100 Books Like The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady

Are you a fan of travel literature? If so, then you will be as amazed as I was to find this remarkable account. In the 1990s, the author, a noted travel writer, undertook a task that would be impossible to duplicate today for obvious reasons. Based upon the contents of a rare manuscript, he decided to trace the footsteps of two eastern orthodox monks who, in the Sixth Century, traveled through much of the Byzantine World, moving from one ancient monastery to another while describing their adventures. Tracing their route, the author relates in a witty, yet always respectful and well-written narrative the many obstacles he and his predecessors 1,300 years earlier faced. “The more things (and people) change the more they stay the same,” if for different reasons, and nothing can point that euphemism out better than this entertaining and informative book of a lost world and a time… show more.

You can’t go to the past, but the past can come to you, through a written voice. 

This is a strong and extraordinary woman’s autobiography from the late 1400s and early 1500s. It’s like taking a phone call from the 15th century.

This directness is what I wanted in my own book.

Kempe could neither read nor write, so she dictated her story. She did things women often weren’t able to do back then. She ran a business, travelled to France, Germany, Spain, and even to Jerusalem. And she spoke out against many received medieval opinions.

How brave Kempe was to challenge the patriarchy.

I’ve always loved Hong Kong New Wave movies, but they often emphasize action and flashy melodrama over historical context. For someone wanting to dig a little deeper, the graphic novel Boxers & Saints is a look into the parallel lives of two Chinese teenagers during the Boxer Rebellion—One is a red-blooded patriot eager to fight Western invaders. The other is a troubled girl who finds liberation in Christianity. Both characters are carried along, motivated, and then betrayed by fanaticism. When their paths cross, they are forced to learn the difference between religious faith and religious mania. The simple artwork isn’t meant to be lingered over…I read all 512 pages at breakneck speed.

We’re all broken in so many ways. This book presents a number of letters to different kinds of broken people. Have you been rejected? Are you scared? Are you alone? There are letters here that will touch your heart. They touched mine! I found someone who could speak poetry into my darkness and make me know that I was not alone. Reynolds also points to real hope, so that even in darkness, I could see a shining light. 

This book is amazing. I love how the author not only explains the reasons behind mentoring and the importance of mentoring and how God instructs older women in Titus 2 to mentor younger women, and older men to mentor younger men, but the reason behind mentoring.

This book reminded me a lot of Sisters in Christ especially how the author broke down Titus 2 as talked about above. I loved the stories and quotes shared by real mentoring relationships woven throughout the book. This made it more personal and also got me more excited.

I have been following this author’s blog for years and this book just felt like a giant hug from a friend. 

I loved this book! It’s easy to get stuck on being busy with many tasks and responsibilities, and not move forward in our lives and careers.

This book helped me learn systems to become more efficient (in life and work), identify what was holding me back from being more empowered with my choices, and recognize when to say yes, and when to say no. Leaving the military – where “no” isn’t as much of an option, this is a good skill for veterans to embrace.

I’m so impressed by the sense of closeness, the claustrophobic setting, and the relationships Endo evokes in this novel.

The intensely atmospheric language perfectly matches the storyline, which involves Portuguese Jesuit priests arriving in seventeenth-century Japan, where they are martyred in devastatingly cruel and grotesque ways. But that’s not to say there isn’t beauty in the novel, either.

I found joy in the historical details, setting, and the rendering of individual lives—the characters’ anguish and existential crises speaking to me through imagined centuries and deft translation.

This is a bible study by Mrs. Guthrie. She takes each of the ten weeks to look at Christ in a different way throughout the book of Genesis.

For example, she sees him as the agent of creation, the offspring who will crush the head of the serpent, the ark of salvation, the source of the righteousness credited to Abraham, the substitutionary sacrifice provided by God, the Savior to whom the whole world must come for life. Some of these are prophecies and some of these are types and shadows.

The book is focused on small groups and comes with a leader’s guide. Christ in the Old Testament can be used in small groups, but it’s just as fitting for personal study.

I read this book with my journal nearby, and it was heart-changing.

It’s refreshing to have time solely focused on God without trying to figure out how to apply Scripture to my life as if He was a puzzle piece that I try to fit into place. None Like Him examines ten descriptions of God, and the more we get to know Him, the closer we feel. 

The Shell is a peek into both the horrors and absurdities of totalitarian regimes told in the form of a prison diary kept by the author. Khalifa, a Christian by birth and an atheist, was mistaken (or perhaps not, given what I learned about the Assad regime in the course of my work) for a radical Islamist, arrested and locked up in the notorious Tadmor desert prison, more accurately a death camp. The book reveals the horrific consequences of the logic and methods of the Assad family and other dictators in the Middle East and beyond: Anyone suspected of harboring a hint of opposition to the ruler will be labeled a terrorist and traitor, crushed and turned into an example to instill fear in the wider population.