76 Books Like Birnam Wood

I find Tom Ripley such a wonderful character—a con man who commits crimes under the guise of someone else, a male protagonist written by a lesbian.

I love the levels of deception the reader is pulled in, so is on the side of the criminal throughout, hoping for him not to get caught in his awful, amoral behaviour.

It is a masterful use of the narrative voice in crime fiction at its best.

In a world of aggregate and pre-release reviews, it’s easy to forget that one of the most important measures of a book's success is how much it stays with you in the years after you read it.

Look At Me has haunted me in the years since I read it. No other book has had a greater impact on the way I think about our perception of ourselves vs. the way the world perceives us, and how that can be manipulated and exploited.

Like many great books, knowing too much about the plot before you pick it up is going to lessen your experience, so I’m just going to say that it’s about people who have constructed new identities and covers themes of deception, and reinvention and let you discover it for yourself (and thank me later).

We all have secrets. If you read that sentence and thought “not me!” then that’s likely because you’ve repressed something so dark and dangerous that your psyche let you unleash it from the depths of your unconscious into your working memory.

This book looks at the myriad ways that holding onto secrets can affect our relationships and day-to-day lives through an engaging blend of personal, creative, and scientific perspectives.

Peppered with both fun tidbits of information (the average person has thirteen secrets), as well as complex, deeper insights into the science of secrets, I found this fascinating both as a general reader and more specifically as someone who writes characters who are burdened with secrets and have to construct a false reality around them.

In an age of constant digital deception, it was utterly fascinating to read the story of someone who manipulates people through the simple use of a phone call.

The plot follows two filmmakers, Carrie and Meadow, the latter of whom makes a documentary about “Nicole”, a woman who seduced an array of Hollywood heavy hitters armed with nothing more than a telephone. The novel unfolds through multiple perspectives and timeframes that begin as disparate but are slowly woven together by Spiotta’s expert hand.

The plot itself is fascinating, but Spiotta’s stylistic and thematic mastery are a wonder to behold. Sidenote: Nicole is loosely based on the true story of Whitney Walton, on whom Jen Silverman also did a brilliant take in her audiobook The Miranda Obsession (performed by Rachel Brosnahan).

Who are the great hosts and hostesses of our day? We don’t know; nobody ever talks about them. Celebrities and socialites, instead, have stolen the spotlight. But, great hostesses of the past were not only prominent, but powerfully influential, subtly steering the fate of society this way and that. Masters provides portraits here of some of the most celebrated hostesses of days gone by, including Emerald Cunard and Mrs. Vanderbilt. A book to inspire a new generation of “inviters.”

I was blown away by the genius of telling a story ostensibly about the end of an era and an empire while the real story, a love story, runs just below the surface. I confess that I am not otherwise much of an Ishiguro fan, but this book is perfection.

I am old enough to have known members of a generation who valued loyalty and propriety above personal desires, and this novel made me both nostalgic for a time when self-sacrifice and self-control were so respected and sad about the happiness forfeited because of these social standards.

Whistleblowers rely on the press to disseminate their disclosures. In matters of national security, however, the press has a long history of close personal and professional bonds with the government that has curbed revelations. The Georgetown Set offers a fascinating glimpse into the small circle of elite officials, journalists, publishers, and public intellectuals who gathered for cocktail and dinner parties in their high-end neighborhood of Washington, DC. In addition to giving a fly-on-the-wall sense of how Cold War policies and public opinion were made, Herken’s book illuminates the individual and cultural shifts that contributed to the rise of national security disclosures in the 1960s and 1970s. This history is essential for understanding how the evolving dynamics between elite politicians and the press continue to shape the culture of whistleblowing and accountability today.

Jane Austen is unparalleled in her depiction of good and evil on a domestic level. While the situations are slightly less dramatic than in the other books I have selected, Mansfield Park compellingly presents the consequences of habituated action. Fanny Price is not perfect and certainly not most people’s cup of tea, but, like all Austen heroines, represents virtue and a growing self-knowledge over the course of the novel. The Crawford siblings are vivid examples of dulled moral vision. Without committing the literary sin of giving away the end, I will say that the “anti-romance” trajectory of the plot is wonderfully satisfying. Further, Sir Thomas Bertram may be my favorite male Austen character of all.

And you thought your family was crazy! Set in Malaysia, this fascinating story combines family drama with class issues, ethnic tensions, the effects of colonial rule, and even ghosts. I love how writer Preeta Samarasan evokes a mysterious, almost magical feel to the setting and characters, as the reader gets acquainted with the wealthy, yet deeply dysfunctional family at the center of the story. No matter how bitter, enraging, or disappointing these characters feel towards each other, they are still bonded together, and the story ends on a hopeful note. This family can redeem itself-even if it takes moving to another country to do it.

I could not put this book down. Full of suspense from start to finish, I was so invested in this story! Bree grew up poor but now she’s a married mom who has everything she’s ever wanted. When someone shows up threatening to take it all away, Bree is faced with the battle of her life. It’s hard to know who to trust, but she finds she’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect those she loves.