If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know that I enjoy sharing book recommendations. (Links to all my previous recommendation lists at the end of this!)
But today I wanted to share some hyper-specific book recommendations for topics that didn’t quite warrant a separate post for each one. Think of it as a sort of grab bag of recommendations based on my eclectic reading taste.
I have three book recommendations for each of the following categories:
Books about the Nordic countries
Memoirs that Harry Potter fans should read
Atmospheric dark academic novels
Books about travel in the former USSR
Nonfiction books that read like fiction
Cozy winter fantasy novels
I told you… hyper-specific! If any of those topics grab your interest or spark your curiosity, read on for the recommendations.
Note: I have included Amazon affiliate links for each of the books mentioned below. If you make a purchase through one of my links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
The Nordic countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. (And if you’re wondering, “Scandinavia” refers to just Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.) These countries often rank among the richest, happiest, and most gender-equal in the world.
If you’re curious about this region of the world, read these books:
The Almost Nearly Perfect People is a nonfiction book that takes you on a journey through all five Nordic countries. The author is English, but he is married to a Danish woman, and they live in Denmark raising their kids.
I liked the format of this book, where each section focuses on a different country and its quirks. It’s part nonfiction, but also part travelogue, as the author travels through each of the Nordic countries. This book is light, entertaining, and readable, but you’ll still come away feeling like you learned something.
Iceland is unique among the Nordics because it’s an island, geographically isolated from the rest of the region, and because it has by far the smallest population (just 400,000 people) out of all the Nordic countries. Despite its small size, Iceland has made a surprisingly large impact on the world.
This fascinating book, written by an Icelandic journalist, examines all the ways Iceland and its people, nature, and culture have changed the world over the course of its 1,200-year-old history, including impacting world events as diverse as the French Revolution, the moon landing, and the foundation of Israel.
The Year of Living Danishly is a memoir about life in Denmark and discovering unique aspects of Danish culture. The author of this book is also English, but relocates to Denmark when her husband gets a job at the LEGO headquarters.
I enjoyed the structure of this book, where each chapter follows one month of the year and provides a deep dive into one facet of Danish culture. It feels like you are getting to know Denmark alongside the author as she settles into her new home, and I came away from this book having learned more about Denmark.
I’ve been a pretty big Harry Potter fan since 2011. For some reason, the books or movies never interested me as a kid, but I finally got into the series as a teenager, binge-reading all seven books and catching up on the movies before the final film was released in the summer of 2011 (I attended the midnight premiere, naturally).
My love for Harry Potter goes beyond the page and screen, too. I’ve visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando multiple times, and I’ve been known to go out of my way to visit Harry Potter filming locations across the UK.
So these recommendations are for all the other Potterheads out there. Even if you’re not a huge Harry Potter fan, I think you would still enjoy these memoirs:
Beyond the Wand is the best book to read if you’re mainly interested in getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the making of the Harry Potter films. Written by Tom Felton, who plays the Slytherin antagonist Draco Malfoy, this memoir primarily focuses on the decade he spent on set making the movies.
It also gets into his life after Harry Potter ended, including an honest look at some mental health and substance abuse issues he experienced. Overall, this is a very enjoyable book that will make you nostalgic for Harry Potter.
This is the least “Harry Potter” memoir on this list. The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting is the beautifully written, devastating work of Evanna Lynch, who won the role of Luna Lovegood, making her first appearance in the fifth movie. It was a unique situation because Evanna Lynch was already a long-time Harry Potter fan.
But the focus of this memoir is not on her time filming Harry Potter. Instead, it chronicles the years she spent battling an eating disorder beginning at the age of eleven, eventually leading up to her casting as Luna Lovegood at the age of fourteen, and the years afterwards on her journey of recovery and self-love.
Another heart-wrenching memoir I highly recommend is The Boy Who Lived. This one is written by David Holmes, who was Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double for the first seven films, until a horrific accident while rehearsing for the final movie ended his career as Harry Potter’s stunt double and resulted in degenerative paralysis.
The first half of this book is a joy to read, chronicling David Holmes’ early career as he went from gymnast and working-class kid from Essex to living an exciting, charmed life on the set of Harry Potter. The second half of the book deals with the aftermath of his paralysis, showcasing his remarkable resilience.
“Dark academia” is not so much a genre as it is a vibe. Each of these novels takes place at universities and has a darker tone. Basically, these are the perfect books to curl up with on a chilly, dark autumn evening.
Here are the best dark academia novels to read:
The Secret History is the blueprint for dark academia. Although this isn’t my favorite Donna Tartt book (that would be The Goldfinch!), I really enjoyed The Secret History, which was her debut novel set at a small liberal arts college in Vermont.
It follows a transfer student who becomes enthralled by a privileged, tight-knit group of students who are studying classics, eventually becoming part of their group and spiraling into a dark world of secrets and murder.
Ninth House blends fantasy and dark academia. It’s set at the author’s alma mater, Yale University, but an alternative version of Yale where the university’s notorious secret societies dabble in magic and the occult. The series centers around Alex Stern, an unlikely student at Yale with a rough past and lots of secrets.
She was recruited to Yale because of her ability to see ghosts, and she is given a fresh start and tasked with monitoring the occult activities of the secret societies. When a girl is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Alex finds herself investigating and becoming entangled with a dark conspiracy.
