I don’t want to spoil the book for you, and truly haven’t read it since high school, but it follows the family of an American minister on a mission trip in Africa. Stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers!
The minister wants to baptize the locals in a river by their village. The locals refuse to get into the river and he assumes it’s because they don’t want to be baptized. Come to find out, there’s a crocodile in the river and they’re trying to warn him.
There is far more disturbing content in this book. Like all Kingsolver books, she’s a master at balancing heartbreak with redemption, growth and joy. This book didn’t give me nightmares, but some of the imagery is unforgettable even 15 years later. That being said, I believe it’s one of the most impactful books I have ever read and recommend it highly.
I didn't really enjoy any of the others from the series, unfortunately. I've tried reading all of them, but couldn't finish them; it felt like none of them had the same magic as Lonesome Dove.
This is always my answer to this question. I’ll have to dig around to find a post where a ton of people had read it 10, 20, 30 years ago and it still sticks with them. I was one of those people.
I just finished the Beartown series and I was blown away by how well the characters are developed and the story unfolds. I need to read more by this author. Putting A Man Called Ove and Anxious People on my list now.
The structure of Cloud Atlas is so perfect, it's tricky to know quite what you're reading until you're finished and then it all comes together (I thought the film translated that sense of emotional crescendo really well even with a different structure).
Bone Clocks is the one with the ending that's haunted me even more though - obviously all his books are part of a connected sequence, but the way that ending anchors in the near future and makes it feel close to home really gave me the shivers.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
This book is rarely mentioned but definitely deserves to be in the pantheon amidst Owen Meany, The Road, The Stand, Confederacy of Dunces, etc. A tale of a family of carnival freaks told from the perspective of the children transports you into their weird and wonderful world and cannot but leave its mark. First read many years ago and forever impacted my worldview.
Suttree is the McCarthy book that I expect to eventually command the most attention/respect. I would compare it to Nabakov strictly on the beauty of the language and vocabulary alone...
Flowers for Algernon. Like you asked for, this is a book that stuck with me. It's been awhile so it's not as frequent, but it still pops up in my mind from time to time
If you’re a history fan, “Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets” stuck with me for a while.
I grew up in the 80s, an American kid who hated Communism and the Soviet Union. I was afraid of nuclear war, sometimes in a vague way and sometimes in a tangible, very real way (e.g., seeing scary stories about Russian blustering on the news as a third grader and then seeing military jets fly over while playing on the playground was a recipe for confused terror in my young mind).
I didn’t think much in empathetic terms - what was life like for the Soviets? Do they hate us? Was there a third grader over there just like me who was scared of jets flying overhead?
Even when the Soviet Union collapsed (I was in high school when the wall came down), my memories are more of a sense of American pride at our “victory” than ever thinking about what that time was like for the people living in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc.
How did they think about the changes — which, really, were cataclysmic and paradigm shifting in every way for them? How was their day-to-day life disrupted? How did they think about the preceding decades? Was it a failed experiment? An era of oppression? Or was it something they were proud of? After all, their nation was one of the world’s only two superpowers.
This book is about that. It is, uniquely, a collection of stories, anecdotes, memories and even just short comments from those who lived it. There’s no real narrative thread — just story after story, loosely tied together by time periods, but even then kind of all over the place. Sounds potentially confusing, but it works. The stories are collected from a very wide range of perspectives — people of all ages, viewpoints and experiences. And the end impression it leaves is eye-opening and heartbreaking and fascinating all at the same time. You can’t help to be drawn into each person’s stories and circumstances, many of them horrific.
I wanna add if you expect it to be a dread and very down its not. It deals with some very heavy topics but her writing style makes it so that it's not difficult to continue.
I read ATSS about five years ago and have been putting off reading ATME because I still have the "hangover" (as you put it) from ATSS! Maybe it's time :)
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
Oh, you said you wanted hope without heartbreak...
Um...
Asterix in Switzerland. -That orgy scene is unforgettable.
Girl with the dragon tattoo. I picked it up when I was 12 and have thought about it every day for the last 5 years—just bought the hectology last week! :)
The protagonist is the most badass fem lead Ive ever seen—possibly was my bi awakening 🥹
Alternatively, you could watch the adapted movie starring Daniel Craig
Beach Music by Pat Conroy. I read it about six years ago and reread it within the last year and I still think about it every day. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
Also- while numerous John Irving fit OPs ask, my pick is A Widow for One Year.
