Keep yourself busy as you wait for more episodes.
Before Daisy Jones & The Six was adapted into a Prime Video series, Reese Witherspoon picked the novel for her book club back in 2019. Witherspoon saw what fans of the story about the rise and fall of a fictional 1970s band already know — Daisy Jones & The Six is a must-read. If you’re looking ahead to your next book post-Daisy Jones or you want something similar to keep you occupied while you wait for new episodes of the show to drop, this comprehensive list of books like Daisy Jones & The Six features 11 recommendations you’ll burn through.
Whether you love the series for the way it portrays the 1970s music scene, its oral history style structure, or Daisy and Billy’s tumultuous relationship, there is another book out there to fulfill the hole DJATS has left on your reading list. You just need a good book recommendation, which can come from anywhere. You could always turn to #BookTok, go back to Witherspoon’s Book Club, or find another popular novel by the same author, Taylor Jenkins Reid. This comprehensive list of books like Daisy Jones & The Six feature reads that come from all three of those resources, as well as some hidden gems that you might not have thought of. Hopefully, there’s a book (or two) that you’ll want to pick up next after you’ve finished Daisy Jones & The Six.
Amazon describes Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau as “Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones & The Six.” Set in the 1970s, this coming-of-age story is about a teenage girl named Mary Jane who is introduced to the “world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll” when she accepts a summer nannying position. Just as Daisy Jones is discovering her own voice in DJATS, Mary Jane must also find her place.
TikToker @lazylibrary recommends The Thrill of it All by Jospeh O’Connor, which is a great read if you’re looking for another story about a fictional band. Written as a memoir from the POV of the guitarist of The Ships in the Night, this story documents the rise and fall of their band in the 1980s.
Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie is a #BookTok fave. TikToker @lazylibrary says this story is “very loosely based on the relationship between James [Taylor] and Joni Mitchell.” Similar to Daisy Jones & The Six, the story focuses on two main characters and their rise to fame in the folk music industry of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The film rights for the book were acquired in 2020, so it’s possible you may get to see this story come to life soon, too.
Both @quinthebooks and @lazylibrary recommended Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell as a next read after Daisy Jones & The Six. Instead of giving you a glimpse into the LA music scene of the 1970s, Utopia Avenue shows the British psychedelic music scene of the late 1960s. TikToker @quinthebooks also lists this as a book to read if you’re in search of stories that have the same vibe as Daisy Jones & The Six with a “young, wild, and free in your 20s vibe” as well.
Daisy Jones & The Six is about a band looking back on their rise to fame several years later, and Greatest Hits is about singer-songwriter Cass Wheeler coming out of retirement to release a greatest hits album. As she’s working on the album, Cass reflects on her life through different songs she chooses to add. The storyline includes her rise to fame as well her first love and childhood.
If you really loved the way Daisy Jones & The Six was written like a documentary, you’ll be a fan of this story documenting Saturday Night Live’s oral history. Through previous cast members, writers, and hosts of the show, you get a glimpse into what it was like working at SNL over the years, making it a must-read for fans of the show. A great follow-up is The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts, which is also written as an oral history. A warning, though. You’ll definitely need some tissues nearby while reading.
Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton has pretty much everything Daisy Jones & The Six has. It covers a band’s meteoric and short-lived rise to fame as well as the band’s perspective looking back several years later on what happened. Unlike Daisy Jones, though, Opal & Nev tackles race and politics, as Opal and Neville are an interracial duo in 1970s New York City. This book has won several awards and was even on Barack Obama’s list of favorite books in 2021.
Perhaps you’d like to read a true story of what it was like being a part of the music industry in the ‘70s. If so, you’ll want to pick up Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys: A Memoir by Viv Albertine after Daisy Jones & The Six. In it, Albertine shares her story of what it was like being the lead guitarist of the iconic punk band The Slits. TikToker @quinthebooks says this memoir is “raw, funny, and vulnerable.”
If you’re all for the ‘70s revival that Daisy Jones & The Six has launched, you’ll want to check out Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz. This is a semi-fictionalized memoir of Los Angeles in the 1960s, written by Babitz. According to TikToker @quinthebooks, she “knew everyone in LA” around the ‘60s and ‘70s, so there’s no one better to tell you what it was like. After this read, check out Babitz’s Eve’s Hollywood.
If you’re a fan of Reid’s writing, you’ll definitely want to check out The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. You may have already heard that this should be on your to-read list. Just like Daisy Jones is loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, Evelyn Hugo is loosely based on Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner. While it’s not the music scene of the ‘70s, you get a glimpse into old Hollywood, and similar to Daisy Jones, you’ll soon get to see an adaptation of Evelyn Hugo on streaming as well — Netflix has acquired the rights for a Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo movie.
For anyone who trusts Witherspoon’s recommendations after reading Daisy Jones & The Six, you’ll want to pick up something else from her Book Club. Witherspoon says On The Rooftop by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is “an utterly original and brilliant story.” It follows The Salvations, which is a musical group of sisters in 1950s San Francisco. While their mother wants them to become famous musicians, each of the sisters has different dreams for themself.
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