5 Oddly Specific Book Recommendations

My love language is outside of the typical five: it’s book recommendations. I’m always open to an enthusiastic recommendation from a fellow book lover. Something fun I’ve seen online recently is people giving oddly specific book recommendations. So I thought I’d come up with a few of my own. Mostly because these are some of the best books I’ve read this year and I just want to talk about them. I hope there’s at least one on this list that you haven’t read. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite. :)

1. If you’re intimidated by thick books but want to finish (and actually enjoy) one, read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

• An all-time favorite

• 771 pages (or if you have the tiny paperback, 962 pages)

• Set mainly in NYC

• Memorable characters

Four years ago I put this book on my Christmas list on a whim, not knowing much about it. I read the first 100-ish pages during that strange space in time between Christmas and New Year’s. The beginning was too depressing so I put it down.

This book is a perfect example of “right book, right time”. I finally picked it up again this May and absolutely devoured it. The emotion in this story felt real and the characters were extremely vivid. I was so attached to the main character after watching him grow up. This was one of those books that I dreaded finishing because I didn’t want the story to end.

I honestly think if it was longer I would have happily kept on reading. But I think we can all agree that 771 pages makes a thick book (or 962 if you’re like me and got the small paperback version). I can totally see why Donna Tartt only releases a book every ten or so years. There was so much detail and I was completely immersed.

The Goldfinch has a very special place in my heart! Read the premise here.

2. If you’re a history buff in the mood for a time travel story with a bit of romance that’s like nothing you’ve ever read before, read The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

• Genre-bending

• Unique use of time travel

• Will make you laugh, then cry, then laugh more

• Suspenseful

• One of my favorite covers ever

This is possibly my favorite release of 2024 so far! I was drawn in by the gorgeous cover and a few rave reviews. My very favorite covers are ones where it’s just the title designed beautifully. Gets me every time. But opening the book and discovering an equally amazing reading experience was pure delight.

It felt like a rare reading experience in which I loved everything: the writing style, the characters, the dialogue, the plot, the pacing, the underlying themes, everything. It felt almost like it was too good to be true, but it was right there in front of me, and I wasn’t dreaming!

If I had to pick one word to describe this book, it would be unique. In the best possible way. I haven’t read anything like it, and I don’t think I will anytime soon. If time travel stories are your thing, definitely give this a read. The aspects of history, romance, and suspense swirled in there may pleasantly surprise you!

Learn more about The Ministry of Time here.

3. If you’re a writer who gets inspiration from reading about writers, read Beach Read by Emily Henry

• Both main characters are writers

• Top-tier romance

• A look into the life of a writer working on their next project

• Perfect for the summer

Honestly, I don’t read a ton of straight up romance. I’m not a hater of the genre by any means, but I usually gravitate toward other genres that may have romance but not as the main focus. I tend to get bored if the romance between the two characters is the only thing going on in a book.

I kept hearing great things about Emily Henry, so at the start of summer I gave Beach Read a try. As you can probably guess, since it’s on this list, I highly recommend it! I loved it. Something I love about Emily Henry is that she truly develops her characters. They’re going through so much more than falling in love throughout the story. It’s realistic. Life isn’t perfect and neither are her characters or their lives.

So while this is definitely a love story, it’s also a story about two writers trying to get another story onto the page before they run out of money and become has-beens. It’s about a woman who is grieving her father and reckoning with the relationship they had before he died.

It’s my opinion that when we get to see the characters’ inner turmoil and go with them on a journey, the success of the romance at the end is all the more gratifying. Beach Read definitely delivered on that, and I can’t wait to read more by Emily Henry!

Read more about the Beach Read here.

4. If you love the Practical Magic movie, haven’t read the series yet, and you were oddly fascinated by the Salem witch trials in school, read Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

• Atmospheric prose

• The story of Sally and Gillian’s ancestor

• Spans decades and continents

• Guaranteed to break your heart but will be worth it

When it becomes fall, the first movie I watch is Practical Magic. It’s one of my favorites for the season, and my love for it only grew when I read the book it was adapted from. Alice Hoffman quickly became one of my favorite authors after I tore through the four-book series. This book started it all for me!

The movie itself is a cult classic, and if you love it, you must read the books. I personally recommend starting with Magic Lessons. It wasn’t the first to be published, but it is the first within the storyline if you want to read it chronologically.

This is the story of Maria Owens, who is briefly mentioned at the beginning of the Practical Magic movie. She is Sally and Gillian’s ancestor who we follow in this book starting as a baby left in a field by her birth mother in the 1600s. There is so much that happens in Maria’s story, and it lays the foundation for the rest of the series (and the movie).

Put simply, Maria learns an important lesson: always love someone who will love you back. She learns this the hard way, and in the midst of heartbreak she casts the infamous curse that plagues all future Owens women. Any man who falls in love with an Owens woman will die.

Maria’s story is just the beginning of the Owens family and everything that happens in this series. But personally, this book remained my favorite of the entire series. If you are at all interested in Practical Magic, I strongly suggest reading Magic Lessons!

Read more about Magic Lessons here.

5. If Friends is your favorite TV show and you’re on your 37th rewatch of the series, read Generation Friends by Saul Austerlitz

• Fascinating insights into television in the 90s and 00s

• Feels like reading about old friends

• Will 100% make you want to rewatch the series yet again

This was my most recent nonfiction read, and I loved it. I’ve always loved the show, so I figured a book about the show had to be good. This one definitely is. As someone who has watched through the ten seasons countless times and is constantly rewatching it, I thought I knew a lot about it. Sure, I know a ton about the characters and storyline. But I didn’t know too much about how the show began and I certainly didn’t know much about the business of television in the 1990s.

Generation Friends is packed with information about how the show was created, the sitcom scene of the 1990s, the hole in the market this particular show filled, how shooting the pilot went, and so on. It follows the show from pre-creation all the way to the airing of the very last episode and the legacy Friends has left in the years since.

I love how this book balances behind-the-scenes information, depiction of the ever-changing landscape of television, analysis of various characters and plotlines of the show, and why it continues to touch viewers to this day. I highly recommend this one for Friends fans. I do think you need to be a pretty big fan of the show to find the entire book interesting, because that’s definitely the audience this book was written for. Isn’t it great when you read a book that feels like it was written just for you?

Learn more about Generation Friends here.

I hope you found something you’re excited to read from this list! Sometimes you just need a very specific recommendation. If you have any for me, I’d love to hear them! Shoot me an email. Like I said, I live for book recommendations! Whether or not the list of books I want to read is getting out of hand is another story…

Happy reading!