Here are 100 books that Audition fans have personally recommended if you like
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My new thriller centers around a small, mysterious cult and their shocking demise. For years, I’ve read true crime books on the subject, and I wanted to infuse the reality and truth of real-life events into my fictional novel. In a similar vein, these books represent a range of thrillers inspired by true events, ranging from cults to serial killers to teenage criminals. I hope you find these books as gripping and haunting as I do.
I find this book to be an unsettling but impactful read, both thought-provoking and complex. We Need to Talk about Kevin follows the mother of a troubled teenager responsible for a school shooting.
It’s about nature versus nurture, the relationship between mother and child, and deeply seated guilt. It draws inspiration from real events, including the 1999 shooting at Columbine, which wasn’t the U.S.’s first mass shooting at a school, but it would become one of the most infamous.
Shriver’s novel raises unsettling questions about a mother’s guilt and self-justification and a community’s heartache and blame. I consider it to be a captivating and moving book.
Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of a boy named Kevin who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who had tried to befriend him. Now, two years after her son's horrific rampage, Eva comes to terms with her role as Kevin's mother in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband Franklyn about their son's upbringing. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Growing up in theatre, I was completely immersed in plays, which tend to be deep dives of the human psyche, and I latched on to those examinations like a dog with a bone. I’ve always loved the complexities of the human mind, specifically how we so desperately want to believe that anything beautiful, expensive, or exclusive must mean that the person, place, or thing is of more value. But if we pull back the curtain, and really take a raw look, we see that nothing is exempt from smudges of ugliness. It’s the ugliness, especially in regard to human character, that I find most fascinating.
I love love love an unreliable narrator! Especially when that narrator is a beautiful, elegant woman who turns out to have the ugliest soul imaginable. I think as a whole, our society tends to be extra afraid when they see conniving evil existing in a female’s mind, especially when she’s physically beautiful and well spoken.
At certain points in this book, I found myself weirdly rooting for Amy and chomping at the bit to see how far her “crazy” would take her. The twists and turns kept me racing through this book and left me wondering at the end, “What happens to them now?!”
THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER AND INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE THE BOOK THAT DEFINES PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Who are you? What have we done to each other?
These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on…
When we speak in real life, much of what we say out loud doesn't have any real meaning. But when authors write, each word a character says must convey meaning to drive the scene forward. The words must exhibit some form of information—emotion, advancement of an idea, or even be the action itself—otherwise, they're just wasted words on the page. The true challenge of writing dialogue is to convey as much as possible with as few words as possible. I love a book in which I'm yearning for specific characters to return just so I can hear the carefully crafted, intelligent, and tight words they employ when speaking, especially when two characters are verbally dueling.
The book is centered around an FBI trainee (Clarice) sent to interview an imprisoned, sophisticated, cannibalistic psychiatrist (Hannibal Lecter) to help her catch an active serial killer.
Their meetings are brilliant and tense exchanges within a psychological game in which Lecter will only offer clues if Clarice reveals deeply personal details about herself. The tone of these conversations, using dialogue to navigate an intellectual and emotional battlefield, was brilliantly crafted.
"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." In lesser hands, this single spoken sentence might have been replaced with several paragraphs of exposition to describe Hannibal Lecter.
As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.
That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
I have long had an interest in government conspiracies and have spent hundreds of hours researching the many experiments our government has foisted upon an unsuspecting populous. When the Church Committee released info on Projects MK Ultra, Bluebird, Artichoke, and others, people were stunned to realize what had been going on. Movies such as The Matrix dealt with mind control and the attempt to create the perfect soldier, and I am convinced such research and experimentation continues today.
This novel has so many reasons to recommend it. It incorporates radical experimentation and horrifying surgeries being done in a bizarre hospital. To make it even more mysterious, there is a hurricane threatening the island which complicates the investigation of US Marshall Teddy Daniels searching for a patient who has disappeared.
I loved the creepy island hospital and the use of weather as a character.
The basis for the blockbuster motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island by New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane is a gripping and atmospheric psychological thriller where nothing is quite what it seems. The New York Times calls Shutter Island, “Startlingly original.” The Washington Post raves, “Brilliantly conceived and executed.” A masterwork of suspense and surprise from the author of Mystic River and Gone, Baby, Gone, Shutter Island carries the reader into a nightmare world of madness, mind control, and CIA Cold War paranoia andis unlike anything you’ve ever read before.
