Here are 100 books that Hollow fans have personally recommended if you like
Hollow.
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As a child in Oklahoma and Texas during the 1960s and 1970s, I remember being told two things: “Oklahoma is OK” and “The Eyes of Texas” were upon me. My grandparents and great-grandparents helped carve the new state of Oklahoma out of nothing within the span of only a few years. For a long time, I accepted the party line, but as an adult, I realized I wasn’t—the picture was incomplete. Underneath the inspiring tales of grit and heroism was something darker. That’s a big part of what my writing is about.
As an ex-pat Oklahoma who writes crime fiction, I’ve long been enamored of my homeboy, the great noir-ist Jim Thomson, whose best novel this is. Like most of Thompson’s work, this is set in Texas, not Oklahoma, but as in all my choices, the world he evokes is indistinguishable, the one from the other.
Lou Ford, the main character, is the kind of guy who makes you want to sleep with both eyes open. A psychotic, small-town Deputy Sheriff, Ford openly mocks the idea of justice; he is a purely malign force, a glad-handing menace who rules his petty fiefdom with the wisdom of Josef Goebbels and the kind-heartedness of Charles Manson. Ford’s first-person narration reads like it’s been scrawled in Magic Marker on the walls of a men’s room in hell. No one did nihilism better than Jim Thomson.
Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he's a little slow and boring but that's the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his 'sickness'. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. But now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again and the consequences are brutal and devastating. Tense and suspenseful, The Killer Inside Me is a brilliantly sustained masterpiece…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I write what I call civic noir, crime fiction where the real antagonist isn’t a person but an institution: a courthouse, a precinct, a city hall that already knows how the story ends. I’m drawn to these books because the most frightening thing in them is never the gun; it’s the machinery, the procedure, the quiet way a system decides who’s guilty before anyone enters a courtroom. As a writer, I’m less interested in the villain than in the architecture that produces him. These five novels taught me how to make a building feel dangerous, and how to keep ordinary people from disappearing into the gears.
She makes the law itself the source of suspense. Her Texas Ranger, Darren Mathews, carries a badge that protects him and endangers him in the same gesture, and every door he opens with it might be the one that gets him killed. I love that she refuses easy heroes. Everyone in that little town off Highway 59 is wired into the same old order, and justice has to be smuggled out past it.
She taught me a murder mystery can be a way of asking who the system was built to serve, and that the quietest scene is often the most dangerous one.
Winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award 2018 2018 Edgar Award Winner for best novel
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply conflicted about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him back.
So when allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town…
I was born and raised in Texas, and I’ve lived here most of my life. For good or for ill, Texas looms large in the American consciousness and, since everything is bigger in Texas, so are the stereotypes. While you can definitely still find cattle ranches and oil wells in our state, modern Texas is much more complex and diverse than many people might think. While I love books that show those traditional elements of Texas (looking at you, Lonesome Dove!), I have always delighted in finding books that give me a new lens on what it means to be a Texan. I hope you’re delighted by these too.
I tend to be a language-driven reader, as delighted by an unexpected and beautiful sentence as I am by a thrilling turn of a plot. On the second page of Flores’s novel about genetic manipulation and organized crime near the Texas/Mexico border, we get this stunner: “It was a roosterless dawn, in the part of South Texas where no beast yawned.” I knew from that moment that I was in excellent hands and would follow the book wherever the author wanted to take me. Flores takes multiple genres—sci-fi, surrealism, crime, and others—and gives us an utterly original tale that defies easy summary. And it’s very funny!
Near future. South Texas. Narcotics are legal and there's a new contraband on the market: ancient Olmec artifacts, shrunken indigenous heads, and filtered animals - species of animals brought back from extinction to clothe, feed, and generally amuse the very wealthy. Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet and avoid the dangerous syndicates who make their money through trafficking.
But his simple life starts to get complicated when the swashbuckling investigative journalist Paco Herbert invites him to come to an illegal underground dinner serving filtered animals. Bellacosa soon finds himself…
Mia Lark is running out of options. There is only one way to change the score: the fantasy planet Revivium.
