Here are 100 books that The Master Butchers Singing Club fans have personally recommended if you like
The Master Butchers Singing Club.
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I am a descendant of William Bradford and Myles Standish, of Pilgrim fame. I was raised in a Massachusetts farmhouse where the commission of James Churchill as a Captain in the militia still hangs, signed by John Hancock. I have lived and breathed this stuff since first opening my eyes. My wife, MaryLu, is a retired elementary teacher who helps bring life to the young characters. Together, through the medium of novels they would actually enjoy reading, we seek to inspire American youth with the principles of our founding, so that they may be more effective in preserving and defending them.
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.”
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken…
Most of my published titles are about animals or involve them in some fashion. My Cats in the Mirror alien rescue cat series has been winning awards for a decade, and the two dog companion books have won the hearts of middle-grade readers, with a third companion book due out in 2026. Even my science fiction books for adults are about half-tiger/half-human creatures. Cats are definitely my favorite, but give me a book about a cute animal, and I’m happy.
I mean, not sure how much I need to say about the delight this book has brought to children since 1952. After being asked to read it to a group of first graders recently, I dissolved into tears having to read the scene where Charlotte dies, alone. The students that day thought I was silly. Yeah, as a kid, that didn’t bother me much. As an adult, well.
There’s something in this tale of love, friendship, and courage for all ages. Excellent for read-aloud if you are willing to commit to using different voices and really hamming it up.
Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child.
On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty . Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the centre of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said: SOME PIG!
This is the story of a little girl named Fern, who loves a little pig named Wilbur - and of Wilbur's dear friend,…
I am drawn to stories about “the olden days,” non-fiction, fiction, or first-hand storytelling by homesteaders who came from away to settle on the prairies. Perhaps it is a way to recall my own farm childhood, a way to recall both joyful and unhappy times. When my brother taught me to climb (and get down from) the apple tree. The realization the pet steer who followed me around all summer and occasionally let me ride on his back while he grazed would be met by the mobile butcher truck in the fall. Hardships and simple joys, the life lessons, the banal work done for the family and farm to survive.
One of my absolute favourite storytellers, Guy Vanderhaege can transport the reader into his imagined world with the first sentence.
This historical prairie fiction, the fully conceived characters and storyline, and that important rural farm setting makes this book a favourite that I have often re-read.
The complicated dark and sometimes comedic entanglements of family, the disconnects and reconnections because of mistruths, misunderstandings, lost opportunities, and redemption are woven in an intriguing, believable fabric that will break a reader’s heart.
It is the summer of 1959, and in a prairie town in Saskatchewan, Alec Monkman waits for his estranged daughter to come home, with the grandson he has never seen. But this is an uneasy reunion. Fiercely independent, Vera has been on her own since running away at nineteen – first to the army, and then to Toronto. Now, for the sake of her young son, she must swallow her pride and return home after seventeen years. As the story gradually unfolds, the past confronts the present in unexpected ways as the silence surrounding Vera’s brother is finally shattered and…
Embark on a riveting journey into Washington State’s untamed Olympic Peninsula, where the threads of folklore legends and historical icons are woven into a complex ecological tapestry.
Follow the enigmatic Petr as he fearlessly employs his pirate radio transmitter to broadcast the forgotten and untamed voices that echo through the…
I am drawn to stories about “the olden days,” non-fiction, fiction, or first-hand storytelling by homesteaders who came from away to settle on the prairies. Perhaps it is a way to recall my own farm childhood, a way to recall both joyful and unhappy times. When my brother taught me to climb (and get down from) the apple tree. The realization the pet steer who followed me around all summer and occasionally let me ride on his back while he grazed would be met by the mobile butcher truck in the fall. Hardships and simple joys, the life lessons, the banal work done for the family and farm to survive.
A work of historical fiction that begins in 1949 is a story that examines the complexities of characters who are fully fleshed out and believable.
Life rarely turns out the way we hopefully anticipate—there are failures, successes, deaths, illness, joys. There are so many occasions that all of us can look back at the small decisions, the small forks in the road that when taken and made affect the course of ours lives in ways we would have never thought possible. The characters in this book grab us and take us with them on the journey of those lives.
