Here are 100 books that The Secret Garden fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been an avid reader since I was a child, and my favorite protagonists are readers and writers. The Kansas tallgrass prairie horizons where I grew up fueled my imagination, and I wanted to write like the girls in my novels. I discovered Anne of Green Gables as a teen, and since then, I’ve researched, published, and presented on the book as a quixotic novel. As a creative writer, my own characters are often readers, writers, librarians, book club members, and anyone who loves a good tale. I hope you enjoy the books on my list as much as I do each time I return to them.
Anne Shirley is a perfectly imperfect heroine, and that’s why I love her. She’s creative and imaginative and gets so lost in her daydreams that she can forget the flour in a cake or to cover leftover pudding, leaving easy access for a peckish mouse. Her temper matches her red hair, and she refuses to let anyone insult her dignity. She dreams of meeting kindred spirits—those individuals you just click with.
Although I first discovered Anne as a teen, I’ve returned to her throughout my life, and at each stage, she’s there like an old friend. The best part of knowing Anne has been meeting kindred spirits from all around the globe who share their own stories of reading and loving Anne.
Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. Feisty and full of spirit, Anne Shirley charms her way into the Cuthberts' affection with her vivid imagination and constant chatter. It's not long before Anne finds herself in trouble, but soon it becomes impossible for the Cuthberts to…
Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, Lake Song is set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New York’s Finger Lakes region. This novel in stories spans decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as the…
Children have vivid imaginations, and while mine was initially drawn to science fiction, I discovered my true passion for fantasy upon reading The Hobbit as a teenager. Since that day, escaping into fantasy worlds—whether it be through books, movies, TV, roleplaying, and video games—became my passion and hobby, leading me down many roads, including writing game reviews, a short story, a novel, and an extensive collection of fantasy-related replicas and statues. Ultimately, that endless feeling of wonder and exploration, adventure and danger is what convinced me to become an author; these five books sitting at the top of a long list that inspired me to reach that goal.
What truly is there left to say about this masterpiece of classic fantasy that hasn’t been said a million times already?
After devouring the light appetizer that is The Hobbit, my teenage imagination was utterly blown away by what I only later understood to be the quintessential blueprint for nearly everything that’s followed throughout the years in this genre.
The sheer level of minute detail and painstakingly developed mythos is nothing short of a masterclass in world-building—a must-have skill for writing this kind of epic tale—but it was the story itself, with its core principles of friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice, that resonated so deeply with me.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
My interest in healing and nature stems from a very particular source—my own search for answers in the wake of my wife’s premature death in 2007. I’d read somewhere that loss often either engulfs someone or propels them forward, and I didn’t want to end up in the former category, particularly as I had a young daughter to look after. So this list represents an urgent personal quest that started years ago and still continues to this day. The books have been a touchstone, a vital support, and a revelation—pieces in the jigsaw of a recovery still incomplete. I hope they help others as they’ve helped me.
A slightly more left-field choice in some ways since this book, as the title suggests, is a history, rather than a memoir, but it gave me such an uplifting sense of the permanence and longevity of nature, that I felt I had to include it.
It reinforced the sense that the natural world has existed way before we have and will go on long after we’ve disappeared. Just reading about the passion, dedication, and enthusiasm of gardeners down the ages too, provided an instant tonic.
If, like me, you’re a history buff, it’s also full of fascinating insights on how natural spaces down the centuries have acted as the social, romantic, and economic bedrocks of communities; how they’ve supported, reinvigorated, and given sustenance to so many different people over time.
Comforting, entertaining, and informative all at once.
Did the Romans have rakes? Did the monks get muddy? Did the potato seem really, really weird when it arrived on our shores?
This lively 'potted' history of gardening in Britain takes us on a garden tour from the thorn hedges around prehistoric settlements to the rage for decking and ornamental grasses today. It tracks down the ordinary folk who worked the earth - the apprentice boys and weeding women, the florists and nursery gardeners - as well as aristocrats and grand designers and famous plant-hunters. Coloured by Jenny Uglow's own love for plants, and brought to life in the…
Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, Lake Song is set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New York’s Finger Lakes region. This novel in stories spans decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as the…
My husband sums up my biography as “I am, therefore I dig.” I live, garden, read and write in Chatham, New Jersey, and have had a long, open love affair with the gardening style “across the pond.” At the New York Botanical Garden I teach English garden history, and I’m a regular contributor to the British gardening journal, Hortus. In my writing, I follow the relationship between the pen and the trowel, that is authors and their gardens. I’ve written books about children’s authors Beatrix Potter and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and, as you might imagine, the research trips to the UK were a special bonus.
