Here are 100 books that The Man Who Lived Underground fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m often asked if my Worst-Case Scenario books are serious or humorous. And my answer is always the same: “Yes!” While inspired by pop culture and the survival situations we see again and again in movies and on TV, the information in my books is real. I spend a lot of time seeking out experts to interview—the people who actually have done this stuff—and then distilling their survival wisdom into the form you see in the books. As humans, we want to be prepared for life’s twists and turns. Even if it’s, you know, when the aliens arrive. I’ve been a survival writer and humorist for 25 years and I ain’t stopping now!
Two decades ago, I was preparing for my first book promotion trip to Australia and New Zealand. I asked my (Aussie) publisher to recommend two books to learn more about Australia and its history.
The first was In A Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson, which I had heard of. The second was Cooper’s Creek, which I hadn’t. It’s a stunning, scary, edge-of-your-seat short history about an expedition in 1860 that set out from Melbourne into the vast, empty, broiling interior of the country, with the mission to find a route to the lush northern coast. Needless to say, things didn’t go as planned.
The book is taken from first-hand accounts by the explorers, and is novel-like in its dramatic twists and turns.
In 1860, an expedition set out from Melbourne, Australia, into the interior of the country, with the mission to find a route to the northern coast. Headed by Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, the party of adventurers, scientists, and camels set out into the outback hoping to find enough water and to keep adequate food stores for their trek into the bush. Almost one year later, Burke, Wills, and two others from their party, Gray and King, reached the northern shore but on their journey back, they were stranded at Cooper’s Creek where all but King perished. Cooper’s…
In 1964, the FBI found smoldering remains of the station wagon that James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were driving before they disappeared at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Shortly after, Julie Kabat’s beloved brother Luke arrived in Mississippi as a volunteer to assist Black civil rights…
In my early 50s, I thru-hiked the Ice Age Trail, one of just 11 National Scenic Trails in the U.S. The experience was so rewarding—in many different ways—that I vowed to hike the other 10. To date, I’ve thru-hiked six of the 11 and am in the midst of section-hiking two more. My enthusiasm for long-distance hiking and its numerous benefits also inspired me to transform my freelance writing business to one centered around hiking, whether that’s penning fitness articles for CNN, giving talks on long-distance trails, or writing articles I hope will inspire others to lace up their hiking shoes.
This one scared me. Who wants to think about dying during a hiking trip?! Yet, while I’d never wanted to conquer Mount Everest, I did long to undertake other (less extreme) adventures.
Reading Jon Krakauer’s account of his Everest experience inspired me to continue to dream big about other outdoor excursions more suited to my personality. I credit this book as one reason I wasn’t afraid to start hiking and backpacking long-distance trails—mostly solo—when I was in my 50s.
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray.
"A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE
A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong.
By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons…
I've loved the past since I was a kid. I dug up ancient artifacts in Greece, followed paths to abandoned sites, and read a lot. By the time I went to university I knew I would do history. How did I know? When I wrote, the rest of the world disappeared, and so did time. At dawn, as a university student in Montreal, I would stub out my last cigarette and visit the nearby diner, where the owner gave me extra portions of Salisbury steak. And then, I just went on to three more universities on two continents and became a Russian specialist. Now I’m also a Greek specialist. It’s been hard to visit Russia and I needed a change.
I was impressed by how the American-style gumshoe was brought to Berlin before and during Nazi rule. I love noir, and this is a great example. I was taken with how Kerr’s irony speaks through his Bernie Gunther and gives a nuanced message about the choices we make when evil is around us.
Gunther has a moral compass in a regime that lacks one, and he struggles to do his duty as a cop under a regime that is not only corrupt but a low point in human morality. I watched as Nazi leaders appeared as flawed and little, cynical and also driven by a base ideology. It gave texture and believability.
In 1964, the FBI found smoldering remains of the station wagon that James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were driving before they disappeared at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Shortly after, Julie Kabat’s beloved brother Luke arrived in Mississippi as a volunteer to assist Black civil rights…
I’m often asked if my Worst-Case Scenario books are serious or humorous. And my answer is always the same: “Yes!” While inspired by pop culture and the survival situations we see again and again in movies and on TV, the information in my books is real. I spend a lot of time seeking out experts to interview—the people who actually have done this stuff—and then distilling their survival wisdom into the form you see in the books. As humans, we want to be prepared for life’s twists and turns. Even if it’s, you know, when the aliens arrive. I’ve been a survival writer and humorist for 25 years and I ain’t stopping now!
