Here are 74 books that Wildflower fans have personally recommended if you like
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My passion for whimsy is assuredly the result of my mama’s efforts to cultivate an environment where imaginative play and creativity were nurtured. I was raised on a steady diet of whimsical children’s literature—green eggs and ham in a box with a fox, pots of hunny with a silly old bear, and forbidden radishes with a naughty rabbit. As I grew up, I drank raspberry cordial with bosom friends and sipped tea with a fawn I met by a lamppost. Now, I’m still drawn to whimsy of all sorts because along with imaginative scope, I find it also broadens one’s joy. May these books bring you much joy, dear reader!
When curating a list of whimsical book recommendations, one must surely start with the epitome of whimsy herself, Miss Anne Shirley!
With her big words, vast scope for imagination, and appreciation for nature's marvels, Anne with an E is one of my favorite fictional bosom friends. A true kindred spirit, I could visit daily without tiring of her poetical musings.
I love how Anne matures as a character while still maintaining her sense of wonder, and I love how her wonder—her whimsical ability to see a simple lake as an enchanting Lake of Shining Waters—inspires me to romance my own life and search for the wondrous cloaked in the familiar.
Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. Feisty and full of spirit, Anne Shirley charms her way into the Cuthberts' affection with her vivid imagination and constant chatter. It's not long before Anne finds herself in trouble, but soon it becomes impossible for the Cuthberts to…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
I am an award-winning author of two five-star rated memoirs: “My Whorizontal Life: An Escort’s Tale” and “A Someday Courtesan,” and the creator/performer of the 90-minute solo show: “My Whorizontal Life: The Show!” I co-host the podcast My Index to Sex. and I am a Juilliard Drama Graduate and the former #1 escort in the country. Thinking about how I grew up in a safe, typical suburb in the middle of America made me wonder if the things that happened to me with men as a girl happened to many women as we came of age in the 70s.
Although we have very different voices and approaches to a similar question, ‘How do society and our patriarchal conditioning warp our girlhood?’, we write about it in very different voices and from a different perspective.
I read her to hear what another girl/woman who felt the same pressure was able to express and move on from. Interestingly, I grew up and seemed at home as an escort, and in another of her memoirs, Ms. Febos became, for a time, a dominatrix. I found that fascinating as well.
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner National Bestseller Lambda Literary Award Finalist
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME * NPR * The Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * Washington Independent Review of Books * The Millions * Electric Literature * Ms Magazine * Entropy Magazine * Largehearted Boy * Passerbuys
“Irreverent and original.” –New York Times
“Magisterial.” –The New Yorker
“An intoxicating writer.” –The Atlantic
“A classic!” –Mary Karr
“A true light in the dark.” –Stephanie Danler
“An essential, heartbreaking project.” –Carmen Maria Machado
A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls…
My version of a gutsy life journey was to find work abroad, buy a one-way ticket, and not look back - one place after the next. Long ago, girls didn’t do this, but I did. A struggle and worth it. Great memoirs have a geographical and an inner journey. They make me laugh and cry, both. This is what I love to read, and it’s my aim as a writer. My books are love letters to these adventures, plus some joking around in order not to scream or weep at some of what’s out there. I’ve been a teacher, a film editor, a comedian, a librarian, and now a writer.
I was deeply affected by this, like she was confiding in me.
Whether her memories were tragic, ugly, hilarious, witty, classy, silly, poignant, or just plain practical, it was like we were sharing a glass of wine and she was telling me everything.
I loved that she sent me every feeling of the rainbow, and each was felt deeply. I love when a story makes me laugh and cry. It was inspiring and beautiful to spend some time with this poet, reminiscing about her early years, before she was the Maya we know now.
Also, I feel schooled in what it was like to be black in America at that time, and what a gutsy journey she was on. It was an important eye-opener, as well as a warm invitation.
Maya Angelou's seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy,achievement and celebration. In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover.
When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…
I am an award-winning author of two five-star rated memoirs: “My Whorizontal Life: An Escort’s Tale” and “A Someday Courtesan,” and the creator/performer of the 90-minute solo show: “My Whorizontal Life: The Show!” I co-host the podcast My Index to Sex. and I am a Juilliard Drama Graduate and the former #1 escort in the country. Thinking about how I grew up in a safe, typical suburb in the middle of America made me wonder if the things that happened to me with men as a girl happened to many women as we came of age in the 70s.
