Shelf Life Blog

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids. 

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a "simple, yet eloquent parable [that] celebrates the richness of the human spirit. A young Spanish shepherd seeking his destiny travels to Egypt where he learns many lessons, particularly from a wise old alchemist. The real alchemy here, however, is the transmuting of youthful idealism into mature wisdom. The blending of conventional ideas with an exotic setting makes old truths seem new again. This shepherd takes the advice Hamlet did not heed, learning to trust his heart and commune with it as a treasured friend. " (School Library Journal)

If you like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, you may also like these titles:
 

All Over the Map by Laura Fraser.
In following up An Italian Affair, Fraser takes a closer look at her own wanderlust and examines the positive and negative effects it has had on her life, particularly over the past 10 years. For example, the author finds a glorious waterfall in Samoa. "The water is so clear light blue it's possible to see all the way to the bottom, and the bottom is a long way down. I dive in for a swim. this is why I love to travel." But she questions the notion of having it all, or having it all at once, and worries that her desire to explore and her professional success have come at the expense of stability and family. She challenges the ideals of happiness and home she had previously held, adding a layer of depth to a memoir that will excite travelers of the world and the armchair alike. (From Publishers Weekly)
 

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his 'meaningless' life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: 'Why was I here?' (Catalog description)

“He was a big and incredibly powerful collie, with a massive coat of burnished mahogany-and-snow and with absurdly small forepaws (which he spent at least an hour a day in washing) and with deep-set dark eyes that seemed to have a soul behind them. So much for the outer dog. For the inner: he had a heart that did not know the meaning of fear or disloyalty or of meanness.” – Albert Terhune

When Smithy Ide was a teenager, his beloved older sister Bethany was diagnosed with schizophrenia and began running away in Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running. Smithy would ride his bike all over town to find her and bring her home. He always found her, until one day, she stayed lost. 

As my cotton-gloved hands examined the woven fabric, I felt the thrill of encountering a link to the age of discovery. Over a hundred years old and probably unseen and untouched for decades, this artifact of the Cook Islands was being carefully prepared by us technicians to be moved to the Smithsonian Institution’s storage facility. Some twenty years later, Professor Nicholas Thomas’ Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James A. Cook has given me much better perspective on these pieces of the past.

All of us have had that sense, at one time or another, of seeing something inexplicable out of the corner of our eyes. It may be a flash of light, a reflective glint, or just a shimmery difference in the air around us. And then it usually goes away. But for Aislinn in Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely, it’s a different story. She has always been able to see faeries around her, and they aren’t cute and precious like Tinkerbell. The fey are at times hideous or breathtakingly beautiful, cruel or mocking, and always a danger. They often pinch and mock the humans that they follow and then don glamours to blend in with humans (and often lead them astray) when it suits the faeries’ needs.

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading  recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you.  Available for adults, teens, and kids.

If you liked The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom, you may also like:

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
This inspirational fable...has been a runaway bestseller....The charming tale of Santiago, a shepherd boy, who dreams of seeing the world, is compelling in its own right, but gains resonance through the many lessons Santiago learns during his adventures. He journeys from Spain to Morocco in search of worldly success, and eventually to Egypt, where a fateful encounter with an alchemist brings him at last to self-understanding and spiritual enlightenment. The story has the comic charm, dramatic tension and psychological intensity of a fairy tale, but it's full of specific wisdom as well, about becoming self-empowered, overcoming depression, and believing in dreams. The cumulative effect is
like hearing a wonderful bedtime story from an inspirational psychiatrist. (from Publishers Weekly)

Can't Wait to Get to Heaven, by Fannie Flagg
Octogenarian Elner Shimfissle falls off a ladder after accidentally disturbing a hornets' nest while picking figs. After she dies at the hospital, the novel's bite-size chapters alternate between funny and touching vignettes showing how Elner's death and life has affected dozens of people in town, interspersed with scenes of Elner's laugh-out-loud assent into the hereafter. From there, the plot offers readers a series of delightful surprises...Flagg is an expert at balancing pathos with plenty of Southern sass, and this could very well be the feel-good read of the summer. (Publishers Weekly)

Humor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What makes one person snicker or guffaw might leave another stone cold. Thankfully, the new short story collection Guys Read: Funny Business presents many different senses of humor throughout its pages.

The brainchild of writer Jon Scieszka (of Stinky Cheese Man fame), Guys Read is a project that finds and suggests books that will inspire boys to read, to enjoy what they’re reading, and to seek out more. Different authors contributed their own pieces that will, with any luck, put you in stitches without requiring the mandatory hospital visit.

Funny Business is not just for boys, but it has a lot of things that they might like. It has goofiness and gross-outs. It has suspense and action. It has evil turkeys and chocolate swimming pools. This installment of the new series focuses on humor, but the group plans to release books that are focused on mysteries, sports, and real life stories as well.

Alexander McCall Smith’s Corduroy Mansions is about Family. The group of tenants in the genteel but slightly shabby house in the Pimlico neighborhood in London cares about each other and finds joy in the simple things in life.

This is an ensemble piece with a simple plot and many eccentric and likable characters.  There is William French, a widower and wine merchant, who cannot get his 24-year-old son to move out.  He “borrows’ Freddy de la Hay, a terrier with human behavior and thoughts, to get the dog-hating Eddie to move out. Instead, William’s ersatz girlfriend moves in. On the floor below live four young women: Dee works in a health food shop; Caroline is studying art history at Sotheby’s; Jenny is MP Oedipus Snark’s assistant; Jo, an Australian, is assistant manager at a local wine bar. Below them lives a quiet accountant in his mid-forties called Basil Wickramsinghe.   The characters touch each other’s lives and have moral dilemmas to solve.

Tara Stiles' Slim Calm Sexy Yoga is full of easy-to-follow 15-minute routines that target specific fitness goals and health issues.

In her introduction Stiles states: "My approach is based on harnessing the healing power of yoga and applying it in the most targeted way possible - fixing whatever hurts you, stresses you, or makes you sad, in less time than it takes to wash and dry your hair."

Stiles begins by discussing the concept of 15-minute yoga and three essential yoga principles: breathing, meditation and body alignment. She goes on to cover the essential yoga poses that she'll combine into the various 15-minute routines. You'll find lots of large explanatory pictures in this section. From there the book is divided into chapters focusing on "Slim," "Calm," "Sexy," "Fit," "Gorgeous," and "Healthy" yoga, each offering several routines (with pictures) that address each issue. The book wraps up with tips and advice on making yoga more a part of your life, mainly through attending classes.

“I think sometimes you think you’re the hero of the story, and sometimes you think you’re the victim…but you’re not either.”