Though long out of print, this book is still available in a 1980s paperback edition online.
Raised in the remote Pine Barrens of New Jersey, Brown became one of the world’s foremost wilderness experts, and rescued dozens of hikers lost or stranded in this vast East Coast wilderness. So far, so good. But Brown’s story is also about Native Americans and their lost way of life: he was trained as a youngster by Stalking Wolf, an Apache Indian who taught him how to live off the land and follow animal (and human) tracks invisible to others.
The book is about survival techniques, yes. But it’s also a meditation on a lost way of life, our relationship with the natural world, and the lessons that nature can teach us.
A true story of survival from one of America's most respected outdoorsman.
"The first track is the end of a string. At the far end, a being is moving; a mystery, dropping a hint about itself every so many feet, telling you more about itself until you can almost see it, even before you come to it. The mystery reveals itself slowly, track by track, giving its genealogy early to coax you in. Further on, it will tell you the intimate details of its life and work, until you know the maker of the track like a lifelong friend."
I am Professor Emeritus of History at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York during the turbulent decades of the 1950s and 1960s where there were numerous social protest movements against the War in Vietnam, school segregation, and police brutality. My books explore the men and women who battled institutional racism.
Butler argues that the large increase of police assaults and killings of black men is not a breakdown in law enforcement or the activities of a few rogue cops. The system is doing what it has been designed to do. Police hurt black men, according to the author because “that is what they are paid to do.” Butler maintains that the Chokehold “is a way of understanding how American inequality is imposed.” It is a tool of oppression. One outcome of the Chokehold is mass incarceration. The construction of the thug is a means of justifying the Chokehold. Butler traces the “Ape” or “dehumanization” thesis.
The book contains loads of data showing how in city after city black people are disproportionately targeted by police officers. Programs such as Obama’s My Brothers’ Keeper ignores women and plays into perpetuating stereotypes of black men as the primary victims of racism.
Finalist for the 2018 National Council on Crime & Delinquency's Media for a Just Society Awards
Nominated for the 49th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)
A 2017 Washington Post Notable Book
A Kirkus Best Book of 2017
"Butler has hit his stride. This is a meditation, a sonnet, a legal brief, a poetry slam and a dissertation that represents the full bloom of his early thesis: The justice system does not work for blacks, particularly black men." -The Washington Post
"The most readable and provocative account of the consequences of the war on drugs since Michelle Alexander's…
I write to learn what I don’t know about myself and our purpose as flawed beings in this Alice-in-Wonderland world. In the documentary about singer/poet Leonard Cohen, creator of the much-covered “Hallelujah” (title of the documentary), to explain the song, he says that life is so impenetrable that the only options are to shake your fist or exclaim “Hallelujah.” I think there is a third option: to laugh. And I prefer to do all three because that is what comes through me: confusion, pain, and hilarity. And hopefully a better understanding of the whole mess once I’ve written about it. And that is what I hope to share with readers.
I’ve read this book twice and probably will read it a few more times before I die. It’s that good.
The story of a young Black man (named Not Sidney Poitier) traversing the U.S.A. is a picaresque, hilarious, heart-breaking tale about trying to find yourself.
Eighteen-year-old Not Sidney is surrounded by people who only see his race or his wealth, or conversely by geniuses who have succeeded despite themselves and, although they see Not Sidney without the cultural labels, are of little help in his quest to find his mission in life.
The first time I read this book, I was spitting coffee laughing. The second time, my heart broke. I am curious what my next read will evoke.
Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation. Percival Everett's hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney's tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth.
I came to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1988 to serve as a law clerk for a prominent federal judge (played by Martin Sheen in the movie Selma). I was convinced that the death penalty could be justly administered, and seeing Ted Bundy’s final appeal did little to change my mind. Subsequent cases, however, slowly worked a change in my attitude as I saw an execution’s effect on everyone involved in the process. My passion comes from this behind-the-scenes look at capital punishment in America.