Armed with the powerful magic in the helm and the friendly AI, Hex that goes with it, Mia throws caution out the window. It’s time to find the main guildhall…
I was born and raised in Texas, and I’ve lived here most of my life. For good or for ill, Texas looms large in the American consciousness and, since everything is bigger in Texas, so are the stereotypes. While you can definitely still find cattle ranches and oil wells in our state, modern Texas is much more complex and diverse than many people might think. While I love books that show those traditional elements of Texas (looking at you, Lonesome Dove!), I have always delighted in finding books that give me a new lens on what it means to be a Texan. I hope you’re delighted by these too.
I spent my twenties watching in horror as Texas and then-Governor Bush executed more prisoners than any other governor in modern American history, only to be replaced by Gov. Rick Perry who executed even more. In Chammah’s deeply researched non-fiction exploration of the death penalty, he focuses on Texas, “the epicenter of capital punishment.” I better understood our justice system through his intimate focus on the individuals impacted by the larger system. And the book gave me a measure of hope, too—the societal problems that seem intractable can actually improve over time, through the work of many.
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us about crime and punishment in America
“If you’re one of those people who despair that nothing changes, and dream that something can, this is a story of how it does.”—Anand Giridharadas, The New York Times Book Review
WINNER OF THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS AWARD
In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: the country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural…
I grew up in a small village in India. The nearest library was in the next town, two bus rides and a long walk away and comprised of one bookshelf, half full, the books with several pages missing. I read and reread those books, making up my own narratives for the missing pages. I suppose this was the crucial first step in my journey to author. I write stories featuring diverse protagonists. In my books, I explore themes of displacement and belonging, how people brought up in different cultures and during different times respond to challenges, how their interactions and reactions are informed by their different upbringings and values.
This book deals with knife crime and its devastating aftereffects and is told from the point of view of the victim’s mother as she comes to terms with her son’s death. A mother myself, this was a heartbreaking read, very topical and ultimately uplifting. Beautifully written, this is a very powerful book. I think it should be part of the curriculum for teenagers in secondary schools. A truly wonderful book.
Chosen by Bernadine Evaristo as one of her Top 20 Books by Black British Womxn Writers, Yvvette Edwards' second novel, The Mother, tells Marcia's story.
Today, Marcia is heading to the Old Bailey. She's going there to do something no mother should ever have to do: to attend the trial of the boy accused of her son's murder.
She's not meant to be that woman; Ryan, her son, wasn't that kind of boy. But Tyson Manley is that kind of a boy and, as his trial unfolds, it becomes clear that it's his girlfriend Sweetie who has the answers Marcia…
Since I was a tween, I’ve been fascinated by romance. That happily ever after has always taken my breath away. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, suspense and mystery have always surrounded my life, and intertwining these two elements in my own stories was a norm, but reading them was required and loved. I’m a part of several groups that focus on these genres and I share my readings with them along with my own group on Facebook. I know you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have.
A friend recommended this book to try to get me out of a reading slump, and man, this book had me crawling out fast. I was impressed with just a darn good story that had me from the start.
Not only did this story contain the elements of suspense and romance that I enjoy, but the intricate lives of the characters had me rooting and emotional, wanting more of them by the end. I would highly recommend this to other readers.
*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 • New York Public Library’s Best Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • Book of the Month’s Book of the Year Finalist “Provocative, violent — beautiful and moving, too.” —Washington Post “Superb...Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times.” —Michael Connelly “A tour de force – poignant, action-packed,…
Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…
My psychotherapist has always described me as a black and white thinker. Good and evil. Happy or sad. Up or down. I struggle with shades of gray in my day-to-day life. Which is maybe the reason I am drawn to literature that explores morally ambiguous characters and settings. Not only does every book on this list have no clear hero or villain, but each story forces the reader to question what they think they know about right and wrong. I may be a black and white thinker in every practical sense, but I read and write about people and situations that occupy that very human space of in-between.
