Here are 75 books that Mischief fans have personally recommended if you like
Mischief.
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I’ve always loved mysteries and the detectives that solved them. Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot were heroes to me, but as I grew older and the world grew more complex, I started reading novels where it was not so easy to separate the good guys from the bad. The world was not black and white anymore, and justice was not so simple. Characters who had to work around the law or took matters into their own hands to earn justice became my new heroes. Phillip Marlowe and Sam Spade, while not saints themselves, did whatever they had to in order to serve justice, and I admired them for it.
This book simply knocked me out when I first read it, mostly because the characters were so gripping and vivid.
Philip Marlowe was the quintessential hard-boiled private eye working to find justice in a rotten world—a sort of modern-day Don Quixote. I was also enthralled by Chandler’s depiction of a morally bankrupt Los Angeles, full of shysters, criminals, and false messiahs.
I admired the dogged hero’s determination to—despite numerous temptations not to—get at the truth of the matter. Ironically, when justice is served, no one is better off for it.
The renowned novel from crime fiction master Raymond Chandler, with the "quintessential urban private eye" (Los Angeles Times), Philip Marlowe • Featuring the iconic character that inspired the forthcoming film Marlowe, starring Liam Neeson
Philip Marlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieves, another murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, and more corruption than your average graveyard.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Janet and I have traveled extensively and found inspiration and story ideas at every destination. As writers for more than 10 years and as fans of classic detective stories, we feel qualified to tackle this genre.
Ross MacDonald is one of the classic detective series that features a damaged leading character who finds more trouble than he knows. Many people have told us our writing style is similar to his. If you want to read classic noir, read this book. His books are hidden gems that beg to be discovered.
In a rundown house in Santa Monica, Mrs. Samuel Lawrence presses fifty crumpled bills into Lew Archer's hand and asks him to find her wandering daughter, Galatea. Described as ‘crazy for men’ and without discrimination, she was last seen driving off with small-time gangster Joe Tarantine, a hophead hood with a rep for violence. Archer traces the hidden trail from San Francisco slum alleys to the luxury of Palm Springs, traveling through an urban wilderness of drugs and viciousness. As the bodies begin to pile up, he finds that even angel faces can mask the blackest of hearts.Filled with dope,…
People behave rationally and irrationally. Observing and thinking about human nature is the sport of my lifetime. In literature and art, I worship real wit. I thirst for the unusual, the deadpan, the acknowledging of one thing while another slips in unseen. Wit has been, for me, a shield and a tool for good. I try not to use it as a weapon because wit as a weapon often damages a wider target than one intends. I strive to endow my fictional women, my protagonists, with sharp yet understated wit that spares no one, not even themselves. Especially not themselves. The books I recommend here live up to my standards.
Socialite Nora Charles helps guide her husband to discovering the truth about the eponymous “thin man” via artful suggestions, one-liner putdowns, and plenty of cocktails, and that’s why I love this book. Although Nick Charles is the main detective in this 1934 romp by Dashiell Hammett, Nora is instrumental in helping him make decisions of all sorts. The biting dialogue elevates this book above the genre norms of the time.
Nora’s comment on an impending Christmas gift from her husband:
“Whatever you’re giving me,” she said, “I hope I don’t like it.”
This one single novel sparked all those great movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy, in which Nora shines ever more brightly. The novel was a comedy of manners but, sadly, was also Hammett’s last.
'When I opened my eyes and sat up in bed Nora was shaking me and a man with a gun in his hand was standing in the bedroom doorway.'
Ex-detective Nick Charles attracts trouble like a magnet. He thinks his sleuthing days are over, but when Julia Wolf, a former acquaintance, is found dead, her body riddled with bullets, Nick - along with his glamorous wife, Nora - can't resist making a few enquiries. Clyde Miller Wynant, Julia's lover and boss, has disappeared. Everyone is after him, but Nick is not convinced Wynant is the murderer - and when he…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
Janet and I have traveled extensively and found inspiration and story ideas at every destination. As writers for more than 10 years and as fans of classic detective stories, we feel qualified to tackle this genre.