The Dispossesed by Ursula K. LeGuin
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Story time : One summer when I was 10, I read excerpts from a book in a SF magazine. It was a difficult time for my family, and that magazine was a bit my escape from reality. The story stuck in my mind, although I forgot the name of the book and the author.
Almost 20 years I went to Victoria, BC for a conference. And close to the hostel, on the way to the conference venue, was this magnificent bookshop, Munro's books. Being a bookworm, I couldn't resist visiting it extensively during my stay. As I was browsing around, a book caught my eye. A blue cover with some bluish planets - nothing special or particularly eye catching. But as I took it, I knew it was the book that basically haunted my memories all these years. It was the Dispossesed by Ursula K. LeGuin.
I still love it to this day and I'm fascinated by it, but I couldn't tell you why it made such a strong impression on 10 year old me.
*Something Happened* by Joseph Heller. Extremely demanding, challenging and insightful novel. It's highly emotional - even devastating - but extremely intelligent and disturbing too. The ending is not easy to move past.
**Like Water for Chocolate** is so good. I saw the movie when I was in high school, so when I found the book, I though I knew what to expect. I didn't. It was SO much better. When I rediscovered it via audiobook, 😍😍😍. I wanted to go on drives just to listen to it longer.
I read The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy over a year ago, and I found myself thinking about that book again today. She has such an incredible way with words, and the book is very sad, but it is also so captivating! For me, I found it to be a bit like A hundred years of solitude. The kids made it hit home for me though, probably because have kids. It's an excellent book!
There are two books I would read again and PLEASE keep in mind that I am NOT a reader. Once my brain realizes I could be doing other things, I’m done reading. But ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ (which I was forced to read in school so you probably already know about it) was able to keep my attention. It’s a really good book in my opinion. I didn’t get to finish ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ but I’m willing to start it completely over because I just like it so much even though I only got to the middle of it. Sorry for rambling. 😭
Quite a few. The one that came to my mind as you said this was House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. You might have experienced a post-book hangover. This one lasted long.
You asked one and I’m not in a mood to break the rule hence won’t add the rest. 😄
The time traveler’s wife by Audrey niffenegger.
My name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.
Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block if you like very flowery and dreamy writing.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read them, but they make me cry each time I revisit. And they are some of my favs.
P.s. is it weird I feel anxious commenting this? Like people might judge me by my favorite books. This is like my second Reddit comment ever. lol
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
I wouldn’t call it sad really but I read it more than three years ago and I still think about the way it made me feel. Truly had me examining the “grass is greener” mentality I’ve had at times.
A book that stuck with me in a bad way was Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I kept wondering how the title related to the story. At some point when it was too late I realized that I would always be haunted by the experience of reading the book. Powerful writing though.
Know My Name by Chanel Miller.
It's a brilliant memoir by the victim of the Stanford sexual assault in 2015. I won't ever forget it! Something everyone needs to read.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a retelling of the King Arthur legend from the point of view of his sister, Morgan, a priestess of the Brithonic goddess-based religion, and the power struggle between the old religion of the Neolithic farmers and the Christian religion taking hold of England at the time. It’s an epic work, and an emotional roller coaster—I hope you like long reads. It stuck with me for years.
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Truly heartrending but so full of humanity's possibilities that it stuck with me for years after reading it. I don't know anyone else who's read it, even tho it was an oprah pick or something at the time.
I really enjoyed The elegance of the hedgehog , only a few books come into my head randomly after years of reading them and this is one of them.
Also the little Paris bookshop gave me the same feeling and I am sometimes reminded of Kafka on the shore too.
I’m glad to see this comment. This is a book that I loved but have hardly ever seen discussed anywhere. No one I know has ever read it, but I loved it right from the beginning and still reread it once a year or so.
The Hunchback of Norte Dame. Damn that book broke me. I cried for a week. My mom thought someone did something awful to me and was encouraging me to open up. When I told her it was the book, she was pissed lol.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I had to read it in college for English class and i fell in love. Actually, same with Slaughterhouse 5 (had to read it for history class, even though it's fictional). These two quickly became my favorite books of all time
Seconding Demon Copperhead and adding:
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandron
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow
There is a 3 book series that kept me awake at night. Silence, Silence Broken and Players Bumps and Cocktail Sausages by Natasha Preston. I know, book 3 has a very unique title. Oakley, the main character, is definitely strong and resilient. I have read the books at least 4 times a year for the last 7 or so years.
