Here are 100 books that Dolores Claiborne fans have personally recommended if you like
Dolores Claiborne.
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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…
Killing me Softly is the beginning of a fast-paced new series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Allison and Sergeant Mark Stringer who have the chilling task of tracking down a serial killer who is to terrify a city with his bizarre and cold-blooded murders of innocent women.
I am a multi-published author of mainly Gothic, haunted house, and ghostly novels, novellas, and short stories. I love nothing more than exploring historic houses, ancient stone circles and places that are noted for having a certain atmosphere that hints – or, in some cases, screams – a macabre and interesting past. I am the person you will spot, hunched over an old gravestone peering at the much-degraded carving, searching for the name of its owner and a hint to their story. Why? I blame a childhood spent reading M.R. James.
It starts with arguably the most famous first line any novelist has ever written, and I certainly couldn’t stop reading once I had absorbed that.
Rebecca is a classic for all sorts of great reasons. For me, the house is a character here. Manderley is as Gothic as I could ever wish for (and I LOVE Gothic).
Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, is one of the most sinister characters ever written. When this novel was first published (1938), certain subjects were pretty much taboo. In the light of today's increased awareness of people’s differing sexualities, I think it’s probably easier to understand her motives – not that it makes her any less scary.
For me, this is a masterpiece of storytelling that defies genre categorization and puts du Maurier firmly in my top favourite authors list.
* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY * 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS * 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH
'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'
Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory…
I am a writer who was first a reader and am convinced that novels can speak profound truth. They’ve helped me too many times to believe otherwise. I write novels about how we unwind from painful pasts to create new and better lives. In my experience, that requires us to face difficult truths and choose to be different until we are. I write fiction because I can begin with something awful, cut out boring detours that didn’t matter, and get my honorable and well-intentioned characters to happy endings faster than I’ve gotten to mine. These books map similar journeys, and all have left me better off for having read them.
Humor wielded with ill intention is a cruel weapon. Yet in thoughtful and caring hands, laughter is such a balm.
This is a hard story, yet I’m not sure I can count how often I laughed out loud while reading—not at someone’s expense but at Gail Honeyman’s ability to adeptly portray so many of the odd moments that come along with being a human on this earth.
Most importantly, this story beautifully illustrates how one person with more emotional baggage than anyone should have to carry is able to walk herself into a peaceful life so different than the one that nearly crippled her. And of the help she gets along the way.
"Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too!" -Reese Witherspoon
No one's ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of…
I am a writer who was first a reader and am convinced that novels can speak profound truth. They’ve helped me too many times to believe otherwise. I write novels about how we unwind from painful pasts to create new and better lives. In my experience, that requires us to face difficult truths and choose to be different until we are. I write fiction because I can begin with something awful, cut out boring detours that didn’t matter, and get my honorable and well-intentioned characters to happy endings faster than I’ve gotten to mine. These books map similar journeys, and all have left me better off for having read them.
I fell into this story with the first line and barely came up for air until I was done.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book filled with so much beautiful and tragic truth, or an ending that filled me with so much optimism. Thousands have written gorgeous reviews about the story, the characters, the writing—so I won’t even attempt that here.
These lines, from the book, are among the most beautiful and meaningful to me: “If you are surrounded by those who call what you are different instead of beautiful. If your mind or body has cried out for peace and acknowledgement and understanding, just know…You are part of an infinite family. The people who have been through terrible things and survived them. If you are reading these words, you WON today.”
A modern cult classic, a major motion picture and a timeless bestseller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story.
Charlie is not the biggest geek in high school, but he's by no means popular.
Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie is attempting to navigate through the uncharted territory of high school. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and music - when all one requires to feel infinite is that…
I am a writer who was first a reader and am convinced that novels can speak profound truth. They’ve helped me too many times to believe otherwise. I write novels about how we unwind from painful pasts to create new and better lives. In my experience, that requires us to face difficult truths and choose to be different until we are. I write fiction because I can begin with something awful, cut out boring detours that didn’t matter, and get my honorable and well-intentioned characters to happy endings faster than I’ve gotten to mine. These books map similar journeys, and all have left me better off for having read them.
A painful truth about the times we live in is that people often throw judgement when they hear about something terrible: Why didn’t they do something? How could they let that happen? My suspicion is that people judge because they cannot fathom—or bear to fathom—that such tragedy occurs. Others of us know it does.
In this story, Kate Elizabeth Russell profoundly illustrates how a perfect storm of people not-doing-their-best can guide an innocent and well-meaning person right into the arms of a monster. And how those events haunt her until she’s able to face the truth of what happened.
Most importantly, we see how that same person, with the help of honorable people, puts one foot in front of the other and walks herself back out to wholeness.
A thing I love about detective stories is that, from the moment they were probably invented by Edgar Allen Poe in 1841, authors have been playing with the form. Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue begins with a display of Dupin’s ratiocinative powers, and detective stories do often involve a protagonist reasoning through clues and red herrings on the way toward the resolution of a central mystery. But the kinds of “clues” we use to make sense of (or make peace with) the world are varied, and the mysteries that obsess us are vast—as illustrated over and over again in this mutable genre.
