Books like The Shepherd's Hut — picked by fans

As someone who considers her brother her creative muse, I would describe this novel as one interested in siblings.

Between Leonie and Given, and Jojo and Kayla is an indescribable, utterly unique bond, held within and beyond both family and friendship. 

I was utterly consumed by this heartbreaking novel. From the opening scene where Pop and Jojo kill and skin a goat, to the heat in Leonie’s car and the scene of Jojo’s police cuffing, Ward delivers a pace, language, and viscerality that means you can’t look away. 

Somewhat surprisingly, I was even compelled by the book’s ghostly elements. I found they enhanced the magnitude of the characters’ burdens, especially for thirteen-year-old Jojo, who already shoulders so much.

I highly recommend this book, as a pleasure and as a duty to your fellow human beings. 

I loved the Glaswegian (quasi-Irish!) voice of Shuggie Bain, but what I will always remember it for is its gut-wrenching depiction of the consequences of poverty and alcoholism for the titular child character. 

There were times when I was reading this novel that I literally flinched from it. It’s one of the most poignant times that I can remember having such a visceral reaction to a book. 

What I found truly remarkable was the book’s sense of simultaneous inevitability and hope. At once, I felt that there was only one possible end for Agnes and Shuggie, and yet I also somehow believed that both characters would escape their miserable situation.

This idea, that hope sustains even against the most improbable odds, accesses something fundamentally human. A book that can do that is one I would recommend any day.

This was my first introduction to Richard Flanagan’s writing, and it was the beginning of a deep, ongoing love affair.

I adore and admire Flanagan’s prose and the small, often invisible truths it contains. What I loved about Wanting was how it delved into and distinctly portrayed the innermost thoughts and feelings of multiple characters.

When interviewed, Flanagan describes this book as his attempt to understand passion, desire, and wanting. I can attest that Wanting is a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of what motivates human behaviour and how this process can become incredibly twisted and rife with ill intent. 

In Mathina’s story, there is little light or hope. An indictment of what happens to the discarded when the powerful don’t want them anymore, her downfall is tender, devastating, and utterly important as an emotionally charged, narrative account of Australian history.

This was one of the first books I read at university. I admired Marie Munkara’s gruff voice and the way she delicately balanced satirical humour and dark truths.

Juxtaposing the voices of colonial guards and officers with 16-year-old Aboriginal mother, Sugar, lends this novel a messy complexity which is always compelling.

At the beginning, I found it easy to mock and deride the white colonial officers: the overtly racist Drew, the well-meaning but exploitative Ralphie, the bumbling, inadequate Hump with his mistaken ambitions of grandeur. I thought I’d figured it all out, that I’d grasped all of Munkara’s meaning. 

But as Sugar’s fate is revealed, and more significantly, she recognises the inevitability of her downfall, I was humbled. Munkara’s book taught me to look beyond the seemingly obvious characters and literary devices to the nuance within. 

Two decades ago, I was preparing for my first book promotion trip to Australia and New Zealand. I asked my (Aussie) publisher to recommend two books to learn more about Australia and its history.

The first was In A Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson, which I had heard of. The second was Cooper’s Creek, which I hadn’t. It’s a stunning, scary, edge-of-your-seat short history about an expedition in 1860 that set out from Melbourne into the vast, empty, broiling interior of the country, with the mission to find a route to the lush northern coast. Needless to say, things didn’t go as planned.

The book is taken from first-hand accounts by the explorers, and is novel-like in its dramatic twists and turns. 

Although set in a near-future America, I related to the way these two sisters had to live, conserving electricity and resources, running a generator, and always having to think carefully about whether to drive the 30 miles into town. Most haunting to me were the scenes where Eva, a dedicated dancer, practiced over and over an audition routine without the benefit of music, having to rely on the soundtrack in her head.

These two women were at the precipice of their adult lives, just beginning to actualize their talents, when they experienced a societal collapse. As the reader going along with them, it made me think about priorities, relationships, and who I would be without modern technology.  

This book grabbed me and never let go. Humor was infused within the tragic backdrop of Nazi Germany with perfect harmony. I loved the undying loyalty and friendship that was built between jailed teenager, Lev and his Sundance sidekick, Kolya and the eclectic band of characters they bond with while searching for a dozen eggs to use for the colonel’s daughter’s wedding cake.

Hilarious and sad. I laughed out loud many times, then my guts turned inside out from the tragic circumstances plaguing the young men as their life hung in the balance searching for those dozen eggs. 

I may be an outlier, but I will assert that this is Elizabeth Gilbert’s greatest book. I think the lively realness of her literary voice and gift for human insight was most transcendent telling this story (and what a story!) that was not her own.

Not a week goes by that I don’t think about Eustace Conway’s description of how nature is a circle and our life in the modern world is made of boxes. That, and the entirety of The Last American Man, changed my worldview forever.

Gonzales has a way of providing information in a compelling manner, managing to use stories to present ideas rather than approaching them clinically. Deep Survival is a fascinating look at how people interact with the world as influenced by their unique and our shared human psychology and experiences. This book provides insight, but also inspiration to pay more attention and learn from our own experiences, creating a mental foundation for further exploration and growth. 

This book takes readers into the swamps of Florida where wild things eat people. I’m a huge fan of Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, and John D. McDonald, all of whom write (or wrote in the case of McDonald) about south Florida. So it’s great to find a YA book for boys set in the Everglades. Like with most of Tim’s books, the characters push the boundaries of what they know to be right, but do not cross the line. Boys take chances. Or at least the boys I grew up with did. We explore the outdoors, go it alone, test things, break things, and often get trapped in situations of our own making. Escape from the Everglades allows me to enjoy being a kid again without, you know, getting gobbled by a gator.