A runaway #1 bestseller in Canada, this richly layered first novel tells the story of the intricacies and rituals that shape a family's life over three generations
A Good House begins in 1949 in Stonebrook, Ontario, home to the Chambers family. The postwar boom and hope for the future colors every facet of life: possibilities seem limitless for Bill, his wife, Sylvia, and their three children.
In the fifty years that follow, the possibilities narrow into lives, etched by character, fate, and circumstance. Sylvia's untimely death marks her family indelibly but in ways only time will reveal. Paul's perfect marriage…
I was born in Ukraine and moved to the Midwest in the early 1990s. I am the author of two novels: At the End of the World, Turn Left, which was called “elegant and authentic” by NPR and named by Booklist as one of the “Top Ten Crime Debuts” of 2021, and the domestic thriller Breakfall (April 2023). Perhaps one of the oldest literary tropes, affairs up the ante in literary works while simultaneously exploring human nature. Throw an affair into a novel, and most likely, some characters will be blowing up their lives; add it into a mystery novel, and murders are likely to happen.
Lying and cheating are not even the worst things that happen in this extremely compelling, twisty debut novel about an ambitious thief named Ivy. In addition, it explores the hardships and challenges of the immigrant experience while keeping you on the edge of your seat, which is a very impressive feat on its own.
'White Ivy is magic . . . and not soon to be forgotten' JOSHUA FERRIS, author of Then We Came to the End
'Totally addictive, twisting and twisted: Ivy Lin will get under your skin' ERIN KELLY, author of He Said/She Said
'This is Austen mixed with the hyperreal sharpness of Donna Tartt' Irish Times
Ivy Lin was a thief. But you'd never know it to look at her...
Ivy Lin, a Chinese immigrant growing up in a low-income apartment complex outside Boston, is desperate to assimilate with her American peers. Her parents…
Life is, and I think we all can agree, a wild mess of lessons, harshness, wonderful moments, and so much more—the coming-of-age genre has been so fun to explore for me because it touches on the many aspects of daily life. We all live different lives, and telling the stories of others, fictionally or non-fictionally is always something I have enjoyed. I am a journalist, author of coming-of-age fiction, and a lover of the stories life gives us. I hope you find within my recommended books, stories of growth, stories of dealing with life, and stories of the crazy yet beautiful gift that life is.
The Weight of this World is one of my absolute favorite additions to southern literature. I enjoyed this book, and honestly all of David Joy’s books, because it is crafted in a way to show darkness while at the same time showing glimmers of hope within the characters. This novel is real, raw, and a wonderful read that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to read a book that you can’t put down because of the action, the moments of self-discovery, and the depiction of the roughness within the world.
Critically acclaimed author David Joy, whose debut, Where All Light Tends to Go, was hailed as "a savagely moving novel that will likely become an important addition to the great body of Southern literature" (The Huffington Post), returns to the mountains of North Carolina with a powerful story about the inescapable weight of the past.
A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can't leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them…
This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto…
A youthful summer with my grandparents transformed me into a voracious reader, but I don’t recall what turned me into becoming a lifelong writer and editor. My first two teenaged short stories concerned a rock and a stoplight. My writing got better, and I’ve never stopped reading. As a grad student teaching literature, I longed to see my name on a book cover. Today, it’s on 20 books. My career was in publishing; I wrote and edited nonfiction for decades until 2007, when I turned to writing novels. My most recent is a collection of my early poetry. I also enjoy helping writers become published on The Fictional Café.
Emotion, in particular love, knows no bounds of race, culture, past, or future. I think love reaches uncommon heights in times of stress, which accounts for falling in love with abandon–like in wartime. Or when culture curbs or forbids love’s expression.
So here in this book, Lin Kong, a doctor, feels constrained during the Chinese Cultural Revolution–perhaps seeing through its façade of freedom, particularly in his own marriage. And upon that conundrum rests the plot: Lin’s waiting 18 years (by law) for divorce so he can be with the woman he desires. But the longer he waits, the more he desires her; then, once the waiting is over, desire leaves him.
Perhaps it is better for Lin to live in never-ending desire? Was his grass greener on the other side?
For more than seventeen years, Lin Kong, a devoted and ambitious doctor, has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in his traditional home village lives the humble, loyal wife his family chose for him years ago. Every summer, he returns to ask her for a divorce and every summer his compliant wife agrees but then backs out. This time, after eighteen years' waiting, Lin promises it will be different.