Derek Jarmon was a British avant-garde filmmaker, theater designer, and life-long gardener. In the last decade of his life, he built a new garden at a tiny house by the sea in Kent. Prospect Cottage sits on the shingle expanse overlooking the Dungeness Nuclear Power Station and the English Channel. It was an accidental garden, this arrangement of rocks and driftwood, flowers, and found objects. The book sings. Jarmon’s musings and poems wind through a small volume of 140 pages; there are 150 photographs. It is a book about why we garden, how to live, and how to die.
'Paradise haunts gardens', writes Derek Jarman, 'and it haunts mine.' Jarman's public image is that of a film-maker of genius, whose work, dwelling on themes of sexuality and violence, became a byword for controversy. But the private man was the creator of his own garden-paradise in an environment that many might think was more of a hell than a heaven - in the flat, bleak, often desolate expanse of shingle that faces the Dungeness nuclear power station. Jarman, a passionate gardener from childhood, combined his painter's eye, his horticultural expertise and his ecological convictions to produce a landscape which combined…
My husband sums up my biography as “I am, therefore I dig.” I live, garden, read and write in Chatham, New Jersey, and have had a long, open love affair with the gardening style “across the pond.” At the New York Botanical Garden I teach English garden history, and I’m a regular contributor to the British gardening journal, Hortus. In my writing, I follow the relationship between the pen and the trowel, that is authors and their gardens. I’ve written books about children’s authors Beatrix Potter and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and, as you might imagine, the research trips to the UK were a special bonus.
In 2007 I worked in two gardens in the UK: Rosemoor, a Royal Horticultural Society garden in Devon, and London’s Chelsea Physic Garden. I was smitten by the miniature rock plants, displayed in pots in the gravel bed of Rosemoor’s Alpine House, and set into the odd, antique Pond Rockery at the Physic Garden. Shulman’s glib, tiny book reminds me of those jewel-like plantings. It focuses on the founding father of British alpine gardening, Reginald Farrer, a plant collector, writer, and swashbuckling adventurer. His method for seeding his cliffside garden in the Yorkshire Dales was my favorite episode; he loaded his gun with seeds he had collected in the Himalayas, took aim at the cliff, and pulled the trigger. Note: I haven’t tried this at home.
A new edition of Nicola Shulman's miniature masterpiece about the life of gardener Reginald Farrer A hundred years ago, there was a revolution in British gardening, as the garden changed from being a diversion of dukes to the hobby of millions. Few figures were more prominent in this renaissance than Reginald Farrer, whose passion for alpines, the most demanding of plants, would inspire generations with a love of flowers. He was the man who put a rockery in every back garden. Tormented by physical and emotional misfortune, Farrer was one of those 'born to endless night'. Yet in the realm…
My husband sums up my biography as “I am, therefore I dig.” I live, garden, read and write in Chatham, New Jersey, and have had a long, open love affair with the gardening style “across the pond.” At the New York Botanical Garden I teach English garden history, and I’m a regular contributor to the British gardening journal, Hortus. In my writing, I follow the relationship between the pen and the trowel, that is authors and their gardens. I’ve written books about children’s authors Beatrix Potter and Frances Hodgson Burnett, and, as you might imagine, the research trips to the UK were a special bonus.
If you love flowers and love to garden, do not miss this book by British poet James Fenton. Grab your seed catalogs and make a list of the hundred flowers you would grow, then compare your choices to James Fenton’s. I found it the perfect book to read during those gray days of winter, his bright prose radiating like an injection of sunshine. Fenton romps through the world of flower color: the orange of nasturtiums and Mexican sunflower, the lemon yellow evening primroses, and California bluebells “the colour of blue poster paint.” He captures his century of blooms with a poet’s pen. I didn’t want it to end.
"An engaging mix of the serious and the playful, and Fenton writes with a lightness of touch perfectly suited to the subject." --Alexander Urquhart, The Times Literary Supplement
Forget structure. Forget trees, shrubs, and perennials. As James Fenton writes, "This is not a book about huge projects. It is about thinking your way toward the essential flower garden, by the most traditional of routes: planting some seeds and seeing how they grow."
In this light hearted, instructive, original "game of lists," Fenton selects one hundred plants he would choose to grow from seed. Flowers for color, size, and exotic interest;…
I have been writing for the past 21 years on mystical themes with a good dose of Mother Earth Love tossed in. Fifteen years ago, I launched the spoken word website, offering one ten-minute recorded essay monthly on mystical/philosophical themes. Having published three nonfiction books, I decided to take my love of nature and interest in mysticism and write a novel for young philosophers and Earth-loving elders. My book follows the mystical journey of a rather practical eleven-year-old to an enchanted lake in the high Alps. It contains gentle animals, wise trees, kindred spirits, and healing waters.
