Books like Hit Man — picked by fans

My son’s a young adult now, but I treasure the memories of the hours we spent reading together. We went down all the well-trodden paths and shared countless joyful hours with J.K. Rowling and Dav Pilkey and The Mysterious Benedict Society, but the creativity of this book is exceeded only by its humor. Also, it clocks in at around 700 pages, so it’ll entertain you and your children for a good while. I always enjoy a laugh as a reader, and if my work elicits a chuckle from you, then I feel my mission is complete.

This notorious 1969 Roth novel is a monologue of a self-loathing and sexually repressed Jewish man to his psychologist.

He recounts in excruciating detail his efforts to escape his parents’ interference in his life and his lifelong obsession with bedding a "shiksa" (non-Jewish woman). Portnoy’s rants are brilliant, vulgar, and entertaining – though the cultural references are dated and female readers might become incensed at the demeaning descriptions of “Monkey” (the shiksa he finally beds).

In a story I wrote, a man facetiously asks his female friend whether Carrie Bradshaw’s neuroticism and sexual dalliances would make her the “female Portnoy.” Both are insightful, emotionally needy, and charming characters. Behind this novel’s sexual humor is a complex portrait of a man trapped by his own obsessions.

I was surprised to learn that John Hersey won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for a novel—in fact, his first. I had always thought of him as mainly a journalist for The New Yorker. One of my students recommended this. He was the grandson of the model for the main character, an Italian-American US Army major. My student was proud of his “nonnu,” the Allied military governor of a Sicilian village, for his efforts to help the starving villagers.

What they wanted more than food, though, was to replace the church bell that Mussolini had requisitioned to melt down and make into weapons. Spoiler alert: in the novel (and in real life), he succeeds—despite opposition from a superior officer, a thinly disguised General George S. Patton.

I’m both inspired and depressed by this book. Yes, the book itself is on the depressing side, but what truly saddens me about it is that I’ll never write as well as Richard Yates. He packs so much into this 57,000-word work that it almost defies logic. Still, he’s an inspiration as a writer, and I will always use him as a guidepost. No one’s ever going to confuse me with Michael Jordan, either, but I’m still going to shoot hoops (poorly) in my driveway.

Should there be an afterlife and if there’s someone greeting me in the sweet hereafter, let it be Willa Cather. 

Maybe you read her in high school and did or didn’t fall in love, but in any case, no one in school reads The Professor’s House. As always, Cather looks down upon her characters with severe compassion, the sharp eye of someone who has seen all, and she’s wryly amused by her people. 

Professor Godfrey St. Peter is going through a mid-life crisis, he’s got a wife, two daughters, and he’s trying to see the way ahead. The center of the novel is devoted to a former student of St Peter’s, Tom Outloud, now dead, who it also happens was his daughter’s fiancé. 

At the center: Tom Outland’s experience of an ancient cliff city in New Mexico. It’s not a snooze, I promise! St. Peter’s recollection of Tom’s spiritual… show more.

Moonflower Murders shows what can be done at the boundary between genre and literary fiction. This is a writer at the top of his form with twisty plotting, mellifluous prose, and the sheer joy of storytelling. Realistic? No. But that’s not the point. This is an insane murder mystery within a murder mystery. A sequel to Magpie Murders, it features retired publisher Susan Ryeland, who now runs a small hotel on a Greek island. But running a small hotel on a Greek island isn’t for everyone, and Susan is beginning to miss her old life in London.

She is pushed into returning when two of her guests inform her that their newlywed daughter had been in dangerous proximity to a murder back home and had now gone missing – hours after reading a murder mystery Susan herself had edited in her old life. The book holds the key to… show more.

Yes, I’m suggesting reading the fourth volume of the epic Dark Tower saga first.

Typically, medieval-ish fantasy isn’t my thing, but in Stephen King’s hands, the world simply sucks you in. It’s commonly cited as one of King’s best works for a reason.

Caveat: While this book is largely a standalone 700-page flashback to the main character’s younger days, you could skip the first 70 pages, resolving the previous book’s cliffhanger before the story within a story kicks in. But it might also be fun to arrive en medias res to read the resolution and spend a three-book flashback figuring out how you got there.

You can’t read all 7.5 Dark Tower books out of order, but dropping out of the timeline for this one is worthwhile.

It is a fun Gothic novel.

In this magnificent genre, Diane Setterfield brings a lightness to the spells and spooks of generational trauma. I love how she gives homage to the need to write through her two main characters, both writers hiding personal truths and harboring demons that they express through their storytelling. 

Margaret, a young biographer, is beckoned by Vida Winters, a famous and reclusive author, to join her at her mysterious estate and begin to interview her, record, and write her life story. The two writers open doors, real and imagined, that blow out the cobwebs and ignite old, dangerous fires that belong to the past. 

It is written with such warmth, unsettling darkness, and generous color. I wanted to take days off to just sit and finish this book in a marathon read….it was so engaging, satisfying, and fluid. 

My selections are based on good writing and authenticity, even Fleming peppered his Bond books with elements of the real thing that no one but insiders would know, like ‘M’ writing his memos in green ink on blue notepaper. Alan Judd who served as a British army officer before joining MI6 has written a series of books about Charles Thoroughgood, a former army officer who like Judd himself ‒ his real name is Alan Petty ‒ then joined MI6. Every one of them is a gem, reeking of authenticity. A former colleague of Judd even told me that one of his books was based on a real case. He knew because he shared an office with the author at the time! Judd is by far the best of the current bunch!

I love a good mystery and a good story within a story. This book has both. Estranged sisters, Meredith and Nina, have never been close with their mother, Anya, until they finally have a chance to understand what made her so icy. As a deathbed promise to her husband, Anya agrees to tell their daughters her story, but it is so difficult for her that she must tell it little by little and as a fairy tale. From frozen, war-torn Leningrad to modern-day Alaska, the story changes this family forever. 

For anyone who has secrets, or has someone in their life they just can’t understand, this powerful book helps you see that there is a way through. It also reminds us that everyone has a story that can thaw the hardest of hearts.