Here are 100 books that Bones fans have personally recommended if you like
Bones.
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I’ve been obsessed with apocalyptic and dystopian stories for over a decade. For me, they are the books that strike right at the heart of what it means to be human. Reading about characters facing the very worst scenarios possible brings love, resilience, survival, and hope into sharp relief. Not to mention that they are often the most powerful page turners—I have lost so much sleep over these cautionary tales, staying up until the early hours, unable to put them down.
I’ve read this book twice and cried buckets both times.
It is a masterpiece – brutal and unflinching but also maintaining a kernel of hope as the man crosses a devastated landscape with his son, trying to keep him alive against the odds. The prose is stunning and piercing. There are some very disturbing parts of the story, but what shines through for me is human resilience, determination, and love.
I will absolutely read The Road again, but I have to leave a recovery gap between reads!
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if…
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…
I love 'Show, Don’t Tell' because it really brings a novel to life for the reader. It’s something so many writers struggle with, but it can turn a so-so novel into one readers can’t put down. Losing yourself in a story is the sign of great writing, and when a writer can show me what’s in their head and do it in a way that makes me forget I’m reading, well, that’s a book that keeps me turning the pages until it’s done. And that’s my favorite part of reading, writing, and teaching writing.
This book is one of my all-time favorites, because even though I knew it was fiction, it felt like nonfiction as I was reading it. It was that authentic, and that alive. I truly felt like I was reading an actual history book about an event from my own world.
The narrative structure was also amazing, telling the entire story through interviews with survivors of the zombie war, and I was riveted by those stories. They showed me what it was like to face that zombie horror, which made me desperate to know what happened, how they survived, and how they managed. Although I was reading, it felt like I was watching actual people tell their tales.
It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginning of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse.
Faced with a future of mindless man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight against the horde, World War Z brings the finest traditions of journalism to bear on what is…
I’ve always been fascinated by the “what if” of how humanity would survive a worldwide disaster. While many post-apocalyptic tales depict a bleak world where the apocalypse brings out the worst in everyone, my favorite stories—both to read and to write—have always been ones where people hold on to their humanity and band together against the darkness. That’s why I like the ones on this list.
This is the granddaddy of all EMP stories—the one that arguably kicked off the entire genre and the one that got me interested in EMP disaster books. So grounded that it has been cited as a cautionary tale in Congress, the story doesn’t shy away from the grim realities of a world where technology suddenly stops working.
Retired army officer John Matherson suffered his share of hardships, but I liked the way he never lost hope or stopped fighting for his family and community.
A post-apocalyptic thriller of the after effects in the United States after a terrifying terrorist attack using electromagnetic pulse weapons.
New York Times best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real...a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages...A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.
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 am a British crime writer with a love of American crime fiction, particularly books with dark plots and quirky, unique characters. I am the author of the Sunday Times bestselling, multiple award-winning, Washington Poe series and the new Ben Koenig series but am first a reader—I read over a hundred books a year. I love discovering a new-to-me series that has a back catalogue for me to work through, and I appreciate recommendations. I’ve been a full-time author since 2015 and, as I suspected, it’s my dream job.
Stephen King introduced the innocent, unfiltered but extremely observant Holly Gibney in the phenomenal Mr. Mercedes.
King himself says, “...she more or less stole the book, and she stole my heart.” I completely agree, so much so she was a massive influence on Tilly Bradshaw, the super-sheltered, super-intelligent nerdy sidekick from my own Washington Poe series. She’s the first of three sidekicks in this list who will go on to get a book of their own.
Holly is out September 2023 and it’s the book I’m most looking forward to this year.
When an eleven-year-old boy is found murdered in a town park, reliable eyewitnesses undeniably point to the town's popular Little League coach, Terry Maitland, as the culprit. DNA evidence and fingerprints confirm the crime was committed by this well-loved family man.
Horrified by the brutal killing, Detective Ralph Anderson, whose own son was once coached by Maitland, orders the suspect to be arrested in a public spectacle. But Maitland has an alibi. And further research confirms he was indeed out of town that day.
As Anderson and the District Attorney trace the clues, the investigation expands from Ohio to Texas.…
I grew up in a secular home, but when I got to college, it dawned on me that religion is an incredibly important framework for understanding the world. So I started to take classes and read books about religion—and I never stopped. After spending my whole adult life sidling up alongside religion but never quite getting it at a personal level, I accidentally let myself get evangelized three years ago, became a Christian, and now attend a Baptist megachurch. I guess I am like a scientist who fell into my own experiment. I still find religious beliefs and practices completely bizarre, even though I’m now a believer myself!
That’s a major reason I love this book: Francis Spufford raises profanity to a high art, and he does it in a book that is, ostensibly, about Jesus.
A Christian friend recommended this one to me, and I bought it and let it sit on the shelf for a long time before I finally picked it up. Then I read it in maybe three sittings, because it’s silly and profound at the same time. (Also it’s short and carries you along—this is a good one to stick in your bag and read a couple pages at a time whenever you are at a bus stop.)
Spufford is mainly a novelist, and his aim here is not to convince you that Christianity’s fact claims are true. (Although he does think it’s all true.) Instead, he’s explaining the way the Christian picture of God and…
"Unapologetic" is a brief, witty, personal, sharp-tongued defence of Christian belief, taking on Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great". But it isn't an argument that Christianity is true - because how could anyone know that (or indeed its opposite)? It's an argument that Christianity is recognisable, drawing on the deep and deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling, satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore. It's a book for believers who are fed up with being patronised, for non-believers curious…
Understanding history is essential for understanding ourselves as human beings – for recognising where we’ve come from and why we live as we do. What I love about historical fiction is that it can take tumultuous times and show their effects on the individuals who lived through them. As a historical novelist, I try to bring history back to a tangible, human level. These short novels show that if a writer’s prose is fresh, witty, and moving, then historical novels don’t need to be enormous tomes to give us a new slant on the past and allow us to inhabit lives utterly different from our own.
