 We're always on the lookout for great book recommendations and readers/bloggers who have wells of information and recommendations to give to others. One such person is Michelle from Chronicles of a Book Evangelist, and we are ecstatic to welcome her for an edition of "If You Like This, Maybe That," where we give book recommendations based on interest in certain movies, television shows, love of characters, songs, and just about anything else you can think of.
| | If you have been enjoying the recent outbreak of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature to hit the shelves, you should try George Stewart's Earth Abides. First published in 1949, Earth Abides is one of the grandfathers of modern day apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic literature. However, unlike many of its contemporaries, Earth Abides has held up surprisingly well over the years. George Stewart was a scientist, a geographer, and a studier of human nature. Rather than rely on fantastic otherworldly catastrophes or elaborate technological failures, Stewart's apocalyptic tale depends on a simple, natural virus and normal human behavior. It is how the survivors react to each other and the changing social, biological and physical landscape that makes Earth Abides so fascinating. | If you enjoy watching Grimm or Once Upon a Time or both (Tor does a great Battle of the Fairytales recap of both each week), and you've read and loved Beastly or Kill Me Softly, or you are waiting on Shadow and Bone, perhaps you should try some time-tested retellings. In Enchantment, Orson Scott Card weaves together Jewish, American, Russian and Ukrainian culture and literature, religion and myth, to create an incredibly unique and vibrant blending of fairytales from the east and west into one fabulous story. Another great fairytale retelling is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. This wonderfully twisty version of Cinderella is perhaps one of my favorite retellings of all time - please don't judge the book by its movie. | | | | If, like Bria (or me), you were completely captivated by Starling in Kirsten Hubbard's Wanderlove, you should try J. Maarten Troost's The Sex Lives of Cannibals. It is the sometimes sad, sometimes gross, mostly funny and always true story of his and his girlfriend's experiences as global vagabonds out to save the world... one tiny Pacific Island at a time. | Are you thrilled by all of these wonderfully strong, smart, resourceful and independent young heroines defying the odds and taking to the skies? Do you want more of Maddie Brodatt from Code Name Verity, Ida Mae Jones from Flygirl, or Deryn Sharp from the Leviathan series? I suggest the memoirs of real-life pilot Beryl Markham, West With The Night. She was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from East to West, spent most of her years adventuring in Africa, and wrote so that Ernest Hemingway described her memoirs like this: "As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers... I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."That was Ernest Hemingway, need I say more? |
| | | My final recommendation has a lot of ifs, but, oh! if those ifs are met, then it is a really wonderful then! If you love the darkly humorous tone and language-heavy literary bent of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief; and if you can stomach some serious amounts of violence, blood and gore (no, really, serious amounts); and if you like your blood and gore to be accompanied by a little bit creepy, somewhat relatable and always cerebral hero (think House from House, Dexter from Dexter or Bones from, well, Bones then Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series is probably the series you've been waiting for most of your life. Yancey's writing is beautiful and dark and literary and organized and so hard to describe but very, very worth the read. | Well I don't know about you guys, but my to-be-read list has just gotten a little longer. If you liked any or all of Michelle's recommendations, don't forget to visit her blog at Chronicles of a Book Evangelist.
It's unsolicited recommendation time again! We've actually gotten a lot of hits on the blog for people searching phrases like "books for people who like..." and "if you like..." so I'm excited to do another in our series of "If You Like This, You Might Like That," since my first post seems to be coming up for people on Google searches. As always, I'd love to know if you have any contributions--let me know in the comments. Last time, the wonderful Chachic recommended Eva Ibbotson's work A Countess Below Stairs to fans of Downton Abbey and I quite agree. And we're off...  If you like wordplay and epistolary novels, you should read Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn. In it, a town revers the man who created the pangram, "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." As the letters fall off the statue in their town center, the residents see it as a sign that they should remove them from usage in daily life. One by one, the letters disappear from the book as well, to rather hilarious results at parts. You can fly through this one in no time at all.
 If you liked Unwind by Neal Shusterman, contemplating whether or not you'd want to clone a person, or if you just want to read an awesome YA book that doesn't get enough play, you should try House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. House of the Scorpion is set in a future where there is a section of land between the US and Mexico called Opium that is used for cultivating drugs. It deals with issues like slavery, cloning, classism, and socialism and quite obviously, drugs.
 I happen to love everything Bill Bryson writes. His style is engaging and I always find myself chuckling while I'm learning a metric ton of interesting factoids about every topic he covers. I've yet to jump into his A Short History of Nearly Everything, but his travel books are some of my favorites. If you enjoy commentary and travel books, love the vignettes on NPR shows like Fresh Air, can laugh about getting lost, or love learning random facts about things, you should check him out. Oh, or if you judge how awesome a place is by how much great stuff you have to eat and drink, he's a kindred spirit. I recommend I'm A Stranger Here Myself, In A Sunburned Country and A Walk in the Woods.
