Here are 32 books that The Me I Used to Be fans have personally recommended if you like
The Me I Used to Be.
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A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
A runaway finds sisterhood, love, and danger in a mountain town.
On the run from her abusive husband, Kyra Smith hits the road. Destination unknown. With a dog she rescued in tow, she lands in the peaceful California mountain town of Gold Creek and is immediately befriended by an openhearted…
USA Today Bestseller! "Full of tongue-in-cheek humor, excellent dialogue, and fantastic characters, this expertly crafted story from Carter (The Blonde Identity) is a heart-melting rivals-to-lovers romance combined with a delightful locked-room mystery." — Library Journal (starred review)
Knives Out gets a holiday rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter.
The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room two days before Christmas.
“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.” ― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
“We give those we love nicknames, because love requires a word that belongs to us alone.” ― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
“This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.” ― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
The funny, touching and unpredictable No. 1 New York Times bestseller, now a major Netflix TV series
'A brilliant and comforting read' MATT HAIG 'Funny, compassionate and wise. An absolute joy' A.J. PEARCE 'A surefooted insight into the absurdity, beauty and ache of life' GUARDIAN 'I laughed, I sobbed, I recommended it to literally everyone I know' BUZZFEED 'Captures the messy essence of being human' WASHINGTON POST
From the 18 million copy internationally bestselling author of A Man Called Ove _______
It's New Year's Eve and House Tricks estate agents are hosting an open viewing in an up-market apartment when…
When I learned, at seventeen, of my father’s Jewish heritage, I flung myself headlong into reading about Judaism. Naturally, this led me to the Holocaust and World War II, and my novels are inspired by family stories from this harrowing time. While doing research, I traveled to Germany and London, interviewed WWII veterans, and read countless memoirs, academic nonfiction tomes, and historical fiction books about this era. I now speak at libraries and to community organizations about the Ritchie Boys, Secret Heros of WWII. People sometimes tell me concentration camp stories are too disturbing, so I recommend books about Jewish survival, heroism, and everyday life during the Third Reich.
I was immediately hooked by this brilliant novel because of its unusual omniscient narrator, the Grim Reaper. Death, stressed out by the surfeit of “clients” he must deal with during World War II, reveals himself to be a sensitive narrator who sees everything. He especially keeps his eye on a young German girl, her loving foster parents, and the Jewish man they hide and protect.
I fell in love with these characters as they struggled with moral decisions, wartime hardship, danger, and tragedy. Despite the realistic portrayal of German life during WWII, I found this book to be an uplifting read.
'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian 'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times 'Extraordinary' Telegraph ___
HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
I love to laugh. Quite often it’s at inappropriate times or at someone else’s expense, but either way, it’s a huge part of who I am. Second only to prayer, I find laughter to be the best remedy for a difficult situation. It’s hard to be sad when you’re laughing, and as a writer who puts characters into very challenging positions, that’s always at the forefront of my mind. While readers may not always relate to the exact circumstance my characters are in, they may very well find common ground in the levity they seek when trying to survive it.
I was (thankfully) long past the “putting kids to bed” stage of life when I first read this book, but you don’t have to be in the depths of sleep-deprived hell to enjoy it! This book is 100% irreverent which makes it 100% perfect! It will provide just the right amount of levity to any frustrated parent/sitter who can’t understand why that beautiful, crying child in front of them won’t go to sleep already! Disclaimer: If you don’t appreciate a good F-bomb, don’t read this book. The title says it all.
"Nothing has driven home a certain truth about my generation, which is approaching the apex of its childbearing years, quite like this." --The New Yorker
"A parenting zeitgeist" --Washington Post
"A hilarious take on that age-old problem: getting the beloved child to go to sleep." --National Public Radio
"A new Bible for weary parents" --New York Times
"Resonates powerfully with almost everyone" --Boston Globe
"This children's book parody earns its place on the list by being a much-needed bit of catharsis that every parent needs." --Fatherly, one of the 10 Best…
I spent my childhood treading the Aravalli jungles with my naturalist father, catching snakes and spinning yarns and I learnt early that the most dangerous creatures are rarely the ones with fangs. My father, Raza Tehsin, raised me with the rational approach of solving any mysteries that I came across—whether in nature or otherwise. I grew up to become a writer. Across my twenty-odd published books, from nature writing to my historical mystery novel The Witch in the Peepul Tree, I have experimented with form and genre across age groups and remained fascinated by mysteries. My latest, The Fourth Girl, is a psychological thriller about three friends and the girl who vanished from their lives.
A reader friend recommended this book strongly, but I approached it a bit tentatively at first. Then the marsh swallowed me whole.
What dragged me in wasn't the murder trial, gripping as it was, it was Kya herself, this abandoned girl learning gulls and shells and loneliness the way other children learn arithmetic. I've grown up visiting forests with my naturalist father and still live in wild places so I was quite taken by the natural world written with such tenderness or a woman's solitude given such dignity.