A reader begins a book only to discover that the same sixteen pages are printed over and over—so begins a journey across the beginning of novels and through continents. This is a book that breaks rules and taught me how to read it page by page—and I love that feeling.
Though first published in 1979, Calvino’s novel is remarkably timely with respect to the impact of data science and artificial intelligence on literature, as well as the “author’s position with regard to Trends of Contemporary Thought and Problems That Demand a Solution.”
Some might not consider this detective fiction, but I think—like The Aspern Papers (James) and The Savage Detectives (Bolaño)—the quest to find an obscure or missing text (or artist) fits within the genre and, indeed, is one of my favorite kinds of detective stories.
"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." —from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading.
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before—offering not one novel but ten, each with a…
On the surface, Dawn Easton seems to have it all. Heiress to a fashion empire, and with a gorgeous younger boyfriend, there’s almost nothing she can’t have. Yet, despite her wealth and power, there’s one thing that’s remained out of reach her entire life—giving birth. As her 40th birthday inches…
I’m an outdoors-loving person but I'm writing this in the last gasps of winter and I'm done with being cold. The best answer to a long winter has always been curling up somewhere warm with a book that makes me forget about the rest of the world. My books – it was pointed out to me recently – are usually set in the middle of summer because I think deep down I will always love a long summer holiday. (As I write this, I also realise there’s a lot of Famous Five in my DNA too.) Books you read as a kid do stick with you your whole life and can really form your personality.
Robin Jarvis scared the living snot out of me as a kid and when I reread his books as an adult…. Same thing happens.
The Deptford Mice trilogy is a wonderfully scary series, with characters you love and root for and completely forget that they’re smaller than a baby potato. He is a brilliant storyteller and I recommend all his books to you if you’re over nine years old.
(Says the person who gifted them to an eight-year-old and caused nightmares.)
I’m an outdoors-loving person but I'm writing this in the last gasps of winter and I'm done with being cold. The best answer to a long winter has always been curling up somewhere warm with a book that makes me forget about the rest of the world. My books – it was pointed out to me recently – are usually set in the middle of summer because I think deep down I will always love a long summer holiday. (As I write this, I also realise there’s a lot of Famous Five in my DNA too.) Books you read as a kid do stick with you your whole life and can really form your personality.
This is my friend Claire and her books are so beautifully written, while their plots grip me like a vice!
This one is about spying on your neighbours, and whether you can always believe what you see… and I will say no more as you don’t need spoilers from me.
I am a history-phobe turned history fanatic thanks to a snippet of a family story about my great-grandmother. Casual interest morphed into a focused passion when I learned that she truly had homesteaded-- all by herself and in her late teens-- in eastern Montana in 1917. Her accomplishment inspired four years of research and writing, resulting in my first historical novel, Hattie Big Sky, which earned a Newbery Honor award and spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. More importantly, that bit of family lore revealed my purpose as a writer and I have since devoted my career to bringing the past alive for today’s young readers.
The author, a history professor and Tennessee State Historian, provides an in-depth look into Montana history, region by region. The academic tone is nicely balanced by the people and events presented on the pages – plain folk to preachers and everything in between. A great companion to Jonathan Raban’s Badland.
Montana writer and historian Joseph Kinsey Howard described Montana as "high, wide, and handsome." It is difficult to find better words for Montana's geography. Between these covers, Carroll Van West discusses Montana's physical and historical landscapes, the settings for important events involving exploration, the military, Native Americans, miners, cowboys, homesteaders, and railroad builders as well as the physical remnants of Montana's prehistoric past. With this guide in hand, readers can discover a Montana past unavailable in more standard histories.
Curiosity is certain she saw fairies at the bottom of the garden. Little does she know . . . they saw her first.
Emotionally abandoned by her mother and infatuated by a figurine of a fairy ballerina she discovers in an old toy shop, eight-year-old Curiosity Portland steals the figurine,…
I have always loved history, from ancient Egyptian times up to recent history (the 1950s and 1960s). Put history in the context of a crime and the history becomes even more fascinating. A book where the history of that time comes vividly alive for the reader is the greatest pleasure a reader can experience.
Agatha Christie is deservedly the world’s best-selling crime writer, and most of her readers are familiar with Miss Marple and Hercules Poirot, but with this book we have the undiscovered gems of the mysterious Harley Quin and his partner Mr. Satterthwaite. The book is evocative of England in the 1930s. It makes for addictive reading and shows Christie at her very best.
A unique offering from the Queen of Crime. This Agatha Christie Signature Edition features the hero the world-famous author was most fond of - Mr Harley Quin, the enigmatic friend and counterpart of the rational Mr Satterthwaite.
So far, it had been a typical New Year's Eve house party. But Mr Satterthwaite - a keen observer of human nature - sensed that the real drama of the evening was yet to unfold.
So it proved when a mysterious stranger arrived after midnight. Who was this Mr Quin? And why did his presence have such a pronounced effect on…