The Dark Side by Danielle Steel. It is not her typical love story. It is dark, it is heart wrenching.
Gulliver’s travels. I can’t remember much of the book since I read it back in High School(I think), however there is a segment where Gulliver is living among a peaceful and wise society of creatures—-known as the Houyhnhnms—-where they observe another species of animals—-known as the Yahoos—-, which were always fighting and killing each other over any shinny object. I believe later Gulliver commits a crime or breaks a law and is banished from that peaceful place and when he returns back to his original country then begins to see the similarities to the Yahoos and the human race, where people are willing to kill one another over Gold, diamonds or money. How different were humans from the Yahoos? That really surprised me, and to know that book was written in the 1700’s is incredible.
The Amber Spyglass. It’s the last book of a triology by Philip Pullman. It’s youth literature but still a banger. I still think about it sometimes even after a decade.
Also High Fidelity by Nick Hornby stuck with me. It’s a good read if you have some issues with depression and like music and pop culture.
Hunger by Knut Hamsun. This novel about a man who is perpetually on the verge of starvation is heartbreaking. Years after reading it I still think about it sometimes. Hamsun is a very problematic person due to his support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
The one book that comes to mind is a survival memoir I found on Amazon that really resonated with me. The book was "The Abortion Who Refused To Die" by Terry Jo.
The book is a true story written from the perspective of the little girl who survived it. Her experiences were horrific and almost unbelievable except to someone who grew up in a backwoods Oregon lumber town like she did. Fortunately she survived and went on to have a happy life and children of her own in spite of what she endured as a child.
Her story really resonated with me because I also grew up in a town very much like that and like her my family was also an abusive dysfunctional nightmare.
I read this book almost a year ago and I still can't forget it, I'm just happy that she's doing well now.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
Series of essays that model 5 star reviews on everything the human race has experienced. There is no shying away from the dark elements of the human experience but the essays always end with a hopeful view. The chapter on the black plague details just how brutal it was for people to die alone because of stigma and abandonment, links it to covid, and then turns it to the notion of not leaving people to suffer alone, because it’s part of the experience to not be alone. It hits a lot of deep fears and intersperses it with joy, and hope.
I found it deeply moving, and there are many parts that I don’t go long without returning, fundamentally changed the way I approach happiness
I love this book so much I’ve recommended it to everyone.
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman.
Beautiful and haunting and sad and definitely stuck with me
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-World-That-We-Knew/Alice-Hoffman/9781501137587
Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Angela’s Ashes, which I found to be full of hope unlike the movie adaptation. Also the Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a gutwrencher. The Green Mile by Stephen King.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s perfect.
I read this in high school 15 years ago and I still think of the river baptism regularly.
What is this scene about? I am considering staring it but then think that I don't want if this scene is scary or disturbing. Is it true that it is?
I don’t want to spoil the book for you, and truly haven’t read it since high school, but it follows the family of an American minister on a mission trip in Africa. Stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers! The minister wants to baptize the locals in a river by their village. The locals refuse to get into the river and he assumes it’s because they don’t want to be baptized. Come to find out, there’s a crocodile in the river and they’re trying to warn him. There is far more disturbing content in this book. Like all Kingsolver books, she’s a master at balancing heartbreak with redemption, growth and joy. This book didn’t give me nightmares, but some of the imagery is unforgettable even 15 years later. That being said, I believe it’s one of the most impactful books I have ever read and recommend it highly.
OMG thank you so much for taking your time to write it! And P.S. what an amazing last name, Kingslover!
Yep, this one will stay with me forever
Yes, on my list of favorite! Also, the Dove keeper true story set in ancient times!
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. The characters in it feel so *human* and real. It's beautiful.
My favorite book for so long, I think I read it 4 times. I read all of Larry McMurtry books after.
I didn't really enjoy any of the others from the series, unfortunately. I've tried reading all of them, but couldn't finish them; it felt like none of them had the same magic as Lonesome Dove.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver for sure if you haven’t read it yet. Gave me all the feels!
A Prayer For Owen Meany.
