100 Books Like The Wishbones

A girl’s discomfort with puberty is only part of the story. The other part is 11-year-old Margaret growing up in an interfaith family with a Jewish father and Christian mother.

Margaret struggles to find a religious identity. She must contend with her father’s mother who hopes she embraces Judaism and her conservative Christian maternal grandparents who reject their daughter’s interfaith marriage. This powerful coming-of-age story has gotten recent attention from a recent film and challenges from book bans. For me, it’s another example of Judy Blume’s insight, humor, and humanity.

Set at the Jersey Shore, this book by fellow New Jersey native Robin Constantine, is my book’s soul sister (right down to the cover) and Robin is my kindred author spirit. We both write about our home state, rock bands, and first loves in a way that only Jersey girls can. By chance, I read this book while vacationing in Cape May, the town that formed the template for the backdrop of this wonderful love story, which made both experiences even more memorable. Needless to say, I was thrilled when Robin invited me to do a book signing with her in her hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey at an amazing indie bookstore called The Little Boho Bookshop.

I was honored to read an early draft of this novel by fellow human and Jerseyite, Val Emmich, and was immediately taken with the voice of Joan, a 10-year-old girl with a special condition that gives her the ability to remember everything, but is afraid of being forgotten. To remedy that, she wants to win a prestigious songwriting contest by writing a song that makes people both want to dance and cry (two of the strongest feelings in her opinion). So she strikes a deal with Gavin, an adult songwriter who she believes can help her make that happen. Jersey City is the primary setting for this novel, a city that along with its many other charms, offers spectacular views of the New York City skyline. 

I love listening to Evanovich’s hilarious tales of Stephanie Plum’s misadventures as a wannabe bail/bondsman. These books are my wife’s and my favorite distraction on long road trips. While her mysteries may be thin, her characters are so real and her stories so crazy, I didn’t miss the whodunit. I included her in this August list because she captures the seedy side of Trenton, New Jersey, with amazing clarity, even while laughing at the place.

I picture myself riding in one of her cars—which she destroys regularly—along with her friend, the former ho, LuLu, hair flowing in the stinky wind blowing off deserted warehouses, sleezy girl joints and questionable car repair shops. This is the first in a series that is now at 31.

No one combines the business of indie scenes – from production to labels to distribution – better than Holly Kruse. In this accessible yet rich book, she details the complicated structure of the alternative system that Azerrad nods to in his history of the bands that occupied the airwaves and whose products circulated through these systems.

To say that these independent music labels and distributors operated completely absent of the corporate music industry from the beginning is a canard, as Kruse demonstrates, but she also reveals the personal and particular practices that shaped these emerging commercial relationships and consumption patterns that undergirded music fans’ ability to participate in music scenes locally, as well as to access sounds from across the nation, and indeed the world. 

Mo Foster was one of rock’s great sidemen, performing with artists such as Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Gerry Rafferty, Van Morrison, and George Martin.

Mo tells the stories of the greatest players who developed what is arguably the most important instrument of the 20th century, the guitar, talking to some of its greatest players including Hank Marvi, Eric Clapton, and Brian May. Mo was one of the funniest men I have ever known, and I can guarantee that if you read this book, you will be learning and laughing on every page!

I think that this book unveils Jerry Garcia’s essential, elusive personality better than anything I’ve read, even given the excellent work of David Browne, Blair Jackson, Dennis McNally, and other terrific Grateful Dead biographers.

I learned a lot about how seemingly secondary characters are often particularly honest and illuminating. Robert Greenfield also collaborated with promoter Bill Graham on Bill Graham Presents, the excellent autobiography in oral history format. 

I grew up with the Beatles. I went from 8 to 16 in the time it took the band to go from Love Me Do to Let It Be. I measure my own growth from infancy to adolescence during their lifespan.

The Beatles were more than a band to anyone of my age. They were a planet we all lived on. There have been hundreds of books about them, but few are more insightful than this one by their suave and urbane press officer.

Derek started off his career as a hard-bitten newspaper hack of the old school. Working with the Beatles changed his life. I can relate to that. The Fab Four changed all our lives. 

If I gave you a script of Stephen Pearcy’s younger days as a potential movie of the week you’d laugh me out of the room for it being too far-fetched.

Pearcy caught the wannabe rock star bug early like I did, and being based in LA it was almost a given that he’d follow his heroes Van Halen to stardom. Then his mum moved them to San Diego, he discovered drugs, and he was hit by a car, ending up in a hospital bed for months. Game over, no? No.

His drive, ambition, determination and, yes, passion to become a rock star led to his full recovery and the formation of Ratt, who sold approximately eight million more records than I did in my attempt at stardom. Fascinating reading.

City Come A-Walkin’ is it, the beginning, the first true cyberpunk novel. 

As William Gibson famously said in the forward to the 15-year anniversary edition, “John Shirley is cyberpunk’s patient zero.” Debuting in 1980, City follows Stu Cole, a streetwise nightclub owner who angered San Francisco’s political and criminal elite, bringing down the full weight of their power; his only hope, the enigmatic construct known only as, “City.” 

A proto-AI, City was a conglomeration of the computer, surveillance, and data infrastructure that took on a life of its own, becoming sapient and dangerous. To ten-year-old me, it was the coolest book I had ever read (and it didn’t hurt that the school library refused to order it for me) and really put the punk in cyberpunk.