Here are 87 books that The Secret Life of Bees fans have personally recommended if you like
The Secret Life of Bees.
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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…
A brilliant scholar, ancient libraries in danger due to war, suppressed women’s religious history, and a renegade monastery.
A doggedly determined Sofia Papandréou pursues evidence for women in leadership in early Christianity in the dusty corners of libraries, long ignored. Or worse, actively hidden away to deny women their heritage…
I live by the Atlantic Ocean, so the thoughts of floods are never far away, especially as the seas are warming through human-caused climate change. I wrote about storms and floods in my novel Float and, more recently, in my new novel listed below. I did a lot of research on flooding for both, and I am constantly amazed by the power of the natural world, particularly one out of balance as it is now. My passion and purpose is to bring the dangers of this imbalance to my readers. Even if you have never been in a flood before, fiction allows you to know what it feels like.
Among many wonderful things about this book, I consider it a climate novel and a climate justice story in particular. Hurricane Katrina wipes out a Black working-class family who are flooded out of their house. I was deeply attached to the narrator, the teen daughter in the story, and I loved her even more for having hope that things could change.
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'A brilliantly pacy adventure story ... Ward writes like a dream' - The Times
'Fresh and urgent' - New York Times
'There's something of Faulkner to Ward's grand diction' - Guardian
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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Hurricane Katrina is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. He's a hard drinker, largely absent, and it isn't often he worries about the family.
Esch and her three brothers are stockpiling food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets;…
I am a lifelong lover of books. As a child, one of my most prized possessions was my library card. It gave me entrance to a world of untold wonders from the past, present, and future. My love of reading sparked my imagination and led me to my own fledgling writing efforts. I come from a family of storytellers, my mother being the chief example. She delighted us with stories from her childhood and her maturation in the rural South. She was an excellent mimic, which added realism and humor to every tale.
This book is part odyssey, part ghost story, and part passion play. Toni Morrison is one of the patron saints of American literature whom I was fortunate to discover at an early age. This is her masterpiece, an example of what is possible when a writer’s heart, mind, and spirit are aligned.
The fact that the unfathomable sacrifice around which Beloved is imagined is based upon an actual event speaks volumes about the innate horrors of slavery. In matters of race, America’s skeletons are buried in shallow graves.
'Toni Morrison was a giant of her times and ours... Beloved is a heart-breaking testimony to the ongoing ravages of slavery, and should be read by all' Margaret Atwood, New York Times
Discover this beautiful gift edition of Toni Morrison's prize-winning contemporary classic Beloved
It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her…
Winner of the 2025 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Spring Competition - Women's Fiction
Kelly needs a break, even if it’s only for the weekend. But visiting her aunt in Sun City turns into an unexpected care-giving situation, prompting her to face avoided decisions.
I’ve spent most of my life fascinated by what happens when women stop editing themselves. As a former television reporter, health educator, and memoirist, I’ve lived on both sides of the polished story and the private reckoning in my search for truth. Writing my own memoir forced me to confront how often women are encouraged to soften conflict, spiritualize pain, or tidy up the truth to make it more palatable. I’m drawn to books that refuse that impulse—stories where healing isn’t performative, and transformation isn’t neat.
I loved this book because it gave language to instincts I didn’t yet trust.
I read it long ago, and its stories stayed with me—not intellectually, but somatically. This book doesn’t explain women; it remembers us. Through myth and archetype, Clarissa Pinkola Estés reclaims the wild, intuitive self that so many women are trained to domesticate.
It taught me that messiness isn’t a flaw—it can be the sign of something alive trying to return.
First published three years before the print edition of Women Who Run With the Wolves made publishing history, this original audio edition quickly became an underground bestseller. For its insights into the inner life of women, it established Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes as one of the most important voices of our time in the fields of Jungian psychology, myth, and women's mysteries.
Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora ("keeper of the old stories"), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the…
I have learned about the nature of magic and the mythical firsthand. I have always been a seeker, fiercely curious and an avid reader to try to understand the world so as to find myself and my destiny. Wise women appeared to guide my path as I quested the heroine’s journey with its many helpers and spirits, its coincidences, and its marvels. When I dreamt about the Roma, I knew the story was important; I attended UCLA and got to work. My passion has never dwindled during the 20 years it took to manifest the Destiny's Consent book series.
I think more than anything, I loved the way she described everything. Her language is as if her words were first sent to her heart and then to her soul before they came onto the page. The warmth and the power are overwhelming in her style. It is obvious she loved grandly Africa and its denizens, and as a reader, I couldn’t help but feel the same.
I love heroines in exotic places and situations, especially if it is much of their own makings or seemingly destiny. This book is a memoir of a tomboy girl in East Africa, so even though it is all true, it feels epic.