One more dark academia novel that’s worth reading is They Never Learn. I’d recommend this one if you love suspenseful thrillers. This novel focuses on a professor who has a secret double life as a serial killer.
She chooses her victims among male students on campus who she thinks deserve to die. But despite her meticulous planning, her murders start to draw scrutiny, and a determined investigator threatens to bring her crimes to light.
I don’t know why, but I’m so fascinated by the countries of the former USSR. Out of the 15 post-Soviet countries, I have only been to three of them so far (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), but I’m dying to make it to the rest of them eventually, especially the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
In the meantime, I enjoyed traveling vicariously through these books about women going on journeys throughout the former USSR. These are great travelogues to read if you want to be whisked away to an intriguing part of the world:
Written by a Norwegian anthropologist who spent a significant amount of time in the former USSR countries in Central Asia, Sovietistan is the most nonfiction-y book on this list, although it also has elements of memoir.
This book specifically focuses on the five Stans that were previously part of the Soviet Union: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. I enjoyed how the author interviewed many local people she met and shared anecdotes from her travels, as well as wrote about the history of each country in this region.
Finding Katya is a great memoir about a former lawyer who quit her job in her mid-thirties to travel to every country in the former USSR. Katie Aune began her 18-month journey living with a local family in Russia and taking language classes. She traveled on a tight budget and really immersed herself everywhere she went.
I admired how honest she was in this book, sharing the highs and lows of her travels. It was also interesting to read about someone going on a big backpacking adventure a bit later in life, because normally I feel like you hear about people in their early to mid-twenties doing something like this.
One more book I’d recommend is Open Mic Night in Moscow. The author, an American living and working in China, spontaneously decides to take a big trip to most of the former Soviet countries, partially inspired by her two ex-boyfriends who both hailed from the USSR.
Although I could have done with less talk about her exes, I still enjoyed this book and was entertained reading about her travel experiences. As a Type A traveler, it was interesting to read about her very much Type B shenanigans.
I’m a huge nonfiction reader, but I know some people don’t love nonfiction because it can feel dry and dense. Not the case with these nonfiction books! They are all narrative nonfiction, with fast-paced and gripping stories.
Even though all of these stories are completely true, they read like fiction with how engaging they are. If you’re looking for something you won’t be able to put down, read:
The Art Thief is a book I absolutely flew through. It’s quite short, so you can read it pretty quickly. (You might have trouble stopping yourself from reading it all in one sitting!) This book tells the wild true story of a prolific art thief in France.
Over the span of six years, Stéphane Breitwieser stole more than 230 works of art from museums all across Europe, with his girlfriend acting as a lookout. Unlike most thieves, he didn’t steal the art to sell it for profit — he hoarded it in his own private collection instead. An absolutely riveting, crazy story!
I have absolutely no desire to climb Mount Everest, but I sure do enjoy reading about it. Into Thin Air chronicles the 1996 climbing disaster on Everest, in which eight climbers died during a single summit attempt during what would become one of the deadliest climbing seasons on record.
Journalist Jon Krakauer was part of this fateful climb, and writes a firsthand account of the experience, which was harrowing for those who made it off the mountain and incredibly tragic for those who did not.
I’m a big fan of another one of Patrick Radden Keefe’s nonfiction books (Empire of Pain), but his latest book, London Falling, might have been even better. This was a propulsive book I could not put down — I literally read it in a day.
It’s an investigation into the mysterious death of a nineteen-year-old from London who was living a double life and got in over his head with the wrong people. His death was ruled a suicide despite very strong evidence to the contrary, and this book exposes the darkness and corruption lurking beneath London’s glittering surface.
I’m writing this in the sweltering heat and humidity of August in New York, so of course I’m dreaming about a cold, snowy winter right now! I’m a big fantasy reader, and some of my favorite fantasy books are those with a strong sense of season and place. That’s the case for all three of these books.
Each one takes place in a magical, wintry world, and in my opinion, the setting adds just as much to the story as the characters and plot.
Cozy up with a blanket and a mug of tea on a cold winter day with these books:
The Bear and the Nightingale is the first book in the Winternight Trilogy, one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. It’s set in the remote and distant past of medieval Russia, and blends Russian folklore and legend with real historic context.
This book follows Vasya, a young and spirited noble girl who has the ability to see and communicate with the magical creatures that most people cannot. As winter approaches and awakens an ancient evil, Vasya must embrace her strange gifts to protect her family and her village. This book feels like a true fairytale.
Another fairytale-like book that is perfect to read in the winter is Spinning Silver. This one is set in a land where it’s always winter, and humans live in fear of the Staryk, a race of icy, fae-like creatures.
When the daughter of a moneylender attracts the attention of the Staryk king for her alleged gift of turning silver into gold, she must rely on her wits to stay alive and break a mysterious curse, as her story entertwines with those of several other memorable characters in this clever, enchanting tale.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries is the delightful first book in a series about a surly Cambridge University professor specializing in dryadology, the study of faeries. She travels to the icy country of Ljosland to study some elusive winter faeries.
While there, her research is interrupted by the arrival of Wendell Bambleby, her colleague and polar opposite in every way, who also happens to secretly be an exiled faerie prince. This book is charming, funny, and cozy, and I really enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoyed these hyper-specific book recommendations! If you’re still looking for something to read, check out my previous recommendations here:
If you’ve read any of the books on this list or have recommendations you’d like to share, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
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