Here are 51 books that V for Vendetta fans have personally recommended once you finish the V for Vendetta series.
Shepherd is a community of authors and super-readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
As a UK registered lawyer, I have spent most of the past 35 years writing about my work. But what has always excited me, from my childhood, is the science fiction worlds which state a truth which is yet to happen, The worlds of H.G Wells; Huxley; Aldous; Orwell; Bradbury; and Atwell. An individual's struggle against overwhelming odds. Not always somewhere where you would want to go. But from which you will always take something away.
I'd heard about this famous book many years before I actually got around to reading it. What I loved about this book was its originality.
I am always reminded about Orwell's book whenever I hear phrases like ‘ thought police’ or ‘big brother’, which have become part of our everyday language. Probably one of the most influential books ever written. For me, the message of Orwell’s book is that the State will always win.
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
I'm a lot of things. I design games. I study literature and theater. I write novels that are messy fusions of literary and genre fiction. I'm endlessly curious. Each of my books starts with when I hear in my head, the voice of a character asking a question. It's always a silly question, and it's always the one that matters more to them than anything else in the world. "Why does being superintelligent make you evil?" became Soon I Will Be Invincible. "What are people who play video games obsessively really looking for?" became You. Answering the question isn't simple, but of course that's where the fun starts.
This is the book that forever changed how superheroes were written.
In Watchmen, masked vigilantes started as a craze in the 1930s, and history got slightly bent in the process. We won the Vietnam War, Nixon stayed president, and...you'll have fun picking out all the bits of altered history in the background.
The heart of the book is its unforgettable characters - slightly over-the-hill superheroes brought out of retirement by the murder of one of their own, to face an ever-deepening mystery and their own midlife crises.
A hit HBO original series, Watchmen, the groundbreaking series from award-winning author Alan Moore, presents a world where the mere presence of American superheroes changed history--the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president, and the Cold War is in full effect.
Considered the greatest graphic novel in the history of the medium, the Hugo Award-winning story chronicles the fall from grace of a group of superheroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the superhero is dissected as an unknown assassin stalks the erstwhile heroes.
This edition of Watchmen, the groundbreaking series from Alan Moore,…
As a UK registered lawyer, I have spent most of the past 35 years writing about my work. But what has always excited me, from my childhood, is the science fiction worlds which state a truth which is yet to happen, The worlds of H.G Wells; Huxley; Aldous; Orwell; Bradbury; and Atwell. An individual's struggle against overwhelming odds. Not always somewhere where you would want to go. But from which you will always take something away.
I used this book to relieve the boredom of a long daily commute.
Instead of looking out of a train window at the same old scenery I'd passed a thousand times before, I was now taken to a dystopian society in which everything which I had taken for granted about family life was turned upside down. Where humans are manufactured to a specification instead of being born. A new pseudo religion where everyone makes the sign of the ‘T’, to signify their devotion to the original Ford Model T, which was the first vehicle to be manufactured on an assembly line.
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
EVERYONE BELONGS TO EVERYONE ELSE. Read the dystopian classic that inspired the hit Sky TV series.
'A masterpiece of speculation... As vibrant, fresh, and somehow shocking as it was when I first read it' Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale.
Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. Our perfect society achieved peace and stability through the prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Now everyone belongs.
You can be happy too. All you need to do is take your Soma pills.
For ten years I’ve been perfecting my own dystopian saga, and with that has come a great love for the genre as I’ve studied and dissected it. Having been involved in the political arena as well, the utopian language politicians have always caused some great concern for me, and through my study of dystopias, these great authors have not only seen dark futures of their respective countries and times, but they’ve always tried to bridge the gap between fiction and societal reality, which I am a great admirer of.
With the topic of Roe V. Wade in the United States, the chasm between pro-life and pro-choice has grown even more, and in a novel that is solely about a great compromise between the two ideologies, Shusterman’s dystopian saga could not be more relevant. Ultimately, Shusterman seems to have great worry about societies lack of value for human life, taking the choice away from those whose lives are being debated over.
Unwindis a classic study on the intertwining of personal choice and the value of human life. Who owns our bodies? Do we? Does someone else? Does the government? Does anyone but the individual have the right to determine the value of their life? Because of society’s proximity to abortion, this storyline seems extreme and disturbing. However, The Unwind Dystology is no more extreme and disturbing than other classic dystopian novels such as 1984and A Brave New World…
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them
Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when…
I have always been fascinated with the idea of a dystopia. In fact, I teach it to my literature students here in the United States. Dystopias do an amazing job of teaching us what can happen when rules and regulations are too extreme. And, to be honest, it is chilling what they tell for it seems more and more like the world our society is becoming today.
Shades of Grey takes place in the imagined land of Chromatica, which is essentially an alternative version of the UK where one’s social class is determined by one’s ability to perceive color. To be honest, I thought this was so unique compared to other books that I read that I couldn’t get enough. Greys, in this society, cannot perceive color and so they are the lowest rank. 'Ultra Violets', on the other hand, hold the highest rank. The perception of color also affects their health and wellness. Certain colors have medical effects on people. Another really cool thing about this dystopia is that doctors are called “swatchmen,” since they show swatches of color to their patients. Anyway, I recommend this book because of its absolute creativity.
The New York Times bestseller and "a rich brew of dystopic fantasy and deadpan goofiness" (The Washington Post) from the author of the Thursday Next series and Early Riser
Welcome to Chromatacia, where the societal hierarchy is strictly regulated by one's limited color perception. And Eddie Russet wants to move up. But his plans to leverage his better-than-average red perception and marry into a powerful family are quickly upended. Juggling inviolable rules, sneaky Yellows, and a risky friendship with an intriguing Grey named Jane who shows Eddie that the apparent peace of his world is as much an illusion as…
I love escapist fantasy and science fiction. I like stories that stretch the imagination and take me places I’ve never been. I want to be lost and be completely confused after taking my eyes off the written word, still in the fantasy world of the story. My picks are those kinds of stories. Worlds where anything is possible, and the characters have skills and powers which can help them achieve anything, something I want for my own characters.
