Books like The Road to Roswell

I love this book because, like Alice Barton, the novel's heroine, I was a hideously shy child and so sympathise enormously with her predicaments during the story. As we follow Alice on her weekend away to a house-party hosted by her mother's friends Lord and Lady Pomfret in their stately home, Pomfret Towers, we share Alice's fear of strangers, relief at meeting friendship from her contemporary Phoebe Rivers and the elder Lady Pomfret, and consternation when the parcel she brought with her and, later, her shoes vanish -- the servants have them safe, but however is she to get them back? How should she react to the overbearing Mrs Rivers? Will the obnoxious Julian Rivers get his come-uppance? Will her new friendships at the Towers replace her old friendships at home? And will Alice learn how to cope in Good Society, or at least learn how to cope with enthusiastic… show more.

This graphic memoir takes a kid’s-eye view of sibling tussles, screw-ups, a family background of toil and loss, the pull of two identities, and 1970s pop culture. Pedro is dismayed to learn that his family will drive from California to Jalisco to persuade his long-widowed grandfather to move into their very crowded house. Martín mixes graphic styles and pops in irreverent explainers on subjects like Mexican food, music, and toys. Being shaken down by border guards, hanging out with cousins, reburying Abuelita, and dealing with an undead deer in a Winnebago, Pedro connects deeply with what his parents and grandfather have endured. In between poignant parts, I laughed myself silly.

I loved this classic when I was a kid, so I had to share it with my granddaughter. She loved it, too. Elmer Elevator is a startlingly independent kid who listens to an alley cat. He learns of a baby dragon who is held captive by the animals of Wild Island. The cat knows exactly how Elmer should stow away to get to the island, and how to thwart the captors: hair ribbons, lollipops, rubber bands, magnifying glasses. I like that it’s both preposterous, and a triumph of kindness and ingenuity in the face of adversity. I adore the illustrations by the author’s stepmother. Two sequels feature anxious canaries, the dragon’s gorgeous family, and men who want to put them in zoos.

This is a brilliantly plotted detective story, an hilarious satire, and a well-informed introduction to ballet. I first read it over fifty years ago as a teenager (a copy borrowed from a friend) and have re-read it again and again. Every re-read is as funny, intriguing, and poignant as ever -- this is a book that never grows stale. Yes, the characters are humorous stereotypes, but the point of a stereotype is that it's a true image, yes? This book was originally published in 1937, so it's another world -- no mobile phones, no internet; we're in a place before the Second World War, where Hitler is as yet no more than an unpleasant threat ('by unfortunate coincidence Hitler had selected the day of [the crime] to threaten the world with peace, collaring the greater part of the front pages...') yet nearly ninety years later the story is still fresh,… show more.

This is the best novel I’ve read about bubonic plague.

Student historian Kivrin travels back in time to England of the Middle Ages—unknowingly at the start of the Black Death. The cause of Black Death was the plague bacteria, unknown to people of that time.

What makes the book memorable is its depiction of everyday life, where children who get lost in the forest must find their way home by the tolling of the village church bell. Ultimately, the bell tolls for all the plague’s victims.

The vivid characterization makes me experience people of a time so distant their minds feel alien to us, yet still deeply human.

I’d read the reviews, so I was prepared for a great book. I wasn’t prepared to be thrown out of my comfort zone—but in the best possible way.

Mandel made me sit with what it really means to lose everything and still create something beautiful. It’s not about saving the world; it’s about creating a new dream and making it your home. I loved how it celebrates art, memory, and the strange persistence of humanity even when everything else is gone.

This book reminded me that hope is often raw, painful, and ultimately necessary.

Kage Baker is an Isaac Asimov compared to Terry Pratchett’s Marx Brothers. In the Garden of Iden is more sci-fi than fantasy, including time travel, cybernetics, and nanotechnologies. And love and loss. This book is part of a series of novels that Baker crafted about time-travelling enhanced humans who carry out critical tasks throughout history. 

What I loved most about this book is how very human her main characters are. Like Pratchett and Bill Shakespeare, Baker is a master at showing us human nature. Her comedy is high comedy. I laugh because I recognize myself in her characters. Baker has a fine eye for the subtle and the absurd. And yet unlike many humorous authors, the tragedies of the heart are always at the core of her stories.

Stephen King is such an amazing writer, but if, like me, you don't read horror, your selection is limited. This incredibly inventive, incredibly researched, incredibly compelling book was one I couldn't stop talking about. My book club loved it too! And the ending--I couldn't guess how he was going to land that plane, but he did. Amazing.

I can only speak from my experience and, wow, this book hooked me right at the end of that first chapter, “but it’s happening faster.” Now to go into what that means, I will remain spoiler-free, but my jaw dropped. And the story only ramped up after that.

I love stories where the protagonist finds themselves in genuine peril, and Claire puts Harry August in a particular type of peril that truly had me terrified for his well-being in every chapter. The best type of suspense escalates in every chapter and it escalates here in this book in the best possible ways.

For someone who loves sci fi *and* historical fiction, this book was a perfect merge of the two, with the added bonus of stylistic homage to Jerome K. Jerome if you like that sort of thing (and I very much do). It is gently witty and full of personality; the characters are well filled out, and the frequent oscillations of the plot from the sublime to the absurd are delightful.