This is a lovely memoir of falling in true love for the first time. The author was the same age as me when she fell in love for the first time in a magical Paris when she was there as a serious musical student.
As I read, I was transported with her to that time and sent spinning back into my own life at the same age as a serious drama student falling in love in Amsterdam.
The book is romantic at first and so true to the heart, as well as the experience of losing oneself to another for the first time. I loved experiencing Paris with her and her love of music. A not famous author who deserves to be.
PARIS, 1976: Twenty-year-old American student Julie Scolnik had just arrived in the City of Light to study the flute when, from across a sea of faces in the chorus of the Orchestre de Paris, she is drawn to Luc, a striking (married) French lawyer in the bass section. This moving tale of an ebullient young American and a reserved Frenchman will transport readers to the cafés, streets, and concert halls of Paris in the late seventies, and, spanning three decades, evolves from deep romance to sudden heartbreak, and finally to a lifelong quest for answers to release hidden, immutable grief.…
I used to write a food blog because I love stories about food, be they fiction or non-fiction. Food has the power to bring joy, healing, love, anger, sadness, etc.—you name the emotion and food can evoke it or remedy it. I’ve suffered from depression most of my life and the kitchen makes me feel better. Hearing that my chocolate cookies are amazing heals my heart a little at a time. Food and emotion go together like peanut butter and jelly, and I’m the first to pick up a book that skillfully employs both.
For years, I couldn’t get yeast to cooperate. I just wasn’t patient enough and it was too darn temperamental. One day, the yeast worked. I made a lovely brioche dough and turned that into the stickiest, sweetest, yummiest cinnamon rolls known to man.
I might not have stuck with my fussy yeast if it were of the variety in Sourdough. The starter that’s given to the main character sings, hums, and sometimes glows. It’s alive. I know that all yeast is alive, but this yeast is sentient.
All that being said, the thing I love most about the book is that it is weird. I love weird people and things. I love weird books. What I don’t love about a lot of weird books is that they aren’t as immensely readable as Sourdough. Especially the ones that dance through genres as vastly different as science fiction and romance. But…
From Robin Sloan, the New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, comes Sourdough, "a perfect parable for our times" (San Francisco Magazine): a delicious and funny novel about an overworked and under-socialized software engineer discovering a calling and a community as a baker.
Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Southern Living
Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the…
At age five, I was reading under the blankets with a flashlight far past my bedtime. It’s an often told story of how I believed I was getting away with something while my makeshift tent, held up by my head, was lit up like a snowglobe. By age eleven, when I picked up my aunt’s book, I discovered romance novels. I was hooked. I’ve read thousands of romance novels in the almost four decades that have since passed, and I’ve learned that each person who reads a book takes something different from it, and I hope these five books that gave so much to me, might do the same for you.
This story elicited every emotion: joy, excitement, yearning, jealousy, rage, hope, betrayal, relief, shock, bewilderment… it took my poor heart on a wild ride. However, there were two pieces that stand out in stark relief in my mind. First, the betrayal of the friendship in hopes of saving it. What a position to be in. Second, Nathan’s pain and confusion as he worked his way past his own assumptions. It’s never an easy journey to know oneself. Witnessing Nathan’s journey, because of the collateral damage to his most treasured relationship, stung. Compassion for both of them broke my heart. And isn’t that the whole point of a good story? To walk in someone else’s shoes and come away with more compassion, more wisdom, and a deeper capacity to love?
Nathan Mercer, the only man in my life. Loving him was never an option.
We met ten years ago, when we started at the same company on the same day. Both new in town and with nobody else to rely on, we quickly became friends. And while Nathan went on to rule San Francisco, I’m still doing the same job with the same people. We finish each other’s sentences, we spend Christmas together and he sleeps at my house more than his. He’s beautiful.... beyond belief. In another life, he’s probably my soul mate.
Chasing Light is a lyrical meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile beauty of everyday life. At its core, it is a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformational power of human connection. It sheds light on the overlooked realities of homelessness and addiction, while emphasizing the importance of compassion…
A good puzzle will draw me in every time, and I’ve always loved mysteries. When I was a kid, Trixie Belden was my favorite sleuth. In junior high, I tried my hand at writing a few mystery stories. I also discovered logic puzzles about this time. In a mystery, you have to locate the clues and put them together in a logical manner to solve the riddle. Now I’m the author of 100 published books. Many of them are mysteries, and most of the ones that aren’t have elements of mystery within the story.
