Books like Sharks — picked by fans

The backpacker word-of-mouth bestseller I read in my twenties in a hostel in Rome or Siena rather than Bangkok.

The story of Richard, a backpacker in search of paradise in Thailand who discovers it, along with the darker aspects of himself and the others he meets there. A dark desert island classic, submerged in tension and foreboding, it takes utopia and smashes it apart on a razor-sharp coral reef.

Yes, bad shit happens. Both escapist and terrifying.

At the beginning of my The Raw Shark Texts hardback, a Mark Haddon quote on a post-it note calls it "The bastard love-child of The Matrix, Jaws, and The Da Vinci Code," which is a pretty accurate summary of what you’re getting into with this one.

It’s a substantial novel, and you have to pay attention, but it’s well worth the investment. Epic, inventive, oceanic in scope and wryly funny, with the best cat in a book since The Last House on Needless Street. 

A wise, humane, wildly original feat of imagination and heart.

The skill of Habeck in making the incredible credible knows no bounds as Wren and Lewis’s lives are upended by a diagnosis of Carcharodon carcharias mutation, namely his gradual transformation into a great white shark.

A beautiful meditation on art, family, loss, and what it means to be human, this reminded me of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven but is like nothing I’ve read before or since. 

I read Jaws, aged twelve, when I was scouring my parents’ bookshelves in search of sex scenes.

It didn’t deliver on that front, but was, as was the movie, a blockbuster summer thriller that terrified and captivated me in equal measure. Swimming in the Indian Ocean was never the same again.

First published in 1974, Jaws is of its time but worth a revisit for the iconic, flawed protagonist, Police Chief Brody, the vivid setting, and hero’s journey plot.

This is one of those ideas that I wish I had thought of—Germany of the Thirty Years War meets Appalachia of the early 2000s. I enjoy the unexpected things that time travel can bring, like a high school library being the most potent source of knowledge in the world or a high school cheerleader confronting the king of Sweden. And for those who appreciate historical accuracy, Flint does not disappoint.

For me, it’s the characters that really connect me to the story. There are a lot of them—from both 2000s America and 1630s Europe—but Flint gives enough time that I really feel like I got to know a lot of them.

This book is a curiosity in several ways. It is written from the German viewpoint by an American. Secondly, it was turned into the finest WW1 flying movie—by a long way. Don’t just take my word for it. Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, who happens to own the biggest private fleet of WW1 planes in the world, says the same. But the book is just as good, with impeccable flying scenes, sound history, a rip-roaring but believable plot, a deeply flawed hero (think Dirty Harry with less morals), and some sexual shenanigans for good measure. Hard to put down, satisfying to finish.

With the world spinning out of control these days, I’ve wondered what I would do if the same problems as WW2 erupted again.

This book has one timeline set in WW2, and follows a Mennonite family—some of whom embraced Hitler’s ideologies. My family ancestry is Mennonite, and this story is both shocking and realistic.

It gave me a better understanding of why faith-based groups can slide into hate-filled ideologies without even noticing. And it can happen to the best of us! I think this series is incredibly important. 

One of the best explanations I’ve read of the rise of Fascism in Hitler’s Germany. I agree that ignoring the lessons of history means we’ll be forced to endure repetition. And Kerr paints such a chilling scenario no one in their right mind would wish the maxim to come true. His prose applies color and form like an artist at the top of their game.

At times I found him reminiscent of Chandler in the way he portrays the Nazis as the worst gangsters in the game. This is the first book of the Bernard Gunther series, and I was so enthralled that I raced through the others in just a few days. His storyline is filled with horror, passion, fear, and pathos—a tour de force of emotions.

Bombed day and night for thirty days, the city became the epicentre of a firestorm. Nonfiction about the bombing of Hamburg, told from both points of view, it reads like the best fiction and never just as dull history.

This book made me aware of the terrible destruction the Allies wrought on nearly every city and town in Germany, though at great cost also to the courageous airmen who wreaked the havoc. Full of facts and strong writing, it was the inspiration for my writing.

Before being drafted into the German Army in 1941, Willy Peter Reese was a bank clerk who spent his time engaged in reading German literature and attempting to become a writer in his own right.

The memoir is a compilation of his journal entries as he reflected on his transition from civilian to soldier. Originally published in German, Reese’s journal demonstrates the way in which a relatively naïve and carefree intellectual became involved in the Nazi war of annihilation in the Soviet Union.

The transformation from a bookish, sensitive, and brooding teenager into a soldier who lost empathy for the people suffering under German occupation demonstrates how some German youth became actors and accomplices in the Nazi regime’s crimes.