I loved this beautifully written book for its depiction of how the death penalty worked in the Jim Crow South. I loved the compassion shown by the characters, both black and white, and the attempt by Gaines to reveal the complexity of crime and punishment in an era that may not be so different from our own.
As a law clerk in the 1980s in the Deep South, I witnessed the legacy of the system that Gaines describes.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
"An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune
A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.
"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position…
As an avid reader, I read a wide variety of books. Of the fiction genre mystery and suspense remain my favorite. From the classics to the gritty, a well-told mystery is a literary gem. As my mystery palette has aged—like my taste in wine—so are my demands of what makes a good mystery novel. The best mysteries for me contain more than a serpentine journey toward the hidden truth. They have intriguing characters, crisp dialogue, interesting settings, formidable foes, and of course indispensable heroes or anti-heroes. My writing goal is aimed at achieving the same level of literary penmanship of the mysteries I enjoy reading so much.
Easy Rawlins is an African American private detective in 1960s Los Angeles. Easy gets a visit from a troubled Vietnam veteran at his office. The vet tells an implausible story of him and his lover being attacked in a citrus grove outside the city. He may have killed the man. The woman and his dog are missing. Rawlins’ gut tells him the case is nothing but trouble. He takes the case anyway. The bond between veterans overriding all other concerns. Blood Grove is an exhilarating, mystery soup involving moguls, sociopaths, cops, hippies, extremists, and swindlers. Requiring Easy to call upon help from his friends. Friends who range from genius to lethal. I loved going along with Easy on this case. Admiring his resolve and intelligence in solving the mystery.
Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles.
But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran- a young white man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man- he knows he shouldn't take the case.
Though he sees nothing but trouble in the brooding ex-soldier's eyes, Easy, a vet himself, feels a kinship form between them. Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from…
I am the author of three novels (with two more set to release next year); Monarchs Under the Sassafras Tree; The Dead Rockstar Trilogy; and I'm happiest when straddling literary genres. I have published works of historical fiction, as well as southern gothic, horror, speculative fiction, dark fantasy, and literary fiction. My debut, Monarchs Under the Sassafras Tree was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year in 2020. In addition to writing, I am a genealogist and recently went back to school to obtain my history degree. My love of writing, history, and family all intersect to inform my writing and I always set my characters in good old Georgia.
Alice Walker is one of my all-time favorite authors and inspirations, and not just because she’s from Georgia, like me. The Third Life of Grange Copeland is my favorite novel of hers; in it, she captures beautifully the fraught relationship between a hardened old man and his granddaughter, who he is determined to do right by after a lifetime of doing wrong. It is a heartbreaking, stark, beautiful novel.
Alice Walker's first book recounts the lives of three generations growing up in Georgia, where the author herself grew up. Grange Copeland is a black tenant farmer who is forced to leave his land and family in search of a better future. He heads North but discovers that the racism and poverty he experienced in the South are, in fact, everywhere. When he returns to Georgia years later he finds that his son Brownfield has been imprisoned for the murder of his wife. But hope comes in the form of the third generation as the…
I listen to about eight albums of music per week. At least one per day and another of that bunch gathers a re-listen, though more warrant the same! Listening is my favorite hobby. I name it like one would rock climbing or gardening, and though we are here connecting through words and swapping ideas, it all starts with my ear. I most want to feel what I’d like to know, and it is possible that music sometimes held the work of thinking on my behalf. In writing my book, I was most interested in what it meant to be offered the world in such a personal yet composed way each day.
Both keen and forgiving, this book traces the amorous and lofty histories of Black masculinity in America while also delighting in the surprises surrounding its speaker(s).
No song is without a community to which it belongs. We sing our songs together. This realization is especially stark and exacting in this book as it chronicles the bounty of lyrics from Marvin Gaye to the Delfonics.
Imperial Liquor is a chronicle of melancholy, a reaction to the monotony of racism. These poems concern loneliness, fear, fatigue, rage, and love; they hold fatherhood held against the vulnerability of the black male body, aging, and urban decay. Part remembrance, part swan song for the Compton, California of the 1980s, Johnson examines the limitations of romance to heal broken relationships or rebuild a broken city. Slow Jams, red-lit rooms, cheap liquor, like seduction and betrayal - what's more American? This book tracks echoes, rides the residue of music "after the love is gone."