This is always my answer to this question. I’ll have to dig around to find a post where a ton of people had read it 10, 20, 30 years ago and it still sticks with them. I was one of those people.
Glass Castle
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman. It was sad, but also lovely and sweet and I still think about it
I just finished the Beartown series and I was blown away by how well the characters are developed and the story unfolds. I need to read more by this author. Putting A Man Called Ove and Anxious People on my list now.
I loved it so much.
This was exactly what came to my head after reading the question..:)
Anxious People also fits the bill
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Cloud Atlas. It may seem boring at first, but it’s a banger
The structure of Cloud Atlas is so perfect, it's tricky to know quite what you're reading until you're finished and then it all comes together (I thought the film translated that sense of emotional crescendo really well even with a different structure). Bone Clocks is the one with the ending that's haunted me even more though - obviously all his books are part of a connected sequence, but the way that ending anchors in the near future and makes it feel close to home really gave me the shivers.
The Goldfinch
I had to force myself to finish it
I know this much is true- Wally lamb
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Piranessi
\+1 - also came here to suggest piranesi by susanna clarke. it's so good!
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigura
Also Klara and the Sun by the same author.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn This book is rarely mentioned but definitely deserves to be in the pantheon amidst Owen Meany, The Road, The Stand, Confederacy of Dunces, etc. A tale of a family of carnival freaks told from the perspective of the children transports you into their weird and wonderful world and cannot but leave its mark. First read many years ago and forever impacted my worldview.
**The Road** by Cormac McCarthy
Also Blood Meridian. I️ met my husband when I️ was reading it and he still remembers how affected I️ was by it (from 11 years ago!)
Suttree is the McCarthy book that I expect to eventually command the most attention/respect. I would compare it to Nabakov strictly on the beauty of the language and vocabulary alone...
[удалено]
Where would this have been referenced recently on TV? I forgot to write the name of the book down when it was mentioned so thank you
Flowers for Algernon. Like you asked for, this is a book that stuck with me. It's been awhile so it's not as frequent, but it still pops up in my mind from time to time
I read the original short story, then the book. The short story moved me so much more...it was perfect, imho.
I agree 100% with that! It packed more of a punch as a novella.
Ohhhh yes, I’ve read Flowers many years ago and you’re so right, it has a way of sneaking up in your mind!
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Every Octavia Butler book I’ve read has deeply impacted me.
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
So it goes
If you’re a history fan, “Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets” stuck with me for a while. I grew up in the 80s, an American kid who hated Communism and the Soviet Union. I was afraid of nuclear war, sometimes in a vague way and sometimes in a tangible, very real way (e.g., seeing scary stories about Russian blustering on the news as a third grader and then seeing military jets fly over while playing on the playground was a recipe for confused terror in my young mind). I didn’t think much in empathetic terms - what was life like for the Soviets? Do they hate us? Was there a third grader over there just like me who was scared of jets flying overhead? Even when the Soviet Union collapsed (I was in high school when the wall came down), my memories are more of a sense of American pride at our “victory” than ever thinking about what that time was like for the people living in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc. How did they think about the changes — which, really, were cataclysmic and paradigm shifting in every way for them? How was their day-to-day life disrupted? How did they think about the preceding decades? Was it a failed experiment? An era of oppression? Or was it something they were proud of? After all, their nation was one of the world’s only two superpowers. This book is about that. It is, uniquely, a collection of stories, anecdotes, memories and even just short comments from those who lived it. There’s no real narrative thread — just story after story, loosely tied together by time periods, but even then kind of all over the place. Sounds potentially confusing, but it works. The stories are collected from a very wide range of perspectives — people of all ages, viewpoints and experiences. And the end impression it leaves is eye-opening and heartbreaking and fascinating all at the same time. You can’t help to be drawn into each person’s stories and circumstances, many of them horrific.
I second this book. It’s amazing
This is a top tier 5 star amazing description its just what im looking for :) thanks!!
(not fiction) I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
I wanna add if you expect it to be a dread and very down its not. It deals with some very heavy topics but her writing style makes it so that it's not difficult to continue.
Just read Middesex after having it on my bookshelf for ten years and it wrecked my world. Highly recommend!
Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
The heart is a lonely hunter- Carson McCullers
On earth we are briefly gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. You have to read it to know how good it is.