I love studying the ins/outs of humanity and our interactions, but especially, EI (emotional intelligence). A lot of emphasis is put on being “smart” and analytical (think IQ), but EI is largely ignored.
Relationships thrive (and die) on EI! In the novels I write, I explore the emotional side of relationships and how, if we pay attention to this other side of intelligence, beautiful interactions happen.
Typically, I don’t find riveting EI in books—and so when I do, I gobble the book up once, then twice, and possibly a third time, then tell everyone I know to GO READ THAT BOOK!
I’ve always been deeply fascinated with any amnesia-related plot. A teenager who survives a near-death experience and cannot remember the last several years of her life? And, despite this being YA novel, as an older reader, I could not put this book down. It kept me guessing, constantly deducing as everything unfolded, and though the main characters are young, their emotional processes are so raw and beautiful. I’ve reread this one many a time. For any Nancy Drew gamers out there, The Secret History of Us is like a ND game/Nicholas Sparks’ novel hybrid.
"Jessi Kirby's books just keep getting better and better, and The Secret History of Us is her best yet. It beautifully touches on all the most important things in life-love, family, friendship, memory, and bacon. I loved it."-Morgan Matson, New York Times bestselling author of The Unexpected Everything In this gorgeously written, emotional novel that fans of Sarah Dessen will enjoy, a teenage girl must piece together the parts of her life she doesn't remember after a severe collision leaves her with no memory of the past four years. When Olivia awakes in a hospital bed following a near-fatal car…
I’m a full-time writer, part-time editor, and avid reader of romances between queer women. I’ve just published my twenty-third novel, and I’m still amazed and humbled at getting to live my dream: writing sapphic romances for a living. Discovering sapphic books was a life-saver for me since I grew up in a tiny little village, with no openly LGBT+ people around, and I love knowing that my books are now doing the same for my readers.
Just from the book’s back cover description, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did because any kind of cheating and love triangles are not my cup of tea in a romance novel. If you are the same, give this book a chance anyway. Jan—who cared for her husband for years—and the much-younger writer Terry never planned to fall in love, but when they do, the author handles it with complexity and integrity. It’s a book that will make you feel all the emotions the characters are going through.
A triangle with a twist, Coming Home is the story of three good people caught up in an impossible situation.
Rob, a charismatic ex-fighter pilot severely disabled with MS, has been steadfastly cared for by his wife, Jan, for many years. Quite by accident one day, Terry, a young writer/postal carrier, enters their lives and turns it upside down.
Injecting joy and turbulence into their quiet existence, Terry draws Rob and Jan into her lively circle of family and friends until the growing attachment between the two women begins to strain the bonds of love and loyalty, to Rob and…
A Tree with My Name on It: Finding a Way Home is a living, breathing, messy story of one woman trying her hardest to free her wounded heart and uncover her true self.
It is a memoir, told with grace and humor, of the years at the turn of the…
Growing up on a small farm in southern Ohio, I was the first generation of my family to attend both high school and college. Literature, reading it, talking about it, studying it, was my entry into a world of larger possibilities than my family’s somewhat straitened circumstances had allowed me. Faulkner attracted me because the rural enclave in which we lived, and my neighbors, resembled locales and characters in his fiction. Shakespeare attracted me for many reasons, most notably the beauty of his language and the ability of his plays to reveal new meanings as my life experiences changed.
This, Sally Rooney’s first novel, was greeted with widespread critical acclaim. Fresh, witty, knowing, and au courant in its exploration of present-day sexual and romantic entanglements, the novel was clearly the work of a major talent.
Both Conversations and Rooney’s highly popular second novel, Normal People, have been adapted for television. Perhaps you’ve seen one or both and have read the novels as a result. If not, I urge you to do so, beginning with Conversations.
I haven’t yet watched either adaptation, but I believe that watching and reading have different sorts of advantages. Against the immediacy and vividness of watching TV shows, reading the novel will allow you to move at your own pace, to savor Rooney’s verbal dexterity, to revisit earlier scenes, and to discover their added significance. Watch (if you haven’t already), read, enjoy!
'This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I'm not alone.' - Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram)
'Brilliant, funny and startling.' Guardian
'I really like Conversations with Friends. I like the tone [Rooney] takes when she's writing. I think it's like being inside someone's mind.' - Taylor Swift
'A sharp, darkly funny comment on modern relationships.' Sunday Telegraph
Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend.…