Kazuo Ishiguro is known for stories rooted in real world contexts. Even his various forays into science fiction (Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun) are deeply grounded in contemporary, true-to-life settings. So, when I stumbled upon this classic fairytale by one of my favorite authors, I didn’t know what to expect. Talk about a gut punch!
This book explores morality and hope in creative and magical ways. And the twist at the end will leave you reeling—in true Ishiguro form.
*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available*
The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin.
The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards - some strange and other-worldly - but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.
I grew up on a fifth-generation family farm, schooled around the dining table by stories of bootleggers, hoodlums, and environmental shysters. Raised by parents and grandparents who believed in the ancient wisdom of husbandry versus the growing use of chemicals and crop dusters. Those who believed what was good for all was good enough for one. The common good versus the selfish exploitation of land, animals, and labor.
I loved this book because it shows how class disparity still exists, how it complicates a teenage love affair and transcends family secrets.
As a reader, I found myself rooting for all of the main characters, though they are facing impossible choices, working against each other and their own best interests, which are mercurial and contradictory.
*****AMAZON'S BOOK OF THE YEAR ***** INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER REESE WITHERSPOON'S BOOK CLUB PICK FEARNE COTTON'S HAPPY PLACE BOOK CLUB PICK AMANDA LAMB BOOK CLUB PICK
'An unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives . . . but it's also a masterfully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Seriously, that ending?! I did not see it coming' REESE WITHERSPOON
'This story of a love affair is so addictive it could be at home with the thrillers . . . A simmering book of secrets,…
In my non-fiction books, my travel writing, and as a Financial Times contributor, I’ve always been drawn to two questions: How does the world work? And what makes us human? Seeking answers to these questions has taken me on extraordinary journeys and given me the excuse to meet some fascinating people. In this, I consider myself extremely lucky.
When I began looking into how we humans send off our dead, this was the first book I read. Both moving and funny, it remains one of my favorites. Lynch, a poet, author, and professional undertaker, writes unsentimentally but with great compassion about the business of burying the dead.
While Lynch is critical of modern approaches to death—which he compares to the flush toilet, allowing us to quickly remove unpleasant reminders of our failing bodies—his book left me with a new understanding of the importance of the services provided by those who work in “the dismal trade.”
"Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople." So opens this singular and wise testimony. Like all poets, inspired by death, Thomas Lynch is, unlike others, also hired to bury the dead or to cremate them and to tend to their families in a small Michigan town where he serves as the funeral director.
In the conduct of these duties he has kept his eyes open, his ear tuned to the indispensable vernaculars of love and grief. In these twelve pieces his is the voice of both witness and functionary. Here, Lynch, poet to the dying, names…
Ramon Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures, mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are a desire for a life well-lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically…
I love middle-grade books (for eight to twelve-year-olds), which is why I write in that genre. My Summer of L.U.C.K. trilogy is sprinkled with magical adventures, but each one has real-life kids struggling with real-life problems and finding real-world solutions. I believe that books whose characters experience magical elements along with themes of friendship, perseverance, and self-acceptance will help them learn, as I did when I was a young reader, that whatever troubles they're experiencing, other kids have those troubles too, that they're not alone, and that help is possible.
I’m a sucker for books about restored faith, particularly one with a Victorian house on the cover (see The Diamond in the Window below). That’s what caught my eye about Jess Redman’s beautifully written book, but the main character, a kid named Wunder, really drew me in and kept me reading.
I loved following Wunder’s journey as his faith in miracles falters after the death of his newborn sister. What touched me the most was how his connection with a woman–maybe a witch–who resides in the crumbling Victorian house helps reawaken his belief in everyday magic. This is one of my top favorite magical middle grade books of all time.
In the tradition of heartwrenching and hopeful middle grade novels such as Bridge to Terabithia comes Jess Redman's stunning debut about a young boy who must regain his faith in miracles after a tragedy changes his world.
Eleven-year-old Wunder Ellis is a miracologist. In a journal he calls The Miraculous, he records stories of the inexplicable and the extraordinary. And he believes every single one. But then his newborn sister dies, at only eight days old. If that can happen, then miracles can’t exist. So Wunder gets rid of The Miraculous. He stops…