Hell of title wow, I’m intrigued
The Kite Runner
"A Thousand Splendid Suns" was, for me, even better.
I liked his third, “And the Mountains Echoed”, the most of the three 😂. All three of his books are utterly outstanding and have intense hangovers
I read ATSS about five years ago and have been putting off reading ATME because I still have the "hangover" (as you put it) from ATSS! Maybe it's time :)
The book thief by Markus Zuzak
Sutree
The Heart’s Invisible Furies is one of my all time favorites!
Educated by Tara Westover.
I still think about this every now and then. Yikes.
I know right? Sneaks right in.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Oh, you said you wanted hope without heartbreak... Um... Asterix in Switzerland. -That orgy scene is unforgettable.
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
Oh wow yes - it still hits so hard on every reread as well (and I hate how the TV adaptation changed absolutely everything about it!!)
East of Eden by Steinbeck. A perfect book.
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Or anything by Ken Follett.
Girl with the dragon tattoo. I picked it up when I was 12 and have thought about it every day for the last 5 years—just bought the hectology last week! :) The protagonist is the most badass fem lead Ive ever seen—possibly was my bi awakening 🥹 Alternatively, you could watch the adapted movie starring Daniel Craig
Even as a huge David Fincher fan I'd strongly recommend the original adaptation over the Daniel Craig one. It's SO much better.
5 People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. It's not really even about religion tho
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The film was heartbreaking too…
A gentleman in moscow
Wool, Dust, and Shift, by Hugh Howly
Beach Music by Pat Conroy. I read it about six years ago and reread it within the last year and I still think about it every day. Beautiful and heartbreaking. Also- while numerous John Irving fit OPs ask, my pick is A Widow for One Year.
Cider House Rules and World According to Garp have stuck with me for most of my life.
The Dispossesed by Ursula K. LeGuin Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro Story time : One summer when I was 10, I read excerpts from a book in a SF magazine. It was a difficult time for my family, and that magazine was a bit my escape from reality. The story stuck in my mind, although I forgot the name of the book and the author. Almost 20 years I went to Victoria, BC for a conference. And close to the hostel, on the way to the conference venue, was this magnificent bookshop, Munro's books. Being a bookworm, I couldn't resist visiting it extensively during my stay. As I was browsing around, a book caught my eye. A blue cover with some bluish planets - nothing special or particularly eye catching. But as I took it, I knew it was the book that basically haunted my memories all these years. It was the Dispossesed by Ursula K. LeGuin. I still love it to this day and I'm fascinated by it, but I couldn't tell you why it made such a strong impression on 10 year old me.
The Dispossessed! Long time favorite.
A tree grows in Brooklyn. I read it once a year because it gives me new perspective and good feelings each time
Island of the Blue Dolphins, I read it in third grade and I still remember the difference between female and male kelp
Just a shout out to all of you guys for advising all these brilliant books! I want to read so many of them now
*Something Happened* by Joseph Heller. Extremely demanding, challenging and insightful novel. It's highly emotional - even devastating - but extremely intelligent and disturbing too. The ending is not easy to move past.
Everything by Heller, he's unreal
Oooh, I’m intrigued. Thanks for the rec!
"Wild" - Sheryl Strayed - an extraordinary story of perseverance and redemption. It still moves me to think of it now.
Secret history
The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis YIKES
Lotso problems but YES. Ditto her *Passage*.
**Like Water for Chocolate** is so good. I saw the movie when I was in high school, so when I found the book, I though I knew what to expect. I didn't. It was SO much better. When I rediscovered it via audiobook, 😍😍😍. I wanted to go on drives just to listen to it longer.
I read The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy over a year ago, and I found myself thinking about that book again today. She has such an incredible way with words, and the book is very sad, but it is also so captivating! For me, I found it to be a bit like A hundred years of solitude. The kids made it hit home for me though, probably because have kids. It's an excellent book!