Mickey Spillane created Mike Hammer, a hard-boiled detective who was (according to the books) quite the lady’s man. This detective story involves millionaires, organized crime, and revenge, which makes for a great read. Hammer is depicted as a hard-drinking, hard-fighting guy that has acted as a prototype for many imitators.
One night, a blonde jumps out in front of PI Mike Hammer's car. She's so scared he doesn't have much choice but to give her a ride. At a police roadblock, he discovers she's on the run from a sanatorium, but he passes her off as his wife. Other people besides the police are after the blonde, and these people play rough. Real rough.
The blonde turns out to be the star witness against some big-time mobsters. Mike has blundered into something unimaginably big, but the Feds don't want him…
I write both fiction and nonfiction for kids and with Eat Bugs, I got to combine both loves.The book was inspired by two real-life female entrepreneurs, who literally cooked up an edible bug business in their college dorm room. After I watched them land a deal on Shark Tank, we met and I reimagined their story as if they’d started their business in sixth grade. I’ve always been fascinated by entrepreneurs who have the courage and tenacity to follow their dreams–no matter how wacky the idea may seem.
Who doesn’t love Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey and their babysitting adventures? I was also an in-demand suburban babysitter when I was their age and I only wish I’d thought to join forces with my friends when I was scrambling for a new way to stop a kid from crying or fresh ideas to make bedtime fun. This is the ultimate best-friends-who-start-a-business book! And as a full-color graphic novel, the drama and the humor soar to new heights.
Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey are best friends and founding members of THE BABYSITTERS CLUB. Whatever comes up - cranky toddlers, huge dogs, scary neighbors, prank calls - you can count on them to save the day.
Babysitting isn't always easy though, and neither is dealing with strict parents, new families, fashion emergencies, and mysterious secrets. But no matter what, the BSC have what they need most: friendship.
Raina Telgemeier, using the signature style featured in her acclaimed graphic novels Smile and Sisters, perfectly captures all the drama and humor of the original novel!…
Growing up in an intellectual household with a New Yorker subscription, I became a fan of the short story early on, with J.D. Salinger, Ann Beattie, and Raymond Carver forming a baseline of personal taste and inspiration. I especially love stories that resonate with my own sense of yearning for life and love—and the deep losses that inevitably come our way. Decades of reading would pass before I began writing stories myself, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to recommend these moving and beautifully written collections.
I absolutely loved King’s novel Writers & Lovers, and her story collection did not disappoint! Here, too, are the struggles of writers—to find the right words and something meaningful from loss.
There’s nothing typical in King’s diverse array of characters, and her intimate portrayal of their desires—their strengths and failings, their glimmers of hope as they brave new starts—drew me in and kept me turning the pages.
"Five Tuesdays in Winter moved me, inspired me, thrilled me. It filled up every chamber of my heart. I loved this book." —Ann Patchett
By the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers and Euphoria comes a masterful new collection of short stories
Lily King, one of the most "brilliant" (New York Times Book Review), "wildly talented" (Chicago Tribune), and treasured authors of contemporary fiction, returns after her recent bestselling novels with Five Tuesdays in Winter, her first book of short fiction.
Told in the intimate voices of complex, endearing characters, Five Tuesdays in Winter intriguingly subverts…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
When I was fourteen years old, my family moved from Texas to London for a year, and I started going to a little second-hand book shop around the corner. It was run by a long-haired Canadian, who always smoked a pipe. There were only three or four aisles, plus a cluttered backroom. You could pick up a 19th-century edition of the complete works of Shelley, with uncut pages, for two pounds. One volume led to another, in the same way that one friendship can lead to another, or introduce you to a new circle of people. Twenty-odd years later, I decided to write a novel about some of these writers.
Simone de Beauvoir met Nelson Algren in Chicago in 1947.
A couple of years later, his novel The Man with the Golden Arm won the National Book Award, and a few years after that De Beauvoir won the prestigious Prix Goncourt for her novel The Mandarins, which featured a character based on Algren. They became famous literary lovers, involved in a complicated triangle with De Beauvoir’s long-time partner Sartre.