Horror films, radio shows, books, magazines, and comics have been my life ever since I was eight years old. I saw the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one late night on Channel 9, when TVs had but 13 channels. It was love at first scream. The genre put the boogieman outside my window, under my bed, and in my closet. It was terrifying, but there was also a high to be had. An addiction to scaring oneself that I couldn't get enough of. This adrenaline rush got me interested in scaring others. Four movies, sixteen shorts, two novels, I too, am a dark dreamer looking to scare kindred spirits.
What do you get when you cross paths with an unhinged truck driver on a lonely stretch of isolated highway? You get the book Duel, by Richard Matheson. Based on a true event of unprovoked road rage the author himself was put through, Duel is the story of a businessman heading to San Francisco who is confronted and pursued by an unseen psycho behind the wheel of a gasoline tanker and trailer. Subjected to a life-and-death game of cat and mouse, Man, as the protagonist in the book is called, has to out-maneuver this menace, or die trying. If you are into isolation terror, with get-up-and-go pacing, Duel is a must-read.
Duel, Stephen Spielberg’s terrifying first film, was adapted by Richard Matheson from his nail-biting short story of the same name.
But “Duel” is only one of the many classic tales in this outstanding collection of stories by the award-winning author of I Am Legend, Somewhere in Time, What Dreams May Come, and The Incredible Shrinking Man.
Remember that murderous semi chasing a driver down a lonely stretch of desert highway?
Here are over a dozen unforgettable tales of horror and suspense, including several stunning shockers that inspired timeless episodes of The Twilight Zone.
Horror films, radio shows, books, magazines, and comics have been my life ever since I was eight years old. I saw the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one late night on Channel 9, when TVs had but 13 channels. It was love at first scream. The genre put the boogieman outside my window, under my bed, and in my closet. It was terrifying, but there was also a high to be had. An addiction to scaring oneself that I couldn't get enough of. This adrenaline rush got me interested in scaring others. Four movies, sixteen shorts, two novels, I too, am a dark dreamer looking to scare kindred spirits.
Being a huge fan of the Tobe Hooper film The Funhouse, I was interested to hear there had been a book released by Dean Koontz based on the movie. Figuring it was your run-of-the-mill paperback tie-in, I bought a cheap copy on eBay to see if there was any bonus material added to give further depth to the plot and characters. What I didn't expect to find, was a novella-sized prequel to be attached. Without giving any spoilers, the reader learns the history behind Amy Harper's psychic link to the monster Gunther and his carney father, Conrad.
It explores the effect Amy's unhinged mother Ellen has on her children, as well as Liz's loose attitude towards men and how that influences Amy to date Buzz. Add in a graphic account of how the kids were murdered in Fairfield county last year, and the book has a lot of hidden…
If you delight in the suspense of Stephen King and Harlan Coben, you'll love The Funhouse - a classic thriller by Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.
The carnival is a world apart, endlessly travelling from town to town, providing thrills and magic for new kids every week. And the biggest, most popular attraction is the Funhouse - the ghoulish creepshow of ghosts and skeletons, rattling chains and make-believe terror . . .
Young Amy Harper is the most beautiful girl at her school, but to her life seems wretched. Terrorised by her mother, Amy's little…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
Horror films, radio shows, books, magazines, and comics have been my life ever since I was eight years old. I saw the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one late night on Channel 9, when TVs had but 13 channels. It was love at first scream. The genre put the boogieman outside my window, under my bed, and in my closet. It was terrifying, but there was also a high to be had. An addiction to scaring oneself that I couldn't get enough of. This adrenaline rush got me interested in scaring others. Four movies, sixteen shorts, two novels, I too, am a dark dreamer looking to scare kindred spirits.
Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural is, hands down, the best collection of over fifty short stories, novellas, and poems I've ever read in one, skin-prickling book.With authors like Bram Stoker, Sheridan Lefanu, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Matheson, Isaac Asimov, A.M. Burrage, Robert Bloch, and H.P. Lovecraft, you're in for many sleepless nights. My personal favorites include; "Last Respects" by Dick Baldwin, a story of two morticians preparing a body for a wake, only the body doesn't seem to be quite at rest; "The Quest for Blank Claveringi" by Patricia Highsmith, a story that proves snails can be terrifying. This one had me short on breath halfway through; and most disturbing of all, "His Unconquerable Enemy" by W.C. Morrow. It's about a rajah that has a surgeon amputate his servant Neranya's limbs off, then keeps the poor man in a small pen of open ironwork above his bed for…
This exceptional compilation contains more than fifty short stories, novellas and poems, both classic and modern, by some of the most distinguished writers of all time. Masterful works by Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecroft, Mary Shelley, Sheridan LeFanu, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Tennessee Williams, Isaac Asimov, J.R.R. Tolkien, in addition to little-known masterpieces of fantasy and terror by such authors as Stanley Ellin, Patricia Highsmith, John Dickson Carr and Damon Runyon, make this one of the most wide-ranging, outstanding collections of its kind. Marvin Kaye provides fascinating prefatory notes to each selection and an annotated bibliography of other recommended reading, as well…
Horror films, radio shows, books, magazines, and comics have been my life ever since I was eight years old. I saw the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one late night on Channel 9, when TVs had but 13 channels. It was love at first scream. The genre put the boogieman outside my window, under my bed, and in my closet. It was terrifying, but there was also a high to be had. An addiction to scaring oneself that I couldn't get enough of. This adrenaline rush got me interested in scaring others. Four movies, sixteen shorts, two novels, I too, am a dark dreamer looking to scare kindred spirits.
Between 1931-1938, a radio program went on the air called, The Witch's Tale. Old Nancy, the Witch of Salem, would introduce stories of the eerie, weird, and blood-chilling sort, with her wise, black cat Satan. Putting to print thirteen of these hair-raising scripts, we can now take a step back in time and read from the point of view of the actors from the golden age of radio in The Witch's Tale by Alonzo Deen Cole.
Old Nancy: “Turn out them lights, and make it nice and dark. That's it. Now draw up to the fire, and gaze into the embers, gaze into them deep, and soon you will be amongst vampires, werewolves, ghosts and devil worshipers. He he he... isn't that right, Satan?" (CAT meows.)
Stories of gothic horror from the Golden Age of Radio. Discover the thrills and goose bumps that frightened a generation of listeners during radio's Golden Age with 13 hair raising vintage radio scripts featuring stories about Vampires, Were wolves, Ghosts, Severed heads, Devil worship, Mad scientists and more .
By Alonzo Deen Cole, the great granddaddy of modern media horror and the creator of network radio's first drama series devoted entirely to the supernatural.
I started my career as a graduate student studying the Victorian period, a great age for autobiography. And although autobiography is no longer taught much in English departments, I guess I retain my passion for the genre. The greatest, of course, is Rousseau’s Confessions.
Mekas was a Lithuanian émigré who became an impresario of experimental cinema. He lived a long and eventful life, and this eccentric book is a fascinating account of it.
A Dance with Fred Astaire is an extraordinary collection of anecdotes and rare ephemera featuring a dizzying cast of cultural icons both underground and mainstream, both obscure and celebrated. Memories and diary entries, conversations and insights into his work sit alongside collages of beautifully reproduced postcards, newspaper cuttings, film negatives, lists, posters and photographs, envelopes and letters, book covers, telegrams, cartoons and doodles. Mekas has kept and archived the artifacts of his life as a cultural touchstone down to the minutiae, all of which is brought together here in the form of a unique and fascinating scrapbook of a life…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
These books are all by or about comic geniuses. I have always expressed myself through humor. I never felt I was pretty, so making people laugh was another way of seducing people. I started out by doing improvisational theater on the streets of New York, went on to have a recurring role on Seinfeld, and performed my solo shows on three continents. One of my greatest thrills has been to share the stage with other storytellers while touring with The Moth. When I used my storytelling skills on TikTok, I was amazed at the response. Eleven million Likes is a lot of love. I hope I deserve it.
I love showbiz biographies full of the inside dope on glamorous, brilliant people, because I’ve always wanted to be one of those glamorous, brilliant people.
Mike Nichols knew everyone important in the arts, ate at the most fabulous restaurants, traveled to the most luxurious locations, and owned several grand homes. And I am pleased to report that he was frequently anxious and depressed.
I find it very reassuring to learn that someone who has everything I’ve ever dreamed of is no happier than I am. I know that sounds a little mean, but I never claimed to be perfect.
A National Book Critics Circle finalist • One of People's top 10 books of 2021 •An instant New York Times bestseller • Named a best book of the year by NPR and Time
A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges—some of the worst largely unknown until now—by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back
Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind: while still in his twenties, he was half of a hit improv duo with Elaine May…