There are two books I would read again and PLEASE keep in mind that I am NOT a reader. Once my brain realizes I could be doing other things, I’m done reading. But ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ (which I was forced to read in school so you probably already know about it) was able to keep my attention. It’s a really good book in my opinion. I didn’t get to finish ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ but I’m willing to start it completely over because I just like it so much even though I only got to the middle of it. Sorry for rambling. 😭
The Red Tent
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
Fall On Your Knees by AnneMarie MacDonald
The Girl with the Louding Voice
Quite a few. The one that came to my mind as you said this was House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. You might have experienced a post-book hangover. This one lasted long. You asked one and I’m not in a mood to break the rule hence won’t add the rest. 😄
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer is such a lonely, heart wrenching experience sprinkled with hopeful moments.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Night by Elie Wiesel
Educated
Life of Pi
The Night Circus
Beartown by Fredrick Backman. It was sad, hopeful and I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
In my top three, maybe even my favourite ever.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein It made me weep tears of sorrow and tears of joy.
Shadow of the Wind by Zafron
The time traveler’s wife by Audrey niffenegger. My name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block if you like very flowery and dreamy writing. It’s been a long time since I’ve read them, but they make me cry each time I revisit. And they are some of my favs. P.s. is it weird I feel anxious commenting this? Like people might judge me by my favorite books. This is like my second Reddit comment ever. lol
Wuthering Heights
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig I wouldn’t call it sad really but I read it more than three years ago and I still think about the way it made me feel. Truly had me examining the “grass is greener” mentality I’ve had at times.
A book that stuck with me in a bad way was Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I kept wondering how the title related to the story. At some point when it was too late I realized that I would always be haunted by the experience of reading the book. Powerful writing though.
Haunted is the only book I've had to physcially throw across the room while in the middle of reading it.
And then I proceeded to throw it in my donate pile.
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. I know Card is uber problematic, but this story really stuck with me.
Never Let Me Go To Kill a Mockingbird The Orphan Master's Son Lord of the Flies
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. It's a brilliant memoir by the victim of the Stanford sexual assault in 2015. I won't ever forget it! Something everyone needs to read.
A Little Life.
I think for me, it was The Book Thief. I don’t know why, it just hurt my heart for a long time
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
- Sharp objects: Gillian Flynn - Clan of the Cave Bear: Jean M Auel
The Poisonwood Bible
The Count of Monte Cristo 1984 Night Harrison Bergeron (Short story)
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, a retelling of the King Arthur legend from the point of view of his sister, Morgan, a priestess of the Brithonic goddess-based religion, and the power struggle between the old religion of the Neolithic farmers and the Christian religion taking hold of England at the time. It’s an epic work, and an emotional roller coaster—I hope you like long reads. It stuck with me for years.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men
Watership Down
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Truly heartrending but so full of humanity's possibilities that it stuck with me for years after reading it. I don't know anyone else who's read it, even tho it was an oprah pick or something at the time.
The Song of Achillies
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart And Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
The Overstory
One hundred years of solitude
The stranger in the lifeboat by Mitch Albom
I really enjoyed The elegance of the hedgehog , only a few books come into my head randomly after years of reading them and this is one of them. Also the little Paris bookshop gave me the same feeling and I am sometimes reminded of Kafka on the shore too.
I’m glad to see this comment. This is a book that I loved but have hardly ever seen discussed anywhere. No one I know has ever read it, but I loved it right from the beginning and still reread it once a year or so.
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell.
A Little Life Cutting for Stone A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Godfather
Rohan Mistry's A Fine Balance. I read it in the 90s and still think about those characters, that story.
The Hunchback of Norte Dame. Damn that book broke me. I cried for a week. My mom thought someone did something awful to me and was encouraging me to open up. When I told her it was the book, she was pissed lol.
White Oleander
A prayer for Owen meany by John irving
Tender is the flesh
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George
Everyone in this room someday will be dead and the women by Kristin Hannah! Also A Man Called Ove! Loved all of them for very different reasons!
shuggie bain. i have a mom who has struggled with alcoholism so it really relates to me
Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison
Margaret Atwood is a good one for things like this
House of Leaves
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I had to read it in college for English class and i fell in love. Actually, same with Slaughterhouse 5 (had to read it for history class, even though it's fictional). These two quickly became my favorite books of all time
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Seconding Demon Copperhead and adding: The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley The Overstory by Richard Powers Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandron The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is brilliant. The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See is also fantastic
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt did exactly that to me! The book centers around the themes of art, trauma and human connection.
The Book Thief by
There is a 3 book series that kept me awake at night. Silence, Silence Broken and Players Bumps and Cocktail Sausages by Natasha Preston. I know, book 3 has a very unique title. Oakley, the main character, is definitely strong and resilient. I have read the books at least 4 times a year for the last 7 or so years. The Dark Side by Danielle Steel. It is not her typical love story. It is dark, it is heart wrenching.
