I will update this page periodically with a list of super-popular books, and corresponding, lesser-known works I think you might enjoy. If any of these books look good to you, I receive a small commission from Powell’s if you buy them from a link on this page.

Want to join the conversation?  Check out the Books Distilled online book club, The Book Circle.  Happy reading!

If you liked …

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. (See my book/movie review.)

Then try…

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern.  This absolutely fantastic book is filled with magic and mystery:  a traveling circus that arrives in cities across the world without warning, a circus that opens at nightfall and closes at dawn.  Little do the patrons know that the illusionist performing amazing magic tricks is locked in a magical contest with an unseen opponent, and the outcome will affect the entire circus.

The White Bone, by Barbara Gowdy. This innovative novel imagines life from the point of view of elephants. Hunted by humans and nearly dead from thirst and hunger, the elephants seek out a magical object called the white bone that will lead them to a place of safety. See my review.

If you liked …

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. See my review.

Then try…

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clark. This hefty volume is just as mysterious and detailed as The Magicians. Mr. Norrell is a nineteenth-century premier English magician, using magic to fight France in the Napoleonic wars. Jonathan Strange emerges as first his student and later his adversary, and their contest will change the fate of the world.

Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger. While not exactly about magic, this ghost story thriller is creepy enough to be. Julia and Valentina, twins who have never been separated for a moment, inherit their aunt Elspeth’s London flat. They never met Elspeth, who was their mother’s twin sister; but they soon discover that she hasn’t quite left the apartment.

If you liked …

Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert.  (See my review.)

Then try…

Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents, by Elisabeth Eaves. See my review. There’s enough travel (and men) in it to satisfy even the wanderer with the itchiest feet.

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, by Frances Mayes. Note that this book is NOTHING like the movie with Diane Lane. Frances Mayes and her partner buy and restore a home in Italy. She also includes recipes of dishes she makes for family and friends as they visit. You won’t be able to read it without snacking, so be prepared.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott.  This book is less travel and more of the spiritual side of a journey, like Gilbert’s journey into herself.  You’ll laugh and cry as you read about Lamott’s misadventures searching for God.

If you liked …

Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden

Then try…

The Calligrapher’s Daughter, by Eugenia Kim. Eugenia was my first workshop leader at Fairfield. Her novel is the lyrical story of Han Najin, a young woman coming of age during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Najin longs to go to university the become a midwife. Her dreams come true slowly and she marries the love of her life, before becoming separated from him for over a decade. Based loosely on the life of Eugenia’s mother, The Calligrapher’s Daughter is lovely.

Colors of the Mountain and Sounds of the River, by Da Chen. True memoirs (unlike Memoirs of a Geisha, which is a novel), Da’s stories of growing up impoverished in China and overcoming insane odds to attend college to study English on a full scholarship are inspiring.  (See my interview with Da.)

If you liked …

The Hours, by Michael Cunningham

Then try …

Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. Clarissa, a character in The Hours, is loosely based on Woolf’s title character.  A single day in the life of one British woman, Mrs. Dalloway is poignant social commentary at its finest.

The Biographer, by Virginia Duigan. This book is as psychologically thrilling as The Hours. Greer Gordon’s husband, a famous painter, is having a biography written of his life. The biographer comes to stay with them at their villa in Italy, and soon discovers that Greer is harboring far more secrets than her husband.

Our Kind: A Novel in Stories, by Kate Walbert.  This slim novel is compact and compelling.  Told mostly in the first person plural  by a group of women who “were married in 1953. Divorced in 1976,” this incisive social criticism sheds light on the lives of women who bond together after the uncertainty of stepping outside the boundaries of normal family life.

If you liked …

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Then try …

Paula, by Isabel Allende.  This memoir of the time Allende’s daughter is ill is beautiful and heartbreaking.  Like Didion’s chronicle of an immensely difficult time, Allende’s book tempers pain with the beauty of loving others so deeply that it illuminates the work with light.

The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris.  This memoir of faith is not the story of grief over the illness or death of a loved one.  Rather, Norris chronicles her slow emergence into faith during a year of life in a Benedictine monastery.  Brought up in the Presbyterian church, Norris spends her adolescent and adult life an atheist.  After struggling with depression, she seeks joy; this book describes for us the places in which she finds it.