Books like The Man Who Could Move Clouds — picked by fans

This story has remained one of my most favorite of all time.

While teaching English at a community college, I assigned this book to my students. Its tale, about a young Andalusian, Santiago, who leaves home to seek his destiny, changed my students’ lives and mine.

Together, we grew to appreciate that the best teacher is personal experience. We identified how travel teaches lessons, such as using caution judiciously and the necessity to work hard to achieve goals.

We also discussed how travel provides opportunities to develop skills like learning new languages and raises awareness about other people’s customs and perspectives. 

Allende is one of my sheroes in the writing world. Her ability to depict the unseen world of intuition and address the passion that stokes the inner fires of women is unmatched. Her life is an extraordinary journey of love, loss, and resilience during difficult political times in Chile.

In this book, she gives voice to women everywhere who have been oppressed, and they still rise to care for themselves and those they love while striving for the lives they deserve. Calling herself a feminist, she shares how her defiant character was pathologized and, ultimately, how that led her to stand up for herself and other women.

It is both an individual and a collective story about the role of women in the world then and today.

While studying for my Leadership Coaching Certification at Georgetown University, I heard Parker Palmer speak and immediately sought out his book.

His concepts of a "circle of trust" and his description of the yearning for an undivided life that encompasses our truth and how we operate in the world helped me navigate my choices and informed my approach to my work with organizational clients.

Through his work, I learned the cost of living a fragmented life and sought wholeness in my life and for my clients.

Although this is not a book, I found the audiobook insightful and full of practical ideas for those of us who prefer a quiet life. With so much noise and distraction in the world, it is easy to be swept into turbulent tides that take us nowhere.

For those who find the world overwhelming, Susan's 7 steps give us permission to have lives of purpose and meaning without being loud and honoring our preferred approach to life.

Alice Lake finds a man on the beach outside her house, but when she asks the man who he is, he can’t give her any answers because he says he doesn’t know who he is either. He’s lost his memory and his identification. Alice decides to help the unknown man and invites him into her home.

While Alice tries to help the unknown man figure out who he is, she also can’t help but wonder who she’s let into her home. He seems perfectly harmless, but is he? It reminds me of what I’ve felt in relationships. I’ll like someone, but then I’ll get to know them and start to wonder who they really are. I’ll look at a friend and wonder, where did you come from?

Moon Brow describes the social tensions between ideals of freedom, religion, and authoritarianism that provoked Iran’s 1978 revolution, but only increased under Islamic rule. Amir, a formerly rich, wild playboy, flogged by the morality police after a drunken orgy, joins the army to escape shame and find meaning for his life in the brutal and futile 10-year war against Iraq. Commanding artillery in the borderland, he encounters the mysterious, sprite-like woman he calls “Moon Brow,” who, after an Iraqi shell maims him, becomes a magical force in his PTSD hallucinations. Her true identity will come as a rebuke for his comparatively pointless existence, while his sister’s spurning of her rich, pretentious suitor will be another rebuke, of his machismo. A brilliant evocation of the illusions that sustain violence.

A thriller with a kick-ass premise: Chloe wakes up on the side of a highway not knowing who the heck she is or how she got there.

It’s a haunting, scary, unnerving story about a woman trying to figure out what could have happened to completely wipe out her memory. What I love about the novel is how Wong’s relentless pace matches lockstep with her protagonist’s frenzied and fractured state of mind.

Bits of the past begin to slip through the cracks as Chloe searches for the truth. I love that Wong chose to tell the story from Chloe’s POV so we’re only privy to what this messy character remembers—or chooses to tell us that she remembers. Twisted, damaged characters with secrets are my cup of tea.

Another one with the amnesia trope (I told you it’s a fave of mine!) Except in this one, the hero wakes up with amnesia, not recalling that his gorgeous wife is his on paper only…Kiru Taye can write angst! Feelings in general, but angst, turmoil, and passion that don’t just mean an opened bedroom door? She delivers.

I loved witnessing the romance brewing here and just waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it did, everything escalated, yet at no point did it feel like "too much." I also loved how it showed me a slice of Nigeria, in lifestyle, culture, and day-to-day living, that I’d never experienced before, opening my eyes to what life on the African continent is truly like when one looks beyond the trauma and misery overflowing in African literature.

Carey followed up the wildly popular zombie epic The Girl With All The Gifts with this book about a ghost story in a women’s prison. It’s smart horror based on an assembly of compelling characters, and Carey uses language beautifully.

Another example of an author who has versatility is how he can handle different genres simply through his skill as a storyteller who knows how to craft compelling characters and twists on common themes. Do you like Orange is the New Black and might be up for some supernatural elements? This is your book.

I planned a trip to Scotland and immersed myself in Peter May’s Scottish perspective. I try to do that with my books: share the back story, the elements that make Martha’s Vineyard so special to so many people. This is the niche I have carved for myself over the past 15 years.

Peter May is a BBC stalwart; Coffin Road offers a daunting tale with an emphasis on the rugged landscape. May traces his tale right down to the water’s edge.  

And while this is a work of fiction, it offers a vivid view of the reality of living on an island: the isolation, the limitations, the beauty, and the danger. That’s what I do with my Vineyard histories.