Here are 100 books that Night Without End fans have personally recommended if you like
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I like fiction which makes a character confront what the poet Thom Gunn called ‘the blackmail of his circumstances’: where you are born, the expectations of you. I like to think I am very much a self-created individual, but I can never escape what I was born into; the self is a prison that the will is trying to break out of. I like literature which reflects that challenge.
I could have chosen any Raymond Chandler novel for this list; he is such a brilliant stylist, one of the best in the language.
His lugubrious, heavy-drinking, first-person detective Philip Marlowe is my kind of fictional hero, a genre-defining character, perpetually alone though he yearns for the glamorous women he meets.
Raymond Chandler's first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction.
The Big Sleep, Chandler's first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder.
In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself…
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 have always loved history and art. Combining the two makes perfect sense and provides the inspiration to keep writing. I can spend hours in a museum, just soaking up the magic in Impressionist paintings. I never get tired of researching the artists or their paintings, and I relish the unexpected discoveries.
I love the way there is a mystery within a mystery. A group of actors is staging a play for the benefit of the passengers on a transcontinental train trip across Canada. The protagonist, who is undercover and posing as a waiter, befriends the lead actor and takes a page out of Hamlet, using the play to pressure the villain into making a mistake and incriminating himself. Accurate details about working as a waiter lend a sense of ‘David versus Goliath’ to the storyline.
To the Jockey Club, the racing world would be a better place without Julius Apollo Filmer. An expert in corruption with a devastating line in witness intimidation - and proving to be a slippery character to put behind bars.
Baffled, they call in undercover security agent Tor Kelsey to keep an unflinching eye on Filmer and his associates. A mission that takes him from the finest of English racecourses to the wild Canadian interior - on a luxury transcontinental train journey to end them all.
On board, a troupe of actors are playing out a murder mystery for…
As a thriller writer, I have a simple goal: I want to entertain. I'm not the kind of writer whose name is coupled with the Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award. I write the kind of stories people read to divert themselves on a rainy afternoon or on the beach or on airplanes.My hope is that I can divert and delight my readers. Help them forget the real world for a while. Give them an enjoyable reading break. If people have fun while reading my thrillers, I've done my job.
The Gate House is a sequel to DeMille’s successful novel The Gold Coast, which I really enjoyed. Who wouldn’t like a tale of seduction, betrayal, and violence set about a Mafia don moving into a wealthy WASP enclave on Long Island’s North Shore.
I found The Gate House to be even better. The narrating hero of The Gold Coast returns ten years later. He’s older, wiser, but no less sly, cynical, and funny. His ex-wife is also back, and despite his thinking that she is more than a little crazy (and maybe a bit homicidal), he’s still attracted to her. To top things off, the Mafia don’s son, now himself the don, is looking for vengeance.The Gate House is full of sex, humor, and ultimately, violence.
When John Sutter's aristocratic wife killed her mafia don lover, John left America and set out in his sailboat on a three-year journey around the world, eventually settling in London. Now, ten years later, he has come home to the Gold Coast, the stretch of land on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America, to attend the imminent funeral of an old family servant. Taking up temporary residence in the gatehouse of Stanhope Hall, John finds himself living only a quarter of a mile from Susan, who has also…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a thriller writer, I have a simple goal: I want to entertain. I'm not the kind of writer whose name is coupled with the Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award. I write the kind of stories people read to divert themselves on a rainy afternoon or on the beach or on airplanes.My hope is that I can divert and delight my readers. Help them forget the real world for a while. Give them an enjoyable reading break. If people have fun while reading my thrillers, I've done my job.
Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer books were my introduction to the American private-detective novel. Macdonald’s work is psychologically and morally complex, with the sins of previous generations cascading through time to horrific, homicidal effects on Archer’s clients.
In Sleeping Beauty, Archer tries to help a wealthy family with more trouble than any single family should have to deal with—including a missing girl, an oil spill, a ransom demand, and a corpse floating off a private beach. As Archer works his case, he untangles long-lost memories, the results of arrogant decisions, and the pained, twisted relations between parents and children. Sleeping Beauty is gritty and taut. Terrific detective fiction.
