100 Books Like World's End

The same way hearing “soap opera” used as a pejorative upsets me so much I want to fake my own death, frame my estranged father for murder, and wrest control of his business empire, hearing “fairy tale” used that way makes me want to wave a wand and turn the detractors of science fiction and fantasy into horny toads.

John Crowley’s Little, Big, winner of the World Fantasy Award, is not only a fairy tale with actual fairies, but also one that’s an actual tale. So many novels described as literary forget to tell a story. This is not one of them. In Little, Big, you’ll meet the charismatic Drinkwater family; I would say more, but it’s best if you see for yourself where this tale takes them.

I don’t think Garcia Marquez needs a review or introduction. Reading any of his books is a pleasure, with easy and delightful writing and striking sentences.

These sentences often describe things or people in a way that feels natural and perfectly captured. For instance, he describes the world as so new that many things lack names. His eloquent descriptions, like that of ice, create vivid images. The characters are relatable, and you feel a happy exhaustion after finishing the book, reminiscent of great works like Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

Those who find the stories too unbelievable should learn about Colombian history, as they provide real context. I simply love the book!

This book has always hit the trifecta for me—interesting, moving, and funny. A story about London immigrant families in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it shows a lesser-known side of society and certainly is the raunchiest book in my list—there’s a lot of sex among its confused screw-ups.

I admit my mind was opened, and my sympathies widened by this book, and after re-reading, I can appreciate it as a masterpiece of comic chaos. I wouldn’t want to be these characters—how many books begin with a failed suicide attempt?—but I’m glad they let me into their lives.

I remember my daughter, an astute and sensitive reader from a very young age, coming downstairs in tears after finishing this book when she was in high school.

Her tears were understandable; though Homegoing, remarkably, addresses the lives of members of seven generations of two connected Ghanian families in a mere 320 pages, we as readers come to care deeply about each of the fourteen characters whose stories fill the book.

The storytelling is that concise, yet also that rich and distinct, depicting two separate—but tragically related—trajectories for these families caught in the inevitable and devastating web of slavery, from the late 1770s to the present, and from the infamous Cape Coast Castle to Alabama, Harlem, and San Francisco—and back again.

I will never look at apples the same way again after reading The Widow’s House. Set in the Hudson River Valley in Upstate New York, this winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award is a modern Gothic suspense filled with atmosphere. From snakes in mailboxes, to rotting apples, to a creepy old professor and a suspicious husband, this book will give you goosebumps and keep you guessing. Read it on a rainy dark night—but make sure the doors are locked.

I’m fascinated by novels that treat famous real events from an insider perspective.

In this case, it’s the events following the Symbionese Liberation Army’s kidnapping of Patty Hearst in 1974. Fugitive SLA members, including a character based on Hearst, are sheltered by a former radical, Jenny Shimada (based on Wendy Yoshimura), who is also wanted by the FBI in connection with the bombing of draft offices.

Jenny is a sort of house mother to the volatile fugitives, who hope to write a book while in hiding to raise money for their cause, but inevitably she is drawn into their latest dangerous scheme. Filled with brilliant character studies, the novel astutely shows connections between the tortured personalities of individuals and the public acts they commit which end up shaping our culture. 

This novel was not what I was expecting. It was dark and provides an interesting commentary on human behavior. The town of Black Spring and its locals are cursed. If someone is born there, or moves into the town, they’re doomed to stay until they die. If they try to leave and never come back, they’ll die. The town is also home to the Black Rock Witch, whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. She’s been there since the town was cursed in the seventeenth century. The town was cursed because people did terrible things. The novel takes place during the final days of the town because some people did more terrible things to the Black Rock Witch.

This book can be more aptly titled “Life”. Klinkenborg’s musings over an eleven-year span while maintaining his farm in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley go well beyond the allotted time and location. His many astute observations about nature, animals, and people are expertly framed with blunt and humorous analogies. The Interlude and final chapter ("Coda") state the importance of the sciences exploring cosmology, biology, and archeology and why knowledge morphs through history. A must-read for any urbanite or suburbanite curious about country living.

This book is part of a series, but this particular one captured my heart. Cara’s niece, Linnea, is like Jess in so many ways. Having just graduated college, she joins the turtle team that works with the turtle hospital, learns to surf, and of course, falls in love. She also sets out to find her own calling and when she does, it requires sacrifices she did not know she would have to make. It is the pain we all feel when we discover our path does not align with those we love. Mary Alice Monroe has such a strong connection to nature and it comes through in all her books, particularly here when she describes life at the beach and those turtles, oh, those turtles...  

I love this beautiful new two-mommies book which features a little girl who misses a parent who is away on a work trip. That the parent happens to be one of her two moms is not at all the point, which is part of what makes this book so sweet and so relatable to any child who has ever achingly missed someone close.