14 books like Minnesota Trilogy

I love the Jimmy Paz novels. I wish there were more of them. Gruber’s are the most conventional crime plots on my list—tightly-crafted, intricate, and intelligent. His detective is the archetypal hero: smart, resourceful, big-hearted, brave. But in this world, science and rational deduction are insufficient to solve the crime because reality is not just unknown. It is unknowable. This is the cardinal sin of the detective genre. Even worse, Gruber completely gets away with it. With forays into Siberian Shamanism and Santeria, Tropic of Night is as much an investigation of consciousness and perception as it is the hunt for a murderous warlock. When the orishas finally arrive for the climax, my hands trembled. I got some small inkling of what it means for the fear of god to be the beginning of wisdom.

Another fun bit of psychedelic folk horror, combined with a really cool history of the experimental films of Canada.

The narrator is compelling, and the whole time you feel the pull of her obsession to the film she’s looking into, even if it unsettles her and terrifies her at the same time. Love that pull of danger, wanting to look, to see, but knowing that doing so will probably kill you…

It's like horror novel catnip.

I’ve always been fascinated by strange social enclaves and secretive, sealed-off, private worlds, and this book has both.

But in fact, the thing I admire most here is the sense of place and atmosphere. Tartt writes with a lush, immersive style which I found is increasingly compelling as the book went on.

Using a murder as the gateway drug to what’s really a literary fiction character study is both sneaky and brilliant: I was hooked by the story in the first chapter, but once I’d finished the book, it was Richard’s voice, those eerie characters, their strange insular co-dependency, and the biting Vermont winter landscape that really stayed with me.

Overstuffed and labyrinthine, Eco’s novel dives into a highly academic rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that toss me head over heels like a strong wave in the ocean. It reads a bit like The DaVinci Code written by Thomas Pynchon (who we’ll get to in a minute), the paranoias stemming from historical entities like the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians.

I’d be hard-pressed to provide an accurate summary of events, but it all makes for a pleasantly bewildering reading experience.

I don’t know how old I was when I first read some version of Aesop’s Fables.

Probably very young, as many are retold for small children, and have become proverbial. For instance, the fox who, unable to reach the bunch of grapes he wants, sulks and says, "I don’t want them anyway, they’re sour." Thereby giving us the expression, "Sour grapes."

Almost all of the stories feature animals. There’s the tale of the tortoise and the hare, where the tortoise wins the race, and the tale of the strong, fierce lion whose life is saved by a tiny mouse. These ancient stories mix observation of animals and observation of human behaviour in many vivid, telling, and very short stories.

As a lover of folk-tale, legend, and myth—and having an especial love for Norse Myth—I soon sought out the folk-tales of Norway.

Asbjorsen and Moe are the Norwegian answer to the Brothers Grimm. Their collection is superb. There’s the Ash-Lad, who is rather like Jack of Beanstalk fame, and many trolls. There are twelve princes searching for twelve lost princesses, helpful griffins, abandoned babies, and ancient Norse gods pitching up in thin disguise.

And, of course, as the people who told these tales lived between mountains, sky, and sea, there are many tales of animals and birds.

In this mighty two-volume work, Katherine M. Briggs set out to bring together every folk-tale, myth, and local legend written down in the British Isles, in the English language.

Tales from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England: stories of how places gained their names, tales of witches, ghosts, wizards, mermaids, elves, changelings…And also many tales of animals, including The Three Bears and Three Little Pigs.

But also ghostly black dogs, talking dogs, cats who spin, seals who turn into people, donkeys, giant worms or dragons, hens, and magpies. These books are treasure-houses of ideas and inspiration.

Koshchei the Undying, Vassilia the Beautiful, the Firebird, and Father Frost whispering through the forest: "Are you cold, my children? Are you cold?" The fairy tales of Russia, like their folk art, are beautiful and jewel-coloured.

My own fairy tale book was partly inspired by the Russian tale of Sister Alenushka and Brother Ivanushka, where the little boy is told he must not drink water from the hoof-print of a goat—but he does, and turns into a goat!

There are Russian tales of ambitious cats, grumpy bears, and snakes who marry princesses. These vivid tales have inspired artists, playwrights, and composers. Every child should read them.

Like most children, I met folklore through the Grimm brothers, even though the Grimms were serious scholars and didn’t publish their book for children.

Still, their complete collection of 248 stories includes Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and Aschenputtel, "Little Ashes," a Cinderella story. Many other Grimm stories are about animals.

The Bremen Town Musicians tells of a donkey, cat, rooster, and dog, all cruelly treated, who band together to make a life for themselves. Old Sultan is about a toothless old dog who’s outlived his usefulness. His owner means to kill him. But Sultan conspires with "his kinsman," a wolf. The wolf pretends to carry off the farmer’s child, so the ancient dog can stage a rescue, becoming a hero and earning a comfortable retirement.

In contrast to its title, The Time of Light is well beyond heavy, but I still found it hard to put down, both times I read it.

Rich in beauty but drenched in brutality, it’s an unconventional war story that takes place in a far-flung region that’s been steeped in conflict for centuries.

In 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, we meet an aging former German soldier who’d been captured some five decades prior at the Battle of Stalingrad, and who had chosen, upon his eventual release from Soviet captivity, to not return home. His conversations with an Armenian priest pull us heart first into his deep grief, his overwhelming shame, and his search for forgiveness, as he wrestles with his personal role in the savage Nazi invasion of Russia.

For me, The Time of Light is human complexity laid bare, a visceral read that delivers on both emotional and intellectual levels.