In Sleeping Beauty, Lew Archer finds himself the confidant of a wealthy, violent family with a load of trouble on their hands--including an oil spill, a missing girl, a lethal dose of Nembutal, a six-figure ransom, and a stranger afloat, face down, off a private beach. Here is Ross Macdonald's masterful tale of buried memories, the consequences of arrogance, and the anguished relations between parents and their children. Riveting, gritty, tautly written, Sleeping Beauty is crime fiction at its best.
If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it is Ross…
I am a writer, an anthropologist, and a mother. I spent five years researching ancient human survival skills and learning from modern wilderness survival experts about how to live the original Homo sapiens lifestyle. I became deeply invested in the importance of these skills amidst climate change and digital transformation because they connect us to our evolutionary heritage and safeguard our species’ survival into the future if and when our civilization collapses (as all past civilizations have done!) I find hope in being prepared for the possible demise of our industrial system, embracing the opportunities that arise instead of trying to preserve it at all costs.
This book serves double duty as both a survival guide and an entertaining read you might be grateful for when the Internet goes out.
My pal Woniya was a top contender on the reality show Alone, and she survived over 70 days near the Arctic Circle using only ten basic tools, her wits, and determination. I learned that you need to be able to go without food for long stretches of time, keep up your self care routines, and challenge all of your negative thoughts with positive possibilities in order to stay on top of your game.
As one of the only female winners of the show, Woniya is also an inspiring woman role model for all of us ladybeasts.
Woniya Thibeault wasn't looking for an adventure of such magnitude, but when the opportunity to participate in Alone® Season 6 fell into her lap, she couldn't say no. Never Alone is the story of that journey.
Dropped into the Arctic wilderness—solo—as winter descended, Woniya intended not only to survive, but to thrive. With only a few tools and meager resources, she would need her survival skills, quick wits, and whole heart to make it through.
The skids scraped against the hard granite as the helicopter settled onto the barren peninsula. My fingers were shaking so badly from the adrenaline, it…
As a young reader, I was most inspired by protagonists that wanted to understand the world, just like I did. I would scour the library shelves for books that showcased smart characters who didn’t just ask questions, but also sought answers. Most often, I connected with female characters who were driven to overcome the assumptions and stigmas placed on them by society, characters who were willing to change the world, or at the very least, the local world around them. The characters I create and write about have this same sort of drive—I hope!—to see the world for what it is and, even better, for what it could be.
This novel is a sequel to Julie of the Wolves and Julie by the same author, but what sets this third book apart is that it is from the perspective of Julie’s wolf pack featured in the previous novels. George studied Inuk and Eskimo culture as well as the relationships of wolves in a pack, which led to a visceral and fascinating story of how wolves survive and interact with one another and with the courageous titular character. Vivid scenes transport readers to the Alaskan tundra, where they can consider a relationship of understanding between humans and animals.
The acclaimed final book in the trilogy that begins with the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves.
In this thrilling adventure about the wolf pack that saved the life of a young girl when she was lost on the tundra, Julie has returned to her family, but her wolf pack has a story all its own.
Fearless but inexperienced Kapu is now the new leader of the pack. He must protect his wolves from the threats of famine and disease and, at the same time, defend himself from bitter rivals, both inside and outside the pack, who are waiting for…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
No matter the genre, I have always loved surprises in a story. I want characters to do the unexpected and plots to take me to, “Oh, I didn’t see that one coming.” Because that’s how life is, how my own life has been. Due to connections we didn’t understand and secrets people around us have kept (or we didn’t bother to uncover) the unexpected always jumps out in front of us. I also like characters who are either discovering or re-focusing their power in ways that are beneficial to themselves and others. Again, this has been my life’s story and I want my characters to search for that same balance.
Ashley is lost in the woods, an emotional and physical wreck, and she’s got to figure a way out. The two things she has going for her are serious survival skills and a fierce determination to never give up. Some of her challenges border on the unbelievable, but then, so do so many real-life stories we’ve all read about.
The reader gets to know and understand Ashley, with all her flaws exposed, as the worsening events force her to dig deep into who she is and what she’s capable of.The author might push the limit of what qualifies as YA, and as an adult I loved it, but when I was fifteen, I would have loved it even more.
Hatchet meets Wild in this harrowing YA survival story about a teenage girl’s attempt to endure the impossible, from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Female of the Species, Mindy McGinnis.
The world is not tame. Ashley knows this truth deep in her bones, more at home with trees overhead than a roof.
