100 Books Like I'm the King of the Castle

I love character rich, slow-burn reads and Waters always delivers.

The Paying Guests is set in 1922 London and eloquently (with psychological twists) reveals the effects of post-WWI. During the war, the protagonist, 27-year-old Francis, had found her independence in many liberating ways, and Mrs. Wray, her mother, clung to her genteel social status. Now that her husband and sons are dead, they’re forced to scrub their own floors and take in boarders, i.e., “paying guests,” Leonard and Lillian, a modern lower-class couple, in order to keep their home.

I never suspected what would ensue—from clandestine lovers to empowered women, to murder. Waters paints the changing times, social constraints, and class distinctions with a fine-tipped pen.

I grew up reading Stephen King, and one of the earlier titles I read by him, is Misery. When I think about isolation, danger, and being trapped in a cabin—this book comes to mind.

Of course, his number one fan, she has different ideas for the protagonist of this book, Paul Sheldon. She wants his novel/s to end differently, a different fate for the characters she has grown to love. And she’ll go to great lengths to get him to change his mind. After his car accident, she ties him to the bed and hobbles him—one of the most intense (and violent) scenes in the book. And who can ever forget her calling him a Dirty Birdie—that phrase will echo in my head forever.

Of course the movie is well done, too—a stellar performance by Kathy Bates. As the wind and ice howl outside the cabin, we are trapped… show more.

The book is better than the movie, and the movie is amazing. I love how the author manages to create a dense feeling of female suffocation, gaslighting, hallucination, panic, satanism, conspiracies, deception, and paranoia while simultaneously describing the ordered and neat lives of New York City's emerging glitterati through detailed descriptions of the housewife’s sphere of choosing the right material of towels and the right hue of wallpaper when nesting.

Rosemary’s personal limits and borders, both physical and psychological, are challenged as she becomes a vessel of something unknown, but only unknown to her. An amazingly dense yet easily accessible book.

This is the book that taught me how powerful loneliness can be.

Every time I return to it, I feel one character’s ache settle into me, that desperate want to belong somewhere, even if it’s a house that doesn’t love you back. I recommend it because it still feels as if I’m attempting to figure out what is happening alongside the characters, the way only great writing can.

Jackson makes you realize that the scariest hauntings aren’t in the walls, they’re the ones we carry within us.

Hill’s minimalist style, ability to evoke despair, and superb descriptions, combined with the most vivid of imaginations, make her a compelling writer of ghost stories. Hill generally includes all my favourite elements in her ghost stories, starting in familiar surroundings, then moving to more exotic locations, often delivering a shocking twist at the end. In The Man in the Picture, a story set in Venice during Carnival is told to the narrator by an aging professor in his Cambridge rooms on a winter’s night. You don’t read a Susan Hill book to come out feeling better afterwards, but… if you like to be left with a feeling of disquiet, even though you know it’s only a story you just read, The Man in the Picture’s definitely for you.

Tracy Chevalier edited this incredible anthology of short fiction to mark the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth. Comprising contributions from sixteen authors, including Helen Dunmore, Sally Vickers, Susan Hill, Emma Donoghue, and Audrey Niffenegger, among others, these incredible stories are far more than fan fiction. Indeed, while the anthology’s title is the infamous first line of the final chapter of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a romantic collection, for Chevalier’s contributors may take inspiration from Jane Eyre, but they rework it in a huge variety of ways, producing stories that unsettle as much as they celebrate Brontë’s novel. And if you like that, the companion volume, I Am Heathcliff edited by Kate Mosse, operates in the same spirit but is dedicated to Wuthering Heights.

Edith Pearlman is a gem. These 20 beautifully written and fascinating short stories delve into the moments that matter most in everyday life. Read them one at a time or all together like a mosaic for modern women. Pearlman’s characters – men women and children – are all unique, and also extraordinary, in their way, and all mirror our own realities. Across the globe and across time, her tales are so true and so wise, I love reading them again and again, especially when I have little time and need a touch of literary magic.  

If ever there was a perfect ghost story, this is it. Gothic with atmospheric language and vivid scenes that still haunt me. I suppose this could have been written by Jane Austen because of its nightmarish ghostliness on the English moors. So masterfully done—the wreaths of moving fog and haunted cries.

I love the unknown fear of it all. Susan Hill is highly skilled in making ghosts present on the page: the eerie sound of the rocking chair in the old nursery is a spine-tingler, albeit a cliché. Written in a sublime fashion, it fits the “quiet horror” genre. Quiet horror is so savory to me because it digs into the imagination with shadowy phantoms without slamming the reader viscerally. I love that kind of artful creation.

A school siege is a theme that will strike terror into the hearts of teachers and parents everywhere. It’s that planned-for scenario that will ‘never happen here’ (rural Somerset). And then it does. Lupton slows down the narrative so it feels as if events are unfolding at a pace close to real time. Alongside the stress and anxiety, Lupton draws on her characters’ stories to examine the world we live in and aspects of humanity. There are stories of first love and parental despair, we glimpse the mind of a psychopath and the stoic heroism of two Syrian refugee brothers, who’ve already been through hell at the hands of people smugglers. Dormant racism rears its ugly head. It’s a poignant read with plenty for book clubs to discuss. 

This impressive volume brings together two of my favorite topics: art journals and color. A unique idea sparked a round-robin collaboration between fifteen noted mixed-media artists: Each artist was invited to select a color and create a beginning for an art journal. 

The volumes traveled throughout the United States for over a year and were worked on by all the participants. Eventually, each journal returned home, absolutely bursting with creativity. The inclusions ran the gamut of custom musical CDs, found objects, poetry, fold-outs, quilted textiles and embroidery, and more. 

The lavish photography on each page makes this book a feast for the eyes, and the emotional stories from the artists provide insights into the healing nature of art journaling. From pure white to mysterious black (and every color in between), the true colors in this book lifted my spirits.