The most recommended books about brothers

Never before has a murder mystery led me to consult the Bible. I'm agnostic but nevertheless fascinated by the wide differences in interpretation of the Christian faith.

This book ticked all the boxes for me—an intriguing whodunnit cleverly interwoven with description of life behind the closed doors of the Vatican, verifiable references to the differences between the four gospels in the Bible, and the Turin shroud as a key feature.

I had expected something similar to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, but I found the plot in this book much more credible. I would expect that the mounting of an exhibition of religious artifacts that could challenge traditional beliefs would generate strong passions, which, in this novel, proves fatal for the exhibition's organiser.

Reading Shotgun Lovesongs years ago is my first adult memory of seeing myself on the page—the kind of thing that probably happens more frequently if you’re from New York or L.A. but isn’t as common for those of us born and raised in so-called flyover states.

I fell hard for Nickolas Butler’s debut—the story of four boyhood friends in a small Wisconsin town, one of whom becomes a famous rock star—from the first chapter. While it became an international bestseller for its universally appealing story, hooky concept, and lyrical prose (not to mention its rumored, real-life inspiration),

I personally was drawn to the intimate portrayal of life-long, small-town friendships, the precise push-pull of life in a fishbowl; the loyalty we feel for each other that isn’t always earned; and the way we tether ourselves to people and place, for better or for worse.

Twain definitely wasn’t the first to cover the topic of switching places. Shakespeare, who was writing 200 years before Twain, wasn't even the first to do it. However, he did it with a great deal of style and a lot of laughs in The Comedy of Errors. This is considered to be one of his great comedies and it's easy to see why. This is a tale about two sets of identical twins who get all mixed up. A whole bunch of hijinks happens next. 

This is a great example of Shakespeare and a plot that has been adapted several times since. And while it's funny, the plot also reveals some deeper truths within the characters and society as a whole. As always with Shakespeare, it's meant to make you think.

Long a favorite of mine, every couple of years I enjoy returning to this book about two brothers who fall in with a group of Venetian street children and the young master-thief who oversees them. Funke's classic, assured style grants this relatively contemporary novel (first published in Germany in 2000) a charming, old-fashioned sensibility, while the pacing and characterization should appeal to the most modern of readers, at least to my eyes. The book has everything I love in stories for young readers–mystery, magic, friendship, and startling plot twists–and the interior illustrations done by Funke herself are lovely.

The book is set in the early eighties against the backdrop of the Handsworth riots and the royal wedding. 

Nine-year-old Leon narrates his own story which makes it more heart-wrenching as he doesn’t really know what’s going on. When it’s obvious his mum can’t parent her boys, Leon and Jake are taken into care. 

They go to a foster carer called Maureen who is desperate to keep the brothers together. But, baby Jake is a more attractive adoption prospect. He’s small but more importantly he’s white, whereas Leon’s father is black. So, Jake is taken by a ‘nice’ family to live a ‘nice’ life whilst Leon is abandoned within the care system. 

The story could be just another book following a child into the care system but My Name is Leon is so much more than that because of Leon. Leon is young, Leon is joyful, Leon has hope.

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So much of modern writing requires mental acrobatics. It doesn’t engage the heart. But Lime Creek does just that. It is all heart and beautiful writing about the relationship between a father and his sons in the cowboy West that lingers into the modern world.

Joe Henry is a poet and songwriter who has written for the likes of John Denver and Frank Sinatra; he is a hermit who lives by a Colorado river, and his book Lime Creek is every bit as tender and profound as it should be.

I had read most of Dostoyevsky’s other novels twenty-five years ago. I decided then to save up this book for a rainy day. 

The Brothers Karamazov is on a vaster scale than Dostoyevsky’s other novels, less concentrated along one line of supreme intensity. And yet, all the power still bursts forth, in moments where the innards of the characters seem to explode outward, penetrating the reader’s soul. It is hard not to be conscious of the fact that Dostoyevsky wrote this novel following the death of his own three-year-old son. The novel seems to constitute a re-piecing-together of the author’s mind, and, as this was his last book, a final statement on life and death, love and loss.

The book holds a colossal power, quantum neutron-star-like depths wrestling crazily on the page, but underlying that, the restraint still of a great and overwhelming sense of order in the things of… show more.

My kid is at that in-between age where he is too old for board books and many picture books but too young for longer chapter books with no pictures, so this graphic novel/comic book was the perfect holdover.

When I ask him why he loves it, he says it’s because it’s funny how these two brothers are always pretending to be superheroes.

This is a marvelous story by a young Ghanaian-American author about a family coping with living between several competing cultures: Life in Ghana, in the American South, and in the high-pressure world of academia and neuroscientific research conducted at Stanford.

I loved the way she wove religious themes through the book, as well as her loving portrayal of the tragic outcomes of family members dealing with untreated mental illness and drug abuse.

I was very impressed with the accuracy of her descriptions of the neuroscientific research conducted by Gifty and her colleagues at Stanford.

The Prophet was the first time I’d ever encountered a football thriller. I was still coaching high school football when I read this book, and it scared the bejesus out of me! Koryta spent a year following a high school football team around before writing this book. He absolutely nails the strain the game can have on the families of the men who devote their lives to coaching it.