But Cowie’s novel brings to life the ordinary intimacies and misunderstandings of their love affair – the title comes from de Beauvoir’s confusion about the time difference between Paris and Chicago. Caught up in the details of day-to-day life, people, even brilliant writers, don’t always have the time or vision to make real decisions about how they want to live, or who they want to love. It’s a brilliant book.
Sharp and intimate, Douglas Cowie’s reimagining of the turbulent love affair between Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren asks what it means to love and be loved by the right person at the wrong time. Chicago, 1947: on a freezing February night, France’s feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir calls up radical resident novelist Nelson Algren, asking him to show her around. After a whirlwind tour of dive bars, cabarets and the police lockup, the pair return to his apartment on Wabansia Avenue. Here, a passion is sparked that will last for the next two decades. Their relationship intensifies during intoxicating…
I’ve always been fascinated by the Golden Age of science fiction, when a group of young dreamers formed the genre as we know it today. I grew up far away from their world, on a small kibbutz in Israel, and the lives of those god-like beings seemed as remote and as impossible as the moon. I grew up to eventually write stories of my own, and even got to meet some of my childhood heroes, and eventually I thought it would be fun to write a book that was partially about them. I read every book I could get my hands on to try and better understand that time when science fiction was born.
The first part of Isaac Asimov’s autobiography provides a fascinating, clear-eyed glimpse into the emerging world of science fiction as the young Asimov grows up in New York, works in his immigrant parents’ candy store, and dreams of writing stories.
There’s a certain innocence in the pre-war world where young kids were dreaming up science fiction, and Asimov is at his best here, relying on extensive diary records to recall his first meetings with Campbell, Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard, to name a few. A window into a long-vanished world, it is never less than compelling.
Candidly recounting his lifetime in science and science fiction, Asimov describes his life as a child prodigy, a fifteen-year-old college freshman, and a brilliant teacher whose classes ended with standing ovations
I’ve always been fascinated by the Golden Age of science fiction, when a group of young dreamers formed the genre as we know it today. I grew up far away from their world, on a small kibbutz in Israel, and the lives of those god-like beings seemed as remote and as impossible as the moon. I grew up to eventually write stories of my own, and even got to meet some of my childhood heroes, and eventually I thought it would be fun to write a book that was partially about them. I read every book I could get my hands on to try and better understand that time when science fiction was born.
Growing up in New York around the same time as Asimov was Fred Pohl, young, ambitious, argumentative, and occasionally brilliant.
We meet many of the same people – and see the same events – that Asimov describes, in a somewhat different light, as Pohl forges his own path through the emerging world of science fiction, as an agent, editor, and writer in his own right.
It’s beautifully written and again, provides a fascinating insight into that long-ago world, complete with its many petty feuds – that the socialist Pohl was banned from the first Worldcon only to start his own competing event across the street is a marvelously entertaining anecdote recounted both here and by Asimov.
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
If you told me as a kid, growing up in the suburbs of Long Island, that I would someday spend nearly all my working hours reading and writing about skyscrapers and skylines, I would have thought you were nuts. But somehow, in my twenties, as I spent more time in New York City, I came to feel a deep connection with the metropolis. Its skyscrapers and skyline speak to its history as a city of strivers. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to merge my personal passions with my professional life as an economist. My recommended books are ones that excited me in my journey to understand better the city that I love.
A great account of the interaction between economics and architecture in the rise of the New York and Chicago skylines. Willis is the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in New York City. This book was one of the first that I read as I started to do research on the economics of skyscrapers. I was fascinated by Willis' account. Arguably, this book, more than any other, helped to define my 15 years of research on the topic.
Although fundamental factors of program, technology, and economics make tall buildings everywhere take similar forms, skyscrapers in New York and Chicago developed very differently in the first half of the twentieth century. In contrast to standard histories that counterpose the design philosophies of the Chicago and New York "schools," Willis shows how market formulas produced characteristic forms in each city"vernaculars of capitalism"that resulted from local land-use patterns, municipal codes, and zoning. Refuting some common clichs of skyscraper history such as the equation of big buildings with big business and the idea of a "corporate skyline," Willis emphasizes the importance of…