By chance, I stumbled upon the Chrestomanci series after exhausting all the books that were available on the Library Van.
Initially, I had been deterred by the covers of the novels. Victorian dresses on the cover didn’t appeal to me at the time, but the story became the gateway to Witch Week. This is set in an English boarding school, but unlike Malory Towers, it has magic in it.
It starts off in the ‘real’ world but gets going in the end. In this dimension witches get burned and when someone sends a note to say someone is a witch in class, well, we all know what happened in Salem…
Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones favourite, featuring Chrestomanci - now a book with extra bits!
SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH
When the note, written in ordinary ballpoint, turns up in the homework books Mr Crossley is marking, he is very upset. For this is Larwood House, a school for witch-orphans, where witchcraft is utterly forbidden. And yet magic keeps breaking out all over the place - like measles!
The last thing they need is a visit from the Divisional Inquisitor. If only Chrestomanci could come and sort out all the trouble.
Alien invasion is just another form of apocalypse. The terrible truth is, our civilization and our world can end in many different ways. I think of myself as being on a life-long quest to read as many variations as possible. No matter how things end, I’m always interested in how authors portray human survival. Even when we inflict harm on ourselves, humanity always seems to be capable of bouncing back. It’s a form of optimism that I just can’t resist. I try to include some of that hope in everything I write.
This is the first book in a series. It was my grade school introduction to the concept of young adult post-apocalyptic themes. The fact that one of the central characters is a visually impaired young man who finds a pair of life-changing eyeglasses was a big deal to me. This might be the book that solidified my interest in post-apocalyptic literature. The fact that this apocalypse is the result of an alien invasion is just icing on the cake.
Monstrous machines rule the Earth, but a few humans are fighting for freedom in this repackaged start to a classic alien trilogy ideal for fans of Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave.
Will Parker never dreamed he would be the one to rebel against the Tripods. With the approach of his thirteenth birthday, he expected to attend his Capping ceremony as planned and to become connected to the Tripods—huge three-legged machines—that now control all of Earth. But after an encounter with a strange homeless man called Beanpole, Will sets out for the White Mountains, where people are said to be free…
From a young age, I've been captivated by evolution and its implications for the future. I immersed myself in classical works of philosophy and literature that explored human emotions and our relentless drive to succeed against all odds, advancing human knowledge and shaping society. This fascination with understanding the future led me to write op-ed pieces on foreign policy and geopolitics for prominent newspapers in South Asia. My desire to contribute to a better future inspired me to author three nonfiction books covering topics such as the Islamic Social Contract, Lessons from the Quran, and Reflections on God, Science, and Human Nature.
I have always been fascinated by Russian authors because of their command of presenting human nature and its fears. I picked up this book because the author is from Russia.
Yevgeny wrote this novel at the height of the Russian Revolution in the aftermath of the First World War. He projected a society in a distant future, fearing that complete control of the state would turn us into monotonous machines. Anyone daring to be different would be eliminated to ensure compliance and similarity.
My only reservation is that the book borders on science fiction rather than historical fiction.
A seminal work of dystopian fiction that foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Russian with an introduction by Clarence Brown.
In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD,…
I’ve been a science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. As someone who never quite felt like I fit in, these stories became a kind of refuge and revelation for me. They taught me that being on the outside looking in can be its own kind of superpower—the ability to see the world differently, to question it, and to imagine something better. I’m drawn to characters who are flawed, searching, and human, because they remind me that courage and belonging are choices we make, not gifts we’re given. That’s the heart of every story I love and the kind I try to write.
I’d read the reviews, so I was prepared for a great book. I wasn’t prepared to be thrown out of my comfort zone—but in the best possible way.
Mandel made me sit with what it really means to lose everything and still create something beautiful. It’s not about saving the world; it’s about creating a new dream and making it your home. I loved how it celebrates art, memory, and the strange persistence of humanity even when everything else is gone.
This book reminded me that hope is often raw, painful, and ultimately necessary.
'Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others' - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones
Now an HBO Max original TV series
The New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction National Book Awards Finalist PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in…
I’m a professor and YA author. Books helped me navigate the difficult choices I faced growing up. I gravitated to characters that I could picture myself befriending and looking up to because they had the bravery and strength that I wanted to have. As an author, I believe we need more stories about people who leave a positive mark on the world. I try to write characters that I can both relate to and would want to be friends with: characters who, in facing difficulty, discover the strength of their humanity because they have a light and goodness that shines somewhere deep inside.
Jonas is our youngest protagonist on the list. He is destined to be the receiver of memories in a futuristic utopian society. Those memories are to be passed down to him by an old man, the Giver.
Jonas lives in a society where people are innocent—innocent of emotion, pain, and suffering. He must lose his innocence to experience the joys and pains of humane experience.
That’s a heavy responsibility. And it’s Jonas’ thoughtfulness and curiosity that draws me to him. He faces difficult ethical choices. His awakening is unique to the fictional world he inhabits, but it is universal in theme. His quest to gain knowledge, his willingness to question authority to get to the truth, and his ability to make tough choices to experience the depth of what it means to be human make him someone I would want in my corner.
THE GIVER is soon to be a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift.
Now available for the first time in the UK, THE GIVER QUARTET is the complete four-novel collection.
THE GIVER: It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in the community wants for anything. Everything needed is provided. And at twelve years old, each member of the community has their profession carefully chosen for them by the Committee of Elders.
Jonas has never thought there was anything wrong with his world. But from the moment he is…