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…
In all my travel books, I’ve followed my intuition to a destination or into a subject, pairing emotion with intellectual curiosity, travelling to try to know a people, place, idea, or time. So the pivot to navigating the ‘border' between life and death felt like an obvious extension. It’s a frontier that we'll all have to pass, and we’ll not have to worry about forgetting your passport. I began my search for my wife Katrin as a skeptic and ended it with faith in the existence of an afterlife. In sharing this journey, I hope others may be helped to prepare for and to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
How do we make sense of death? How do we balance rational explanations with the ‘magical thinking’ of the heart?
In her honest and passionate memoir, Joan Didion—an iconic American journalist and author—attempted 'to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness…about marriage and children and memory…about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself’.
Her search for meaning leaned toward rational explanations, yet this remains a vital work in enabling us to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life - in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.
Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then pneumonia, then complete sceptic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later - the night before New Year's Eve -the Dunnes were…
I’m a professor and YA author. Books helped me navigate the difficult choices I faced growing up. I gravitated to characters that I could picture myself befriending and looking up to because they had the bravery and strength that I wanted to have. As an author, I believe we need more stories about people who leave a positive mark on the world. I try to write characters that I can both relate to and would want to be friends with: characters who, in facing difficulty, discover the strength of their humanity because they have a light and goodness that shines somewhere deep inside.
Jonas is our youngest protagonist on the list. He is destined to be the receiver of memories in a futuristic utopian society. Those memories are to be passed down to him by an old man, the Giver.
Jonas lives in a society where people are innocent—innocent of emotion, pain, and suffering. He must lose his innocence to experience the joys and pains of humane experience.
That’s a heavy responsibility. And it’s Jonas’ thoughtfulness and curiosity that draws me to him. He faces difficult ethical choices. His awakening is unique to the fictional world he inhabits, but it is universal in theme. His quest to gain knowledge, his willingness to question authority to get to the truth, and his ability to make tough choices to experience the depth of what it means to be human make him someone I would want in my corner.
THE GIVER is soon to be a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift.
Now available for the first time in the UK, THE GIVER QUARTET is the complete four-novel collection.
THE GIVER: It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in the community wants for anything. Everything needed is provided. And at twelve years old, each member of the community has their profession carefully chosen for them by the Committee of Elders.
Jonas has never thought there was anything wrong with his world. But from the…
As an acupuncturist and die-hard romantic, I did a deep dive into Taoist teachings when the love of my life passed away suddenly. I was looking for comfort, for answers, for reassurance that such intense chemistry can somehow transcend death. What happened is a long-buried desire to be an author started spinning my grief into Atlantis Writhing, a romantasy I hoped would uplift others enduring a dark night of the soul.
I made the mistake of reading Wuthering Heights right after I finished my favorite romance of all time (Jane Eyre).
I suppose I’d hoped the Brontë sisters, as siblings, would somehow create similar main characters with intense chemistry. But Charlotte’s love story was built on mutual respect and affection; Emily, on the other hand, created the selfish and shameless saga of Heathcliff and Catherine.
Honestly? I had to read a few chapters before I could even begin to appreciate the raw intensity of a connection matched only by the novel’s stormy and violent landscape. Yet I don’t believe there’s ever been a romance novel with more compelling chemistry.
Wuthering Heights is indeed a beautifully – if brutally – written tale about twin flames, and how that type of obsessive craving is a thirst that can never be quenched.
One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Bronte's haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love. Her tragically short life is brilliantly imagined in the major new movie, Emily, starring Emma Mackey in the title role.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of Wuthering Heights features an afterword by David Pinching.
One wild, snowy night on the Yorkshire moors, a gentleman asks…
I am passionate about writing books that put good into the world and highlight meaningful and inspiring themes, which, in turn, means I am also passionate about reading books that do the same. I love to write and read books that leave the reader feeling like there is still good in the world, even when it seems to be very dark around us. If people read my books or any on this list, I sincerely hope they feel encouraged and inspired and enjoy them as much as I do.
I recommend this book only if you like to cry – but like… the good kind of crying. It’s a raw and emotional fiction story about dealing with the grief of losing a spouse, and it is incredibly well-written. I had no idea what I was getting myself into the first time I picked up this book, but I greatly enjoyed the emotional roller coaster.
Whenever people ask me for a book recommendation that will emotionally challenge them, I always recommend this one.
They used to joke about it. Like many brilliant scientists, Josh sometimes had trouble remembering things that needed doing in the “real” world—like buying groceries, eating regular meals, and talking to people. But he was happy to have his beloved wife, Lauren, remind him with her “honey do” lists. He just never realized how much he would need one when she was gone.
Being a widower is not something Joshua Park ever expected. Given his solitary job, small circle of friends and family, and the social awkwardness he’s always suffered from, Josh has no idea how to negotiate this new,…
