on the way up. I’m so grateful I’ve been published but it adds another layer of worry. How do I get my book out there? What if nobody likes it? A writer puts their soul into the pages and we pray that a reader loves the story and characters as much as the writer does.
Erma was a genius at tapping family emotions while making you laugh. A timeless treasure. I keep Forever, Erma near me so I can pick it up and read a few of her essays. She always makes me smile. She nails family life with humor and grace. She makes me laugh and cry. Though written many years ago, her stories are still timely.
A collection of newspaper columns by the late humorist, including her first and last, deal with children, marriage, food, and holiday entertaining, and are accompanied by a chapter of tributes from her friends.
I’ve been obsessed with psychological thrillers ever since I was young. The messed-up characters, the unreliability of narrators, and the plot twists gripped me as a young reader. As I’ve grown older, my passions have stayed in this general field, but now with more of an emphasis on the effects of masculinity, power, and relationships (both platonically and romantically). There is something so fascinating to me about the complexity of men: their emotions, their motivations, their violence, etc. I have compiled a list of my favorite novels that delve deep into these interests and, truthfully, fears.
When a wife finds a letter addressed to her from her husband stating that it can only be opened once he is dead because it contains his darkest secret, she decides to open it while he is alive.
What ensues is a journey through deception, shocking truths, and the fallout of the secret being exposed.
With the secret revealed, finishing the novel leaves you wondering if you can truly trust anyone, even the ones closest to you.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE—THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF BIG LITTLE LIES AND APPLES NEVER FALL
One of the Best Books of the Year—Entertainment Weekly One of the Top Ten Books of the Year—People
At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read…
My darling Cecilia, If you’re reading this, then I’ve died…
Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not only the life you…
Raised alongside three feral younger brothers in the rash-inducing, subtropical climate of Cairo, Georgia, I am a lifelong resident of the South. A circumstance, no doubt, leaving an indelible mark on my voice as a writer. At this point in my writing career, I write what I know. As a reader, I enjoy exploring the rich stories woven by Southern authors, capturing other places, people, and experiences beyond my own frame of reference. Ultimately, as a Southerner, I endeavor to reconcile the South’s troubled past of racial and social oppression with the romanticized notion others have of this place I call home.
Truman Capote’s 1948 debut novel holds a special place with me because it was my introduction to Southern Gothic when I was thirteen. A coming-of-age tale, it takes place at Scully’s Landing, a decaying mansion in Mississippi.
Rich with place and atmosphere, the book follows lonesome thirteen-year-old Joel Harrison Knox, who travels to live with his father, an emotionally unavailable presence who abandoned the boy at birth. Replete with a cast of the peculiar and grotesque, this book holds firm with literary merit and thematical relevance.
Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South.
At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face—and heart—of a debauched child; and…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I've always believed that the bonds of friendship and sisterhood among women are essential. Growing up in challenging circumstances, my sisters and I found solace and strength in each other, offering comfort and guidance during uncertain times. They became my closest friends and have remained so throughout my life. Stories that celebrate these deep connections never fail to move me. The unwavering support of my sisters has saved me more times than I can count, and I will forever admire authors who portray unity among women. I truly hope you enjoy these beautiful novels!
If you haven’t read this book yet, you absolutely must. I can hardly articulate the brilliance of its narrative. The profound bond of sisterhood depicted here has touched me deeply. The portrayal of female relationships is nothing short of exquisite, capturing the relentless urge to fight for one’s loved ones in a way I’ve never seen before.
I was completely absorbed in the roller coaster of emotions experienced by each character, feeling every high and low alongside them. This novel taught me invaluable lessons and that the pursuit of dreams should never be diminished by circumstance. Its beautiful storytelling and unforgettable message make it a truly remarkable read.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker's iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug…
