Books like Whale Fall

I first loved Rebecca for its atmosphere, but what stayed with me was something more unsettling: how completely another person’s version of the past can shape the present.

I remember finishing it and thinking about how easily we accept a story when everyone around us seems to believe it. As a writer, I keep returning to that idea.

Du Maurier showed me that an absence can dominate a novel as powerfully as a living character, and that what people refuse to say can matter as much as what they reveal. That has stayed with me in my own writing about memory, silence, and family secrets.

In creating the character of James, based on the character Jim Hawkins in Huck Finn, Everett didn't just retell the original story from Jim's point of view. The author delved deeply into the world that a man like Jim Hawkins would have lived in- the constant need to hide, to explain, to take the punishment that the white people inflicted. It's important to understand what slavery was really like for the enslaved and therefore begin to understand what true freedom could look like.

A truly unforgettable novel, clever and moving at the same time. Confused, lonely, and frustratingly stubborn, Cyrus Shams is his own worst enemy--the best kind of character in my opinion! Newly sober and too smart for his own good, he pours his heart into his writing but neglects the relationships that sustain him. There were times I wanted to shake him, but I never stopped routing for him to find his way, and find peace.

Scattered with Cyrus' poetry, dreams, and imagined conversations, the novel has a gorgeous literariness to it that pulled me right in as a reader. At times, I felt as if the author were on another intellectual plane, but instead of feeling lost, I felt as though my eyes were being opened to a new understanding of the world.

Cyrus immigrated to the US from Iran as a child after his mother's plane was… show more.

This unusual but delightful little novel is a joy to read. When Helen Cartwright returns home to the English countryside after a life abroad, she keeps to herself, avoiding human contact as much as possible as she awaits the end of her life. A chance encounter with a mouse forces her out into the world, upending her solitary routine and setting in motion a chain of events and interactions that are as surprising as they are entertaining. SIPSWORTH explores complex themes of memory and loss in a way that is uplifting without being at all sentimental.

What I loved best about this novel is the oddball cast of characters, each with their own set of endearing flaws and hang-ups. Helen herself is hilariously stubborn, doing the right thing almost against her own will, which makes for many laugh out loud moments. As she sets out on her mission, the… show more.