Books like The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

It might not be Korean, but the same feeling is there. So many fangirls dream of visiting their favorite stories—and the main character Jane—in the book Austenland gets to do just that. When Jane’s grandmother buys her a trip to Austenland—the place where any girl’s Jane Austen dream can come true, she feels rude turning it down. Although, she’s enamored by men wearing smart coats and cravats, she’s also keenly aware of how fake everything is. It only takes a few days, however, to get swept up in the realness of the scene. A fangirl can hardly control her desire to be in her favorite book. This adorable and funny romance is exactly my cup of tea. 

When I first came upon Sarah Shoemaker’s novel, I felt myself issuing a silent challenge: Can the author really inspire my sympathy for the gruff and tormented hero of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre? While I’d always loved the atmospheric moodiness of the novel and could empathize to a degree with Jane Eyre herself, Mr. Rochester’s dark, brooding, and secretive nature made me uneasy, and I wasn’t quick to find him as endearing as some other classic literary heroes. However, it was fascinating to be brought into the point of view of this particular Edward Fairfax Rochester! I appreciated experiencing the world of the novel as he might have perceived it and found the detailed background on his life to be an enjoyable addition.

Having been a huge fan of Kwan’s incredibly popular Crazy Rich Asians, I was already inclined to like this new book. Once I realized it was directly inspired by one of my longtime favorites, E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View (which I’d loved enough to write a modernization based on the original novel as well), I was immediately interested to see how Kwan would handle it. The comedy of manners and the exploration of cultural values and differences were the most intriguing aspects of the story to me. The focus on the ultra-wealthy—and all the toys and privileges that come with it—was less appealing, but it was still a thought-provoking element, given the context of the characters’ lives. Definitely worth checking out!

There simply aren’t enough romances that focus on older main characters, so I particularly loved that this funny, Shakespeare-inspired love story had a 60-year-old divorced heroine and an equally mature widower hero. The protagonists are rival florists in Boston, and their families have been embroiled in a feud that has spanned several generations. Watching the way this novel played out—especially with so many meddling family members!—was great fun. And if, like me, you always wished the original Romeo and Juliet could have, maybe, been transformed into a comedy with a happier ending, Jeanne Ray’s light, modern romance just might be for you.

This book was my first introduction to One-dimensional Chess. I assumed the idea was as ridiculous as other impossible games in the story, such as Spotless Dominoes, but then it occurred to me that maybe not.

I devised a version with a King, Queen, Knight and three or four pawns facing each other along a single line of spaces and amazingly it does kind of work, though it is probably more of a puzzle than a game. I later learned that there are many other versions of One-dimensional Chess devised by chess fanatics over the years.

Apart from that, the story is a thought-provoking triple fantasy that plays with the notion that perhaps life itself is just a game, a puzzle we have to solve before we can move on.

Whether and how childhood adversity shapes human development is a question that has long intrigued scientists and citizens.

This book tells the story of a great sociologist mining archival data about children who grew up during economically troubled times in America in order to underscore how the past is—and is not—prologue. Perhaps its greatest contribution is in illuminating the environmental conditions and life experiences that determined whether children eventually thrived or failed. In so doing, this work shaped the field of developmental studies, including my own work, for decades to come.

A collaborative book written in verse by award-winning Debbie Levy and JoAnn Allen Boyce who was one of twelve African American students who desegregated Clinton High School in eastern Tennessee in 1956. Brown vs. Board of Education ruled to integrate schools in 1954, but integration didn’t happen easily or quickly. We tend to know more about the Little Rock Nine of 1957 because national journalists published what became iconic photos of the tense struggle of courageous Black teenagers breaking through white hostility to attend a white high school. The earlier event in Tennessee was equally fraught (but less photographed). To have Boyce’s memory of events and her ability to articulate her feelings and Levy’s lyrical bent makes this an enlightening read.

Michael Moffatt was a professor of anthropology when he embedded himself in the Rutgers student dorms to begin a years-long investigation of what entering adulthood meant for undergraduates at the State University of New Jersey.

Moffatt’s research included survey data, perceptive description of his own experience, and student journals (used with permission, of course). In the great tradition of social science, Moffatt identifies a range of sexual types among the young people he studied. 

I'm hooked on the fabulous, memorable characters, fast-paced action, and snappy dialogue.

Grad student Jessica James is having a killer year. Living rent-free in her advisor's office attic, she breaks into her advisor's office at night to discover she's not the only one who hates the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Baldrick Wolfgang Schumtzig.

Jessica James joins the ranks of strong women sleuths. She and her living-on-the-fringe pals investigate "Wolf's" death while dodging frat boys, gamblers, and the police. The narrative voice is sarcastic and quick-minded.

Having studied, taught, and written about C.S. Lewis, I’m steeped in all things Lewis and Oxford. And yet, Patti Callahan’s story-telling gift enables me to transcend the facts I know about Lewis into the realm of experience.

I can live the stories of Lewis’s childhood, war, and university years, and conversion through the vivid imagination of the fictional lad George, seeing through his eyes glimpses of where Lewis found inspiration for the Narnian tales.

The split narrative between the first person of George’s older sister Megs and the 3rd person of Lewis’s life is masterfully seamless, while Patti’s prose is lyrical and haunting. The poignant frame narrative of wee George’s struggle with heart failure and his sister’s desperation to help him with Lewis’s stories moves me deeply.