This book is the story of a boy who runs away from his chaotic but loving home in New York City to try his hand at living in the wilderness of upstate New York.
I found it totally charming and instructive. He hollows out a tree to make himself a comfortable place to observe and embrace the Winter on the side of a mountain. This book is written more for child philosophers than Earth-Loving elders, but I read it to my husband, and we both enjoyed it greatly.
It is a different take on mother nature love than the others I have recommended, yet it still shines.
"Should appeal to all rugged individualists who dream of escape to the forest."-The New York Times Book Review
Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods-all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, forty dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever.
"An extraordinary book . . . It will be read year after…
I grew up playing outside during the day, reimagining the worlds I had read about the night before. With my imagination at full steam, I would hike, camp, fish, and hunt until I was tuckered out. Being somewhat isolated, I found solace in the characters in my regular reading, comforted by their humanity, foibles, and triumphs alike. I identified with overcoming adversity in order to survive. Book fueled the fire within me to choose the light over dark.
I loved The Voyage of the Dawn Treader because I felt like I was truly sailing into the unknown.
I imagined myself standing on the deck, watching strange islands appear on the horizon, and I shared the excitement and fear of discovery.
I admired how Edmund and Lucy grew braver, and I found myself rooting for Eustace as he struggled to change—I saw parts of myself in his stubbornness and his transformation. I felt lifted by Reepicheep’s unshakable courage and hope. I loved how every challenge reminded me that I, too, can face the unknown and keep moving toward the light.
A beautiful paperback edition of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, book five in the classic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia. This edition is complete with cover and interior art by the original illustrator of Narnia, Pauline Baynes.
A king and some unexpected companions embark on a voyage that will take them beyond all known lands. As they sail farther and farther from charted waters, they discover that their quest is more than they imagined and that the world's end is only the beginning.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the fifth book in C. S. Lewis's classic…
I’m an incurable nostalgist and, thanks to early exposure to a curly-haired, scarf-wearing eccentric who travels the universe in a battered old police box, gained an early and ongoing obsession with time travel stories, whether intricately-plotted and filled with brain-tangling paradoxes, or steeped in wistful yearning for days gone by. Young me would, I like to think, be delighted to learn that he would, one day, write a book bursting with both paradoxes AND yearning.
As a six-year-old, I was enraptured by the 1974 BBC TV adaptation of this book, thrilled by the notion that I, too, might one day find a magical route into hidden worlds.
As my reading skills improved, I did just that, thanks to a library card and books like this one. Pearce’s tale is haunting and beautifully told, and there’s an ingenious little piece of time-travel plotting involving a pair of ice skates that blew my preteen mind.
From beloved author Philippa Pearce, this sixtieth-anniversary edition is the perfect way to share this transcendent story of friendship with a new generation of readers. Philip Pullman, bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, called Tom's Midnight Garden "A perfect book."
When Tom's brother gets sick, he's shipped off to spend what he's sure will be a boring summer with his aunt and uncle in the country. But then Tom hears the old grandfather clock in the hall chime thirteen times, and he's transported back to an old garden where he meets a young,…
Like most writers, I am extremely interested in the “what if” factor. What if food ingredients could make a person feel specific emotions? What if drinking from a spring in the woods could give you a superpower? What if fairies really do take care of and grow all plants and trees in the world? I love to read and write about ordinary people, living everyday life, who encounter threads of magic. Influenced by reading books in the genre of “magical realism,” I love to explore how a dab of magic can be used in realistic fiction to emotionally affect the characters and story arc.
So, this book was made into two movies, the first in 1981 and the other in 2002, but I first experienced this story by reading the book when I was a young girl in sixth grade in 1978. I remember reading the epilogue over and over again—it broke my heart to think how the greed of one man could ruin something so magical. I pondered whether it was a blessing or a curse to live forever, and the town of Treegap felt like it could exist in any wooded place. Whenever I find myself in a thick forest, I still search for springs that bubble up from the ground, taking me right back to those emotions when reading this great classic.
Winnie Foster is in the woods, thinking of running away from home, when she sees a boy drinking from a spring. Winnie wants a drink too, but before she can take a sip, she is kidnapped by the boy, Jesse Tuck, and his family. She learns that the Tuck family are blessed with - or doomed to - eternal life since drinking from the spring, and they wander from place to place trying to live as inconspicuously as they can. Now Winnie knows their secret. But what does immortality really mean? And can the Tucks help her understand before it's…