I love historical mysteries, and this series set in nineteenth-century San Francisco delivers the goods. I really like the main character, Annie Fuller. She’s been left on her own, and she excels at her ventures as a boardinghouse owner and a financial advisor. When she learns she has sleuthing talents as well, there’s no stopping her. In this book, she goes undercover as a housemaid to solve a mystery.
It's the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie's husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt. Annie Fuller also has a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco's most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl's clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe his death was suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered…
I didn’t really mean to become a food photographer. But with the first photo that I took of a batch of homemade raspberry scones, I knew I found something special. And then, I didn't really mean to become a cookbook author. But photos led to recipes, which led to this crazy notion that the world needed a cookbook dedicated to doughnuts! I’ve since written five more cookbooks and have a bit of an obsession with beautifully designed and photographed baking books that can fuel my project baking and cooking fascination. The books on my list continue to inspire me, and hope they inspire you too.
I lived in San Francisco for a year, just a few blocks away from Tartine Manufactory. Tartine has a well-deserved cult following for its tangy rustic loaves and baked goods.
I moved last year, and so unfortunately, I can no longer just pop over when I need a fix. Luckily, the Tartine Bread book lets me get very close at home. I love this type of project baking where I really feel accomplished at the end… even if it does take a couple of days to get there.
The book also has a ton of great fancy toast recipes that I can make in the rare case that I haven’t just eaten a whole loaf simply with a slather of butter.
"...The most beautiful bread book yet published..." - The New York Times
Tartine - A bread bible for the home baker or professional bread-maker! It comes from Chad Robertson, a man many consider to be the best bread baker in the United States, and co-owner with Elizabeth Prueitt of San Francisco's Tartine Bakery. At 5 P.M., Chad Robertson's rugged, magnificent Tartine loaves are drawn from the oven. The bread at San Francisco's legendary Tartine Bakery sells out within an hour almost every day.
I've always been fascinated by what makes life tick. I was a gifted child, not my own label, but I had all of the special classes. It took me years to get over the notion that I was supposed to have all the answers, and when I did, I found myself searching for all the answers I was supposed to have had. I went headlong into current events and psychology, again wanting to know how the world ticked. And I'm qualified to give you my list insofar as you are qualified to go look these titles up. I share the most profound repositories of knowledge with you.
I always worry about being homeless. If you’re fifty percent of this country, you probably should worry a little bit because it wouldn’t take much. Teresa Gowan lived with the homeless population of San Francisco the way she might a tribe in Amazon.
This is one that didn’t so much blow my mind as it did humanize a group of people that sit on the margins. Gowan did a great job.
Winner of the 2011 Robert Park Award for the Best Book in Community and Urban Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2011
Co-winner of the 2011 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in the Sociology of Culture, American Sociological Association, 2011
When homelessness reemerged in American cities during the 1980s at levels not seen since the Great Depression, it initially provoked shock and outrage. Within a few years, however, what had been perceived as a national crisis came to be seen as a nuisance, with early sympathies for the plight of the homeless giving way to compassion fatigue and then condemnation. Debates…
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
I’ve had a passion for weirdness in mundane settings since my childhood days watchingThe Addams Family in a boring suburb. I grew up with the Apollo program, but as I realized I’d never be an astronaut, I increasingly turned to writing science fiction and fantasy set on Earth. I discovered role-playing games shortly after D&D came out, but when I became bored with characters who were only after money and mayhem, I found other RPGs and began writing for them. FGU’s Bushidointroduced me to Japanese mythology, which inspired my first urban fantasy novel, The Art of Arrow Cutting, which led me to being invited to write Shadowrunnovels.
The difference between urban fantasy and horror is that in urban fantasy, the supernatural elements may be benign, not scary. In Tea With the Black Dragon, the fantasy element is Mayland Long, a black dragon converted to Buddhism and transformed into human form to search for a Zen master. In San Francisco, he meets middle-aged Martha Macnamara, violinist and zazen practitioner, and assists her in looking for her daughter. Amateur detectives (one of them a dragon) vs. computer criminals; there’s no magic and not much violence.
In this "astonishing fantasy debut," a mother and a mysterious Chinese man-who is more than he appears-search for her missing daughter in San Francisco (Locus).
Offering "a deft blend of the oldest of magicks in a dragon, and the newest of sorceries in computers" (Anne McCaffrey), this is the incomparable novel that garnered Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Philip K. Dick Award nominations, and earned its author the John W. Campbell Best New Writer award.
Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter, Elizabeth, is in trouble-she just doesn't know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of…
