Readalike rundown

I have been so busy reading I forgot to write some reviews.  Here’s a rundown on some fall reads you might enjoy:

If you liked Bossypants by Tina Fey you might want to try Ali in Wonderland  by Alexandra Wentworth.  She’s great at delivering punch lines about her life as a rich kid in Washington, actress in Los Angeles, and mother back in Washington.  I found her more entertaining than Mindy Kaling, whose Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is also touted as a successor to Bossypants.  Mindy was just too young for my middle age patience.  I also tried to like another supposed Bossypants readalike, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, but her childhood was so sad it was depressing.

If you liked Pride and Prejudice, you will enjoy Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James.  This is more successful than other Jane Austen sequels I’ve read because P.D. James has perfect dialogue.  And it ends in a marriage, naturally.

If you liked the Graceling/Fire/Bitterblue trilogy of young adult fantasies by Kristen Cashore (aren’t we all stealing out of the YA section these days?) you might want to try Seraphina by Rachel Hartman.  Seraphina is half human, and half dragon, and this imaginative story presents an intriguing new world and tough heroine.  It’s the start of a series.

If you liked How To Be Good by Nick Hornby, you might like the zany world of Christopher Moore.  I zoomed through A Dirty Job about Charlie Fletcher, who discovers he is a death merchant responsible for transferring soul vessels.  That plot summary gives a good sense of Moore’s interests.  Warning- Moore doesn’t let concerns about losing the reader in gleeful idiocy get in the way of a Badump bump pun.

If you liked Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, you might like The Hare With the Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal.  He’s an artist who researches the history behind his family’s netsuke collection.  These small carved Japanese animals and people were collected by his great uncle.  He tells the story of the various owners through the 20^th century, as they move around the world.

If you liked The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson, you might enjoy Object of Beauty by Steve Martin.  It’s the story of Lacey, a beautiful, smart and amoral art dealer in New York.  If you are curious about modern art and/or interested in the life of an ambitious golden girl, you might enjoy it.  I also liked it because I learned about the modern art business on the side.  It’s always good to get a little nonfiction learning in on the side during a great story!

If you liked A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, you will enjoy the heft and drama of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  This one broke my usual “nothing thicker than a phone book” rule.  However, everyone else in book club liked this story about two doctor twins in Ethiopia, so I’ll mention it for those with perseverance.

If you liked Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert you might like Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  It’s a nonfiction biography of the author’s life changing hike on the Pacific Coast Trail.  However, since Oprah has been promoting the novel, it is unlikely there are many out there who haven’t read this one!