67 Books Like The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam

I adored The Half God of Rainfall’s daring: a new free-verse epic crafted from ancient Yoruba and Greek mythology by Inua Ellams, a poet and playwright, who has also adapted it for theatre. It tells the story of Demi, the son of Modúpé, a mortal woman and the Greek god Zeus. Ellams does not shy away from Zeus’s canonical role as a violent sexual predator and the tale of Demi’s rise and fall as a basketball player, half god, and half mortal culminates in the overthrowing of the patriarchy. Demi’s mother Modúpé, with the aid of the Òrìsà (Yoruban Gods) and other women wronged by him – Leda, Danaë, Europa, Antiope – takes her revenge on the great Zeus himself. 

Apollo is a god who refuses to take his position as god of the sun.

Until his father forces him to either ascend immediately, or spend the year being mentored under the obnoxious Prince Hyacinth. Forced together, Apollo and Hyacinth grapple with their mutual disdain for each other, but eventually irritation turns into love.

Apollo and Hyacinth are the sweetest opposites attract couple. One is an uptight responsible prince, the other is a rebel demi-god. They get together, they give the other what they’ve lacked, and make each other better.

These are two good-natured characters who love humanity and work hard to make life better, while in the process falling in love.

This is for me and for anyone who loves to see a pure, natural, slow-burn attraction.

This Black sociologist demands that we take a deep look into the religious basis of American racism.

Of 5,000 cases of lynching reported between 1880 and 1930, at least 40% functioned as actual human sacrifices, very large communal rituals that identified certain individuals as the source of the community’s problems and eliminated them. The sacrifice created a compact between the people and their deities, expiating their sins and reinforcing their values.

"The victim mediated between the sacred and the profane...the burning cross distilled it all: sacrificed Negro joined by the torch with sacrificed Christ, burnt together and discarded...” Well into the 20th century, “The cross – Christianity’s central symbol of Christ’s sacrificial death – became identified with the crucifixion of the Negro.” Forced to carry all the projections of the white unconscious, the Black man became the American Dionysus.

Patterson observes that in recent generations the stereotype of America’s internal… show more.

Like, omigod! What a blast from the past! This adorable teen romance takes place in 1984 in southern California. It was a totally awesome 80s flashback that reminded me of Pretty in Pink (never a bad thing, amirite?). Granted, I felt that too many of the pop culture references were awkwardly crowbarred into the narrative, but it was still a fun ride nonetheless. I love stories like this, ones where the average girl lands the school’s most popular guy. Throw in a makeover, and I’m one-clicking every time. Does that make me shallow? I don’t care. Plots like that always give good butterflies, and MWY is no exception. If you’re looking for a totally rad romance that won’t gag you with a spoon, Melt With You will like, totally stoke your 1980s heart.

I love a book that you can dive into, and it takes you into a whole other world. A mysterious world that takes the good and the bad and turns it upside down, inside out, and twists everything until nothing is at seems or you believe it should be. I love new and exciting characters that haven’t been touched on yet or even just a twist of ideas that gets your mind racing with new possibilities. You can’t wait for the next page to see where this new world will take you.  

"The statements we make just by getting dressed in the morning." This book about fashion and dress codes, and how they interconnect with gender, sexuality, and class, is lively and thought-provoking. My own study of the women who appear in Greek vase paintings led me to look more closely at women’s relationship with their clothing. In particular their handling of shoes became a source of fascination, and in my current research I’m focussing on narratives around female footwear. In the book, Brydon’s chapter "Sensible Shoes" has been an inspiration. Stilettos, for example, are seen as being entirely ambiguous in their significance, items which can both empower and disable the wearer. Like the knife they are named after, they are double-edged. 

Meticulously researched by brilliant fashion journalist Alicia Drake, this book charts the bitchy, high octane rivalry of two mega egos of the industry, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. As a journalist working today in an era of horrendous consumerism known as ‘fast fashion’ this detailed account of how both men were instrumental in shifting the established codes of a refined haute couture system into a faster-paced ready-to-wear market in the 1970s is illuminating. It also documents the evolution of couturier as a celebrity, detailing how YSL used an image of himself to promote his aftershave in 1971, a revolutionary idea of self-promotion at the time, and now a very necessary part of the ‘selfie’ obsessed generation of creatives working in fashion.  

I loved that Julia Satow uncovers the history of lesser-known female department store professionals who hit the pinnacle of their careers in an era when few women were allowed to have executive careers following the Depression.

What delighted me the most were the details of tactics employed by the women to attract more consumers to the stores, such as selling bestselling novels that glamorized the career of an assistant buyer in the shop or the men’s club in which they could gawk at underwear models while shopping for lingerie for their wives. I was also surprised and amused by the stories of name artists such as Salvador Dali, who created window displays for the stores.

Fashion is, of course, a visual medium. It’s also one with a very long history. If you want to get familiar with what people have been wearing for the last few centuries, this is the book. All the garments are taken from the Kyoto Costume Institute, a place I hope to visit one day. I’ve read this book cover to cover several times (even accidentally purchasing it more than once!), and I consider it an essential volume in my research library.

Of course, I can’t put together a list of fashion books without dedicating one of them to lingerie. Underwear: Fashion in Detail was one of the first lingerie-focused books I purchased (the other was Valerie Steel’s The Corset, unfortunately no longer in print). Full of amazing photos and equally amazing diagrams, if you want to learn about lingerie specifically, this is where to start.