Books like Pretty Painful — picked by fans

I find that Frankenstein transcends eras by posing critical questions about the ways we develop and use new technology.

I first read a comic-book version in elementary school and have returned to Shelly’s novel over the years because it stimulates my critical thinking about technology, particularly the current rise of AI and our response to it. Frankenstein raises a fundamental ethical question about technology in real life: just because humans can create something, should they actually create it?

For me, the novel also creates the opportunity to explore questions about how we engage technology once we choose to invent it. Dr. Frankenstein abandons his creation, and the creature becomes an angry monster. I ask myself, is this an allegory for our own response to technology?

I can’t talk about contemporary books without mentioning the genre’s Queen, Nora Roberts. She’s the first romance author I ever read, and I have to say, Dance Upon Air really touched my “90s teenager” soul. Why, you ask?

Well, there was this exceptional time when everything New Age and witchy was in, and everyone listened to Enya, and mooned over Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic. Ha! Roberts’ Three Sister’s Island series is all that in book form.

Think remote island, three women in the throes of finding love and themselves, with a magical and suspense-filled witchy subplot thrown in.

The first and my favorite of this series that sets up a world beyond our own with interesting and multiple interesting and tortured characters all trapped in their own personal hell and I was here for it. This book focuses on one particular members of this poor group and how one person can come in change absolutely everything with love and faith. There is a setup for the multiple books in the series that do not take away from the main story or characters and will have you wanting to know more. Heavy on not just the romance but the action and violence had me flying through the pages to feed my need for more. Entertaining, fun, tense, and never giving a dull moment, I recommend this for a fun night or nights of reading. 

A world exists around us that we never knew existed. When all you want is to be accepted, it is hard to find love.

I found that two people can find love regardless of what creature bore them. Family may not always understand what you want, but as long as there is trust and a little bit of humor, anything is possible. 

Charles Williams’s books have been described as “supernatural thrillers.” Many later authors have tried to use the theme of a recently-rediscovered ancient holy relic, which various people want to get hold of for good or evil purposes, in this case the Holy Grail or Graal, but few have done it as well as Charles Williams. I’ve read it at least five times, and I also think it has one of the most attention-grabbing opening lines in fiction: “The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.”

Should an angsty teen girl (or her mom) be relieved when she’s taken under the wing of an eccentric art dealer?

After all, not many people make seventeen-year-old Cera Marlowe feel understood. She’s too into poetry and art and suffers from seizures… The mystery in Mortal Sight is of a much more personal nature than the other books on this list.
While this urban fantasy tale is young adult, the blend of modern-day with ancient mythology drew me in and I was reminded of my own childhood. I enjoyed the concept of a girl with a mysterious past and a dangerous destiny awakening to her true identity – all accompanied by lines of Milton in her head that help her to navigate her strange new world.

There is a world of difference between the fairies of folk-lore and the ‘airy-fairy’s’ to use one of Katherine Brigg’s descriptions that infest popular media. Disney’s depiction of Peter Pan & Tinkerbelle as ordinary kids who happen to have wings bears no relation to the fairies of folklore. The moment a fairy character is absorbed into capitalist entertainment, their magic is lost. The unsurpassable fairy lore of Katherine Briggs 1898-1980, takes up an entire shelf on my bookcase and includes The Anatomy of Puck, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, The Vanishing People, and A Dictionary of Fairies. The one-time president of the English Folklore Society, her books are so authoritative and imaginative, they bring to life the incredible inhabitants of the otherworldly realm. All the best books on the subject were written before 1970, the later ones tending to be cribbed from Briggs and that other… show more.

This was one of the first ‘indie horror’ books I read. I had no idea what to expect, but the beautiful cover illustration already had me hooked. I adore Baker’s style of writing. It feels like poetry, in a way, and yet the story he tells is very dark.

I have quickly become a huge fan of Baker, and he is such a huge supporter of other authors (and a genuinely nice chap). Win-win.

Silver John, a balladeer with a silver-stringed guitar, crisscrosses rural USA encountering all manner of supernatural entities, and does it with a song in his heart. There's a deep love of ancient folklore that shines through in this wonderful collection. It's far removed from Carnacki or Silence's cozy sitting rooms and libraries, but every bit as tied to a desire to get to the root of ancient mysteries. There's an almost Bradburyesque sense of wonder in these tales that lifts you up and carries you alongside John on his travels.

This book by real-life ghost hunter Peter Underwood is an amazing attempt to demystify some of the most famous haunted sites across the globe, seeking out evidence, personal and witness experiences in an attempt to explain the inexplicable. In many cases he comes up with possible answers, often using the excuse of mental instability in those witnesses to prove his argument. For me, many of his conclusions were not convincing enough, this paucity of believable truth inspiring my own research and desire to debunk the whole concept of ghosts and hauntings. From it, I have learned that though most occurrences can be explained away, there is still much in this world that defies rational logic.