This novel has such a wonderfully bold premise: it’s a retelling of the story of the crucifixion of Jesus through the eyes of Jesus’ mother, Mary. I love how Tóibín takes one of the founding stories of Western civilisation and manages to make it intimate. Jesus is still the Son of God, of course, but he is also the son of a woman, a flesh and blood man, who suffers a torturous death in front of his friends and family.
Using a first-person narrative, Tóibín gives us the world through Mary’s eyes, showing a humble woman caught up in extraordinary events. It’s a tragic story about the impossibilities of protecting your loved ones, but it’s also a story of love, tenderness, and hope.
“Tóibín is at his lyrical best in this beautiful and daring work” (The New York Times Book Review) that portrays Mary as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity—shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.
In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son’s crucifixion. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel, who are her keepers. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God; nor that his death was “worth it”;…
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…
I have a passion for becoming a better human being and helping others to do the same. I spent 28 years in parish ministry attempting to remind people of the call of Jesus and the needs of the human heart. I left ministry and operated a private practice as a registered psychotherapist for almost 20 years. I am now retired and an author of three books. I'm still working at the task of becoming a better human being and helping others to do the same. The books I have recommended in my book list are all examples of people with similar mindsets.
Probably the most fascinating study of the person and teachings of Jesus I have ever read because of its profound psychological insight into the person and words of Jesus.
Wolff illustrates through real examples from her own psychotherapeutic practice and Jungian insights why Jesus' counsel to others is as relevant and powerful today as it was 2,000 years ago. A book that assisted me greatly in my own efforts to help others heal.
I’m the author of five extremely different novels: Boy A(which was made into an award-winning film),Cham, Genus, The Tongues of Men or Angels, and Under Country. They share almost nothing in subject or setting. Ranging from first-century Judaea to a future London. From ski resort workers in France to young offender prisons in Britain. My latest work - Under Country - is about the 1984 Miners’ Strike and its still lingering scars in the North East pit villages. Yet, I suppose, if there were a unifying theme between them, it would be that each, in its own way, is influenced by and fascinated with Christianity.
Written long before quarantines became so fashionable, Jesus in Jim Crace’s novel is an almost peripheral player, because– set during Christ’s forty days in the wilderness – six other people share in the inhospitable desert caves, miracles, and hallucinations. Each character has their own troubles and trials; their own battles with demons to resolve; which they hope isolation and fasting will accomplish. And for each, in ingenious ways, it does… I am a big fan of Crace’s style, rhythm, and invention, and this is one of his finest works.
So this is happiness, she thought. Or this, at least, is what adds up to happiness. The prospect of never running after men and camels any more, of being Miri without shame or hesitation, of letting drop her headscarf for a change so that nothing intervened between her and the sky.
Five travellers venture into the Judean wilderness in search of redemption. Instead, amidst the barren rocks, they are met by a dangerous man, Musa, and fall under his dark influence. As the unforgiving days and bitter nights erode their resolve, it becomes clear…
Religion, faith, and belief are very personal things that can invoke powerful emotional and intellectual responses. Responses are shaped by social conditioning during childhood that can last a lifetime, engendering spiritual comfort or deep disturbance in adulthood. I began to question my Catholic indoctrination as I started to delve into historical accounts of early Christianity and the evils inflicted on the world under the banner of doing God’s work, politics waged by the Vatican to maintain secular power, distilling it all into something I finally felt comfortable with.
I always took it for granted that questioning the New Testament and the gospels was somehow sinful. However, as I grew into adulthood, I accepted that faith and a set of beliefs can be independent and a viable position from Catholic Church dogma.
This invariably led me to research Christianity and its roots. Once started, the discrepancies between what I was taught and reality brought home the realization that the Church fathers were only men after all, subject to the same failings, striving for power, corruption, and greed as all other men. Like opening Pandora’s Box, this book opened my eyes to many things. Was Jesus invented by the Flavian dynasty? I have my own views on that.
The Invention of Jesus is a pivotal, ground-breaking work, arguably one of the most important ever written in the field of New Testament textual analysis, and one that should direct scholastic endeavour for years to come. The author has developed some new techniques and taken an indepth look at the earliest surviving manuscripts of the gospels describing the life and death of Jesus as well as letters, attributed to Paul and others, to the outposts of the early Church. There are papyrus fragments, some from as early as the second century, and then later manuscripts written on parchment, with fewer…
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…
I was in an emotionally abusive marriage for 20 years but didn’t realize what was happening to me. I tried to twist myself into a perfectly shaped pretzel to make my husband happy. It didn’t work. Reading some of these books gave me the courage to seek a restraining order and divorce my husband. Since then, I became a domestic violence advocate, author, blogger, and mental health counselor.
When I was in the process of leaving my abusive husband, I sought help from my church. Sadly, my pastors had no idea what they were dealing with. Instead of helping me, they sided with my abuser. This book, written by a pastor, helps churches understand the evil that abusers perpetrate, and how they can and should help the abused partner.
In many Christian circles this may be a taboo subject--spoken of in hushed tones or behind closed doors. But it is a very real problem that must be brought into the light of Scripture.
Abuse in the church takes different forms; but it is alive and active even in "nice" families in our churches. Typically, the abuser is male, usually a husband--and his character is that of a manipulating deceiver. Countless women and children--even many faithful pastors--have been abused by these deceivers.
Have you, or someone you know, been a victim? Has an…