 If you are a person who loves to learn a lot about an occupation and how things work while you are reading fiction and you enjoy reading about insane serial killers, definitely read Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. (Am I the only one who DVRs " How It's Made?") I always wondered how scents like fresh laundry, grass, and cotton candy could be bottled and now I know (perhaps a little too creepily well) how this is done. It is also a great book for people who, let's face it, don't read a ton of "real" literature and want to up their street cred. Beware the ending. (I see on Goodreads that this book's ratings are are all over the place, in general and among my friends. This frightens me a bit but I say go forth and read, then come back and tell me what you think.
 I think I must've been a weird kid. Looking back, my favorite books are mostly the ones that are completely whackadoo, but I wouldn't want it any other way. My two favorite series were Betty Macdonald's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series and Louis Sachar's Wayside School series. Both series are early chapter books and accessible to most elementary-aged kids but they are so much more valuable because they are books I still enjoy as an adult and that parents will enjoy themselves when reading along with their children. In Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, a quirky neighborhood woman who lives in an upside-down house helps to modify behaviors of local children in bizzare ways. I only just found out this minute that the books were originally written in the 1940s and 50s! The Wayside School books are set in a school that was accidentally built one classroom per floor vertically instead of spread out. Each student is weird in their own way and I still remember a bunch of their individual stories 15+ years after I first read them. (I also love Holes, by the same author.)
 Like girls who do math? Reading about the Mexican-American experience? You should read What Can't Wait by Ashley Hope Pérez . Published by Carolrhoda Lab, which is a publisher I actively check to see what they are releasing with giddy anticipation, What Can't Wait will appeal to people who enjoy the Fuentes brothers books by Simone Elkeles but maybe wish they were more about self-examination than romance. I am excited to read her new release, The Knife and the Butterfly.
 Are you the type of person who daydreams about what it might be like to be in someone else's brain for a day? Freaky Friday social experiments? I'd love to be Kelly Link for a day, or actually, in many short story authors' brains. They are a hard sell and often times I find short story collections to be inconsistent. Pretty Monsters is fantastic. The only negative is that I wish each story was later developed into a full-length novel! I still smile thinking about the image of an entire kingdom in a handbag. If you like fantasy and short stories, you are missing out if you don't give this one a try.
I hope one or more of these books will strike your fancy. Do you have any book recommendations based on liking random things?
I'm always excited to find out about new things whether it is a television show, board game, book, website, beer, recipe, ANYTHING. The downside of this (or perhaps just my personality) is that I get extremely excited to tell other people about these things. I will tell you all about this Discovery Channel special I watched about building a transatlantic tunnel, make you watch Summer Heights High, dance like Dawn Weiner from Welcome to the Dollhouse, and show you about 40 YouTube videos that I watch all the time. So, without further adieu, here are some completely unsolicited recommendations for books based on liking other things. If you are into shows like Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, you should try the Grimspace series by Ann Aguirre and The Native Star series by M.K. Hobson.  Just a little reminder of how awesome the show is.  Click and buy it. So innovative. If you are into British humor and tons and tons of puns and literary jokes, you should try the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. (I also absolutely recommend his work, Shades of Grey!) If you like the feeling of laying on your back in water in direct sunlight, you should read Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar. If you like the movie Heathers, you should read Fury by Shirley Marr. If you like the worldbuilding in shows like Merlin and want to feel immersed in a world, you should try Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, any books by Tamora Pierce, or anything by Brandon Sanderson.
 Seriously beautiful cover.  If you like YA and science fiction exploration stories, you should read Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman and the Touchstone series by Andrea Höst . If you like books about rehab and are looking for great LGBT YA lit, you should try Suicide Notes. If you like being dropped down in the middle of a community and following large casts of characters, you should read any of Maeve Binchy's books. (I recommend Tara Road, Circle of Friends, Light A Penny Candle, Firefly Summer, and Minding Frankie) If you want to read some great short stories (for free! online!), you should try Harrison Bergeron, The End of the Party, Ponies, All Summer in a Day, and 2BRO2B. If you like MMORPGs, you should read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. If you like zombies and politics (there are some of us out there!), you should read the Newsflesh books by Mira Grant. If you like Nora Roberts books but wish they were a little sexier, you might try Susan Elizabeth Phillips. (try Kiss An Angel)
 I love this book. If you liked Buffy during the college years, you should read the Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill. If you like Doctor Who, you might like Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko and Replay by Ken Grimwood. If you are an teen/adult who liked the tone of The Hunger Games, you should read Stephen King's The Running Man and The Long Walk. If you still think Penny from Inspector Gadget deserved to be recognized as the brains behind the operation, you might like What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. If you liked The Thirteenth Tale, you should try The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell.
That's it for now. If you have any random "If you like this, try that" suggestions, comment away!
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