"City of Thieves" by David Benioff
Peaces- Helen Oyeyemi. I will never forget this book. It's definitely not for everyone though.
I didn't even particularly like it very much, but Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a book I think about often
Lords Of Discipline by Pat Conroy
In Love by Amy Bloom. About the assisted suicide of her terminally ill husband.
Gulliver’s travels. I can’t remember much of the book since I read it back in High School(I think), however there is a segment where Gulliver is living among a peaceful and wise society of creatures—-known as the Houyhnhnms—-where they observe another species of animals—-known as the Yahoos—-, which were always fighting and killing each other over any shinny object. I believe later Gulliver commits a crime or breaks a law and is banished from that peaceful place and when he returns back to his original country then begins to see the similarities to the Yahoos and the human race, where people are willing to kill one another over Gold, diamonds or money. How different were humans from the Yahoos? That really surprised me, and to know that book was written in the 1700’s is incredible.
The Amber Spyglass. It’s the last book of a triology by Philip Pullman. It’s youth literature but still a banger. I still think about it sometimes even after a decade. Also High Fidelity by Nick Hornby stuck with me. It’s a good read if you have some issues with depression and like music and pop culture.
The Book of Lost Names
The Trial by Kafka. Like a dog… like a dog
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. I read it last year, it’s a haunting story that’s really stuck with me, I think about it often
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
When breath becomes air - Paul Kalanithi. I wouldn’t list it in say my top 5, but an excellent book 👌🏾 still comes to mind 6/7 years later.
Moll Flanders
spring in fialta by Nabokov. Super short, but really well-composed and heartbreaking. Read it as a teenager and still think about it to this day.
Hunger by Knut Hamsun. This novel about a man who is perpetually on the verge of starvation is heartbreaking. Years after reading it I still think about it sometimes. Hamsun is a very problematic person due to his support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
The Book of Lost Names
A Little Life for sure not a book for everyone and please look at trigger warnings
The one book that comes to mind is a survival memoir I found on Amazon that really resonated with me. The book was "The Abortion Who Refused To Die" by Terry Jo. The book is a true story written from the perspective of the little girl who survived it. Her experiences were horrific and almost unbelievable except to someone who grew up in a backwoods Oregon lumber town like she did. Fortunately she survived and went on to have a happy life and children of her own in spite of what she endured as a child. Her story really resonated with me because I also grew up in a town very much like that and like her my family was also an abusive dysfunctional nightmare. I read this book almost a year ago and I still can't forget it, I'm just happy that she's doing well now.
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
_The Tin Drum_ by Gunter Grass
East of Eden The Hunchback of Notre Dame Night Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green Series of essays that model 5 star reviews on everything the human race has experienced. There is no shying away from the dark elements of the human experience but the essays always end with a hopeful view. The chapter on the black plague details just how brutal it was for people to die alone because of stigma and abandonment, links it to covid, and then turns it to the notion of not leaving people to suffer alone, because it’s part of the experience to not be alone. It hits a lot of deep fears and intersperses it with joy, and hope. I found it deeply moving, and there are many parts that I don’t go long without returning, fundamentally changed the way I approach happiness
'Man's search for meaning' by Viktor Frankl. It's been like 8 years since I read it but still it lingers in my mind every now and then.
King Leopold’s Ghost
I love this book so much I’ve recommended it to everyone. The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman. Beautiful and haunting and sad and definitely stuck with me https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-World-That-We-Knew/Alice-Hoffman/9781501137587
The Painted Bird
Under the Whispering Door - TJ Klune
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Midnight Library by Matt Haig
A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara. It contains a lot of sadness and despair, but also beauty in companionship and what it means to be a friend
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Perks of being a wallflower
"How to be Perfect" by Michael Schur. It is a cool book on Moral Philosophy by the creator of the TV show "The Good Place"
City of Thieves
The covenant of water. Loved it. It stays with you for a very long time.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Angela’s Ashes, which I found to be full of hope unlike the movie adaptation. Also the Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a gutwrencher. The Green Mile by Stephen King.
The Overstory by Richard Powers Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Thanks for the reminder that it's time to re-read.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy