Books like The Living Sea of Waking Dreams — picked by fans

Have you ever read a book that grabbed you with a character challenged by circumstances you’d never considered? Imagine being blind and trying to survive WWII! I was intrigued by this essentially two-person novel set during World War II, which had a ‘cast’ of millions.

Again, the characters! Marie-Laure LaBlanc is a young blind French woman hiding in her great-uncle’s house in Saint-Malo after the Nazis invade Paris. I found Doerr’s lyrical sensory descriptions of Marie-Laure’s efforts to make her way around town as she’s pulled into the French resistance thrilling. I loved the depth of characterization when I met the second main character, Werner Pfennig, a radio repair savant, and his journey from a Nazi soldier tracking down illicit resistance radio operators to a young man repulsed by the Nazi brutalization of civilians.

The characters and intrigue pulled me through this book; mixed in with the eventual connection of… show more.

Many an idealistic young law student like me felt that jolt in our spine early on when we saw up in the balcony of that courthouse a sleepy Scout being told, “Stand up, Jean Louise. Your father’s passin’.”

The movie is as faithful to the novel as the medium would allow. The novel is told entirely from Scout’s POV and not only focuses upon the racism of the time and place, but also upon her coming of age as a tomboy and being told to act “As a little girl should.”

The book offers more to those of us for whom the rule of law and not of men is a passion, especially in Finch’s closing: “There is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of Rockefeller, a stupid man the equal of Einstein… That institution, gentlemen, is a court.” 

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.

Ada is the five-part fictional memoir of Dr. Van Veen — psychologist, professor of philosophy, and student of time — who chronicles his life-long love affair with his half-sister Ada. A deliberately falsified family tree prefaces the book, and the alternative title to Van’s memoir is Ardor: A Family Chronicle. Nabokov is my favorite writer and Ada is my favorite Nabokov: a long, complicated, totally original, and brilliant novel that takes explores the landscapes of Self, imagination, and consciousness, all through the lens of family. It’s not an easy read, but it is one I find infinitely inspiring. 

Fires in Australia in 2019 and 2020 killed billions of animals in a climate disaster. The numbers are impossible to comprehend.

In this beautiful, elegiac book, Dr. Celermajer grieves the losses by telling of one of her beloved pigs. She moves outward to reflect on how individual stories allow us to remember enormous losses. She refuses to tell this story of a climate catastrophe by telling of a few wrongdoers.

In one powerful reflection, she concludes that it is essential if almost impossible to say ‘it is I, it is I’ when speaking of who brought these losses. 

This is a heartwarming contemporary story about a gay Aboriginal teen exploring his sexuality and falling in love for the first time, set against the vivid backdrop of a fictional, rural Indigenous community. It’s evocative and heady and compelling. It’s one of those stories that makes you want to reach into the book and hug all the characters and tell them everything is going to be okay. Such an important story from a brilliant new voice in Australian YA.

Even before Archibald Edmund Filby embarked on his famous African expeditions, he took advantage of a government-sponsored scheme to migrate to Australia. It was 1921 and his daredevil nature soon had him performing reckless feats as a buckjumper in a popular circus rodeo. Whilst trekking through this vast continent, he embraced the opportunity to become a jockey, photographer, actor, pilot, car salesman, and pearl diver.

Not only was A E Filby a famous British explorer, but he was also my Uncle Archie. What a shame he never saw his memoirs published before his death in 1942.

Every Australian bookish girl knows Sybylla from My Brilliant Career. She is the original feisty heroine, the unashamed young feminist who rejects the isolation and low expectations of the bush and marriage at the turn of the twentieth century, wanting to strike out on her own as a writer. That her yearnings are so irrelevant to those around her and her ambitions unfulfilled act as a dare to all of us, and to me – to have that brilliant career, to tell your truths and have your independence, whether anyone else likes it or not. Equally as vivid, witty, and socially acute as Twain, if you read only one old and dusty novel about Australia, read this one.

Remarkable accounts from nineteenth-century newspapers, letters, and diaries reveal that most Australian colonists realized that their invasion of the vast continent whose fringes they inhabited was not unfolding peacefully. Warfare broke out between the white invaders and Aboriginal peoples as the frontier shifted further from the coastline, and it was not until 1870 that the last of the British soldiers left the Australian colonies. Shockingly, over time many descendants of the British chose to forget about Australia’s frontier wars and even denied that frontier conflict had ever taken place. John Connor’s book provides significant insights into the militarized Australian frontier from the time of first settlement in the late eighteenth century through until the late 1830s. It’s an important reminder about the struggles that took place as First Nations people contested the incursion of the British into what became Australia. Connor writes back clearly and concisely against notions of the… show more.

A seriously underrated series set in Australia with the mysterious Heller, who is from a Nordic country (although it takes several books to find out more about him), and a young woman who becomes part of his chaotic family of misfits who run a security business, possibly with ties to the government and international espionage.

Every personal detail of Heller is grudgingly given, which makes it so much more intriguing. Each book is a standalone, but each adds more to the overall picture.

I wish I could tell you what happened to this talented author, but she disappeared mysteriously over ten years ago and has never written another book since. A true-life mystery.