I could really relate to Beryl as a girl with her animals. (Growing up, I loved and collected animals from nature, too.) Beryl grew up with a zebra for a pet, horses for friends, and, of course, the most loyal dog.…
WEST WITH THE NIGHT appeared on 13 bestseller lists on first publication in 1942. It tells the spellbinding story of Beryl Markham -- aviator, racehorse trainer, fascinating beauty -and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and 30s.
Markham was taken to Kenya at the age of four. As an adult she was befriended by Denys Finch-Hatton, the big-game hunter of OUT OF AFRICA fame, who took her flying in his airplane. Thrilled by the experience, Markham went on to become the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot's license.
The concept of whether a woman can truly be the subject of her own life has always fascinated me. It was an invisible struggle I didn’t know I had. Until I set out to finish the 54 unmet dreams of my late father, whose life had been cut short in a car crash. It wasn’t until I looked at the world through main character lenses, the kind that just seem to come more naturally to men, that I was able to see myself truly. This is just one lesson from my book. If you’ve ever felt different, remember: you’re not. You just haven’t seen yourself as the main character yet. These books will guide you.
This book was an integral resource when I began to write my book. It helped me shape the structure of my book.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter—as indissolubly as if they were conceived together.”
This, and other books I've read, did this. My favorite books of all time have inventive structures. And reading these helped me find mine.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
Feral Maril & Her Little Brother Carol
by
Leslie Tall Manning,
Winner of the Literary Titan Book Award
Bright but unassuming Marilyn Jones has some grown-up decisions to make, especially after Mama goes to prison for drugs and larceny. With no one to take care of them, Marilyn and her younger, mentally challenged brother, Carol, get tossed into the foster care…
I’ve wanted to travel the world since I could look out a window. It’s been an honor to spend my life exploring this planet, despite some of its inhabitants. I knew I’d write books about it, even before I could write my own name. It’s a joy to realize such a deep and early dream. My books are love letters to places I’ve lived and people I’ve met, plus some joking around in order not to scream or weep at some of what’s out there. I’ve been a teacher, film editor, comedian, librarian, and now writer. Wherever you are, on whatever path: happy trails to you.
This became iconic for a reason – because many of us have been there or nearby, and we can relate.
Divorce has demolished many a soul, but this woman had a three-point recovery plan many have aspired to. In Italy, she ate well and fattened up on ice cream. In India, she fed her inner self at a yoga and meditation ashram for spiritual nutrition. Then, with step three, the romantic full circle was complete when she met her new love in Indonesia. She is a fine example of how a woman can indeed undertake a journey to find everything.
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OVER 15 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
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'Eat, Pray, Love has been passed from woman to woman like the secret of life' - Sunday Times
'A defining work of memoir' - Sunday Telegraph
'Engaging, intelligent, and highly entertaining' - Time
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It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it.
A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own…
From Taylor Swift to Lauryn Hill, from Joan Baez to Beyonce, I find that the lyrics, performances, and melodies of women making music inspire my own creativity every day. I am not a musician; I am a writer, editor, and novelist! But I find music to be so accessible, so deeply meaningful, in a way that other art forms, even my own, are not. So naturally, I adore novels about music!
I return to this book in my mind again and again, and quote it all the time! It’s a slim, sexy, romantic, philosophical novel set against the backdrop of a British woman’s eye (and heart)-opening trip to Italy.
At first, young Lucy Honeychurch plays the piano with unbridled passion and lives somewhat timidly. But with a little bit of love, and some beauty, can that change?
When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.
Lucy Honeychurch travels to Florence, Italy, with her cousin and they were assured they would receive a room with a view of the River Arno, but instead are given a room overlooking a dull courtyard. A one Mr. Emerson and his son George offer their room, which as the desirable view, to the two ladies. From this opening sequence, A Room with a View sets off following young Lucy as she navigates through…
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…
When I realized years ago that the universe isn’t merely a concrete reality, I turned to metaphysical/visionary books to understand my experience. There weren’t that many books, but the ones I found became dear friends. Now, after decades as a freelance editor, I am writing fiction in this genre because I believe stories can be as powerful as expository writing for awakening consciousness. However, I’ve noticed many metaphysical writers discourage the engagement and commitment needed to make this world a better place. For this reason, I seek to gather—and contribute to—writing that is visionary and also advocates for democracy and social justice.
Although this collection of short stories can be generally categorized as speculative fiction—and most are more specifically science fiction—there is nevertheless a strong visionary element in many of them. As I would expect when reading any book that has many authors, I relate to some stories more than others.
I particularly loved how they collectively built on the amazing legacy of Octavia Butler and did so by explicitly uniting around the social justice theme.
Whenever we envision a world without war, prisons, or capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. These visionary tales span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around…
