<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  I am not a book snob. When I was a kid, I read Little Women, R.L Stine, and the backs of cereal boxes with the same slack-jawed absorption. This list isn&amp;#039;t intended to undermine these books or the people who love them \u2014 if a new Dan Brown novel is the only thing that gets you to a bookstore, I&amp;#039;m glad you two found each other. But in the spirit of expanding our collective reading horizons, I offer 12 snob-approved (read: literary) recommendations inspired by bestsellers. 1. If you liked The Notebook, read Persuasion, by Jane Austen.  Someday I&amp;#039;m going to write another books post that&amp;#039;s just a geeky ode to flirting in Jane Austen novels, which is one of the great pleasures of my reading life. Persuasion is full of coy exchanges between Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth, who were once engaged but had to break it off because of Anne&amp;#039;s meddling mentor, Lady Russell. Frederick is so OBVIOUSLY still in love with Anne, and Anne is so OBVIOUSLY still in love with him, but publicly they keep trying to play it off. Sound familiar? Anne and Frederick&amp;#039;s whole meant-to-be, destiny thing will satisfy anyone who cried her way through The Notebook. 2. If you liked Gone Girl, read Save Yourself, by Kelly Braffet.  Publicists the world over are going to be comparing every thriller by a female author to Gillian Flynn&amp;#039;s megahit Gone Girl for years to come. But Braffet&amp;#039;s Save Yourself really is akin to Flynn&amp;#039;s work. Like Flynn&amp;#039;s, Braffet&amp;#039;s style is deceptively clear, so easy to read that you almost don&amp;#039;t notice that on a sentence level the writing is razor-sharp. But Save Yourself goes to darker places than Gone Girl. It&amp;#039;s way more violent \u2014 there are actual blood and guts in this one, guys \u2014 and ultimately more disturbing.  3. If you liked Twilight, read Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte.  Bella and Edward have nothing on Heathcliff and Catherine. Like Edward, broody Heathcliff has a mysterious past. The will-they-won&amp;#039;t-they love story between him and Cathy is as epic \u00AD\u00AD\u2014 and swoon-worthy \u2014 as they come. There would be no Twilight without Wuthering Heights.  4. If you liked The Da Vinci Code, read The Magus, by John Fowles.  Reading The Magus is like getting lost in the most interesting city in the world. Not every alleyway leads to a revelation, but the journey is more important than the payoff. If The Da Vinci Code&amp;#039;s twisty storyline got your heart racing, you&amp;#039;ll love reading Nicholas Urfe&amp;#039;s descent into the weird world of Phraxos, a Greek island that&amp;#039;s not at all what it seems. 5. If you liked The Help, read Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston.  The best thing about The Help is the way it reveals how little we sometimes know about the people we encounter every day \u2014 coworkers, friends, even family. The worst thing, in my opinion, is that it describes a difficult time in American history by reducing it to a digestible, inoffensive tearjerker. In short, The Help doesn&amp;#039;t make white people uncomfortable. Zora Neale Hurston doesn&amp;#039;t worry about making people uncomfortable \u00AD\u00AD\u2014 she only cares about telling an authentic story and bringing Janie Crawford to life, in all her beautiful, flawed, angry glory. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a seminal novel of African-American and women&amp;#039;s literature.  6. If you liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, read The First True Lie, by Marina Mander.  There is no better word to describe Jonathan Safran Foer&amp;#039;s writing than wonder. Every sentence is electric \u2014 spending time with Foer&amp;#039;s imagination is a joy. Marina Mander&amp;#039;s English-language debut has all of Foer&amp;#039;s energy, despite a hard-to-stomach premise. The First True Lie tells young Luca&amp;#039;s story, which hinges on a terrible secret \u2014 his mother won&amp;#039;t wake up. &amp;quot;Some days I wonder,&amp;quot; says Luca, to open the book, &amp;quot;what does it mean to be a half orphan? You can&amp;#039;t know, because you&amp;#039;re a grown-up.&amp;quot; As in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the buoyancy of the child narrator&amp;#039;s voice is ultimately an act of hope \u2014 hope in the face of death, darkness, and trauma.  7. If you liked The Devil Wears Prada, read The Girls&amp;#039; Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank.  Melissa Banks&amp;#039;s collection of overlapping short stories follows Jane Rosenthal through failed relationships and failed jobs as she attempts to make a life for herself as a single girl in the big city. These voice-driven vignettes are as readable as The Devil Wears Prada, and though the book isn&amp;#039;t focused on a nightmare boss in the scary world of magazine publishing, The Girls&amp;#039; Guide to Hunting and Fishing is a hilarious account of a girl finding her way through the wilderness of NYC. 8. If you liked Wicked, read Transformations, by Anne Sexton.  Gregory Maguire&amp;#039;s retelling of The Wizard of Oz is pure fun \u2014 I love how fully he fleshes out Dorothy&amp;#039;s familiar world. I wouldn&amp;#039;t use the word fun to describe Transformations, a collection of poetry by confessional icon Anne Sexton that retells 17 Grimms&amp;#039; fairy tales (most of which you know) and twists them into terrifying and personal nightmares. But for fairy-tale lovers, it&amp;#039;s a must-read investigation of how these old stories worm their way into our imaginations. 9. If you liked The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, by Lorrie Moore.  I&amp;#039;ll admit to having both read and watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It&amp;#039;s cute, sure, and yeah, it has its moments, but for a real look at the passionate nature of friendship between teenage girls, Lorrie Moore&amp;#039;s Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? is as good as it gets. Remember that summer in high school when you spent every day with your closest girlfriend, scream-singing to the radio and getting into trouble? Moore does too. 10. If you liked The Other Boleyn Girl, read Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.  Anne Boleyn is a figure of enduring fascination for readers and writers. She&amp;#039;s been written about a hundred times and will be written about a hundred more, but Hilary Mantel tells her story through the lens of Thomas Cromwell, bringing freshness to this popular period in history. Wolf Hall can be difficult \u2014 it helps if you remember that HE almost always refers to Cromwell \u2014 but it&amp;#039;s well worth it. Mantel&amp;#039;s a masterful writer, and she performs the stunning trick of reconstructing 16th-century England through each character&amp;#039;s observations.  11. If you liked A Million Little Pieces, read Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher.  Marya Hornbacher&amp;#039;s harrowing story of her lifelong struggle with anorexia and bulimia has all the intensity of A Million Little Pieces \u2014 except Wasted is 100 percent true. Hornbacher shines a gruesome light on eating disorders and the insidious pressure young women feel to be thin, at any cost \u2014 it&amp;#039;s no wonder the book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  12. If you liked Running With Scissors, read This Boy&amp;#039;s Life, by Tobias Wolff.  Too bad Augusten Burroughs and Tobias Wolff didn&amp;#039;t know each other as kids \u2014 they have a lot in common. Augusten&amp;#039;s mother, a batty poet, sent him to live with her psychiatrist after a bitter breakup. Rosemary, Toby&amp;#039;s mother, constantly falls in and out of shitty relationships, a pattern that turns their life into a perpetual road trip. Both writers are so funny and honest that you&amp;#039;ll be almost glad they lived through so much crap \u2014 it sure does make for good reading.  Follow Julie Buntin on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/books/news/a18760/bestseller-alternatives/>