So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running…
When I was eleven, I picked up a book about a girl and a boy who get lost on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. It’s the first book I can remember reading over and over and over again. I wanted to be in that tent and in that forest figuring out how to survive. Since then, I’ve been hooked on books about people facing grueling physical challenges, surviving in the wilderness, and finding out what they’re made of. They’re urgent and compelling and the stakes are high, and I’ll never stop loving the thrill of reading about people being pushed to their physical and mental limits.
This book is tense! Jess is alone in the Canadian wilderness, still injured from the car accident that killed her mom, and now her dad has been murdered and his cabin burned down. Jess must figure out how to survive in the cold with no shelter and no way out when nobody knows where she is. This is part survival story and part thriller. Jess is driven by her desire to survive as much as her desire for revenge. The survival aspect here is enough to keep you reading, but I also loved trying to piece together the mystery of why her dad was killed.
Jess is stranded in the woods. She has few supplies and only her dog for company. Her survival skills are limited, and she has disabilities that make physical labor a challenge. And winter is on its way. How did she get here?
Alternating between the past and the present, this tightly-paced novel tells the story of a girl who survived a car crash that killed her mother, then was pulled from foster care and sent to live with her estranged survivalist father in the remote Canadian wilderness. Jess was just beginning to get to know her dad when a secret…
I’ve been heavily immersed in the fantasy and sci-fi world since the age of nine, across fiction novels, role-playing games, tabletop miniature gaming, and movies. My first love was fantasy, and that’s one of the reasons why the post-apocalyptic genre particularly appeals to me when it comes to sci-fi. It plays in that dark, gritty place between futuristic, sci-fi, technology, and dark-age style fantasy. In addition, I’ve always felt socially conscious and value writing that highlights themes that are relevant today. This is another place that the post-apocalyptic genre slides comfortably into. And, of course, there’s the zombies. Another fantasy element that works beautifully in post-apocalyptic, sci-fi settings.
What I love most about this book is how Bell uses a zombie apocalypse to explore the complexities of humanity. I felt that Bell uses the zombie threat as a backdrop to look at how people respond under intense pressure.
I enjoyed the contrast of each character’s response to the apocalypse, ranging from kindness and fellowship to exploitation, violence, and madness. I liked the way Bell creates the protagonist Temple to be both innocent and kind whilst being plagued by guilt and tormented by a belief that she is a sinner.
I also liked the complexities and seeming paradox of the antagonist Moses Todd, whose dogged pursuit of Temple is at times Terminator-like and yet somehow almost chivalric in nature, operating under a code of honor, even if it is a misguided one.
God is a slick god. Temple knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe...
Older than her years and completely alone, Temple is just trying to live one day at a time in a post-apocalyptic world, where the undead roam endlessly, and the remnant of mankind who have survived, at times, seem to retain little humanity themselves.
This is the world she was born into. Temple has known nothing else. Her journey takes her to far-flung places, to people struggling to maintain some semblance of civilization - and to those who…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’ve chosen these books because they take me to times and places I can’t go (although I did serendipitously get to Kerala, and am hoping to go to the West Coast of America one day).Girl with Two Fingers takes you into the studio, hopefullyas if you could have been there yourself. I want readers to be able to share something of the experience I was so lucky to have. And to be able to see perhaps more questioningly when they look at art.
I read this play first aged sixteen, and connected strongly with it, because of the young motherless shipwrecked heroine.
I spent significant periods of time with my grandfathers when I was growing up, and I read Prospero more as a grandfather figure than a father one.
When Freud and I were in the studio for days and weeks and months together, I felt like Miranda on Prospero’s island. The same created world. The same isolation.
With Lucian as the Prospero figure, summoning a few other characters that came and went to his studio.
No one can go to a fictional island of course, but yet Shakespeare takes us there.
Performed variously as escapist fantasy, celebratory fiction, and political allegory, The Tempest is one of the plays in which Shakespeare's genius as a poetic dramatist found its fullest expression. Significantly, it was placed first when published in the First Folio of 1623, and is now generally seen as the playwright's most penetrating statement about his art.
Stephen Orgel's wide-ranging introduction examines changing attitudes to The Tempest, and reassesses the evidence behind the various readings. He focuses on key characters and their roles and relationships, as well as on the dramatic, historical, and political context, finding the play to be both…