Here are 29 books that The Caretaker fans have personally recommended if you like
The Caretaker.
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I’ve always been interested in books that explore themes of identity, with characters either discovering who they are under extreme pressure or who they’re not. I also love books that work on several different levels, especially ones that seem as if they’re "just" a thriller, but there’s so much more going on underneath. This list has some great examples of that. Can characters in a novel have more than one identity? And do they - and we as readers - always know who we are? I’m a pseudonym, so I should know...
No list of mine would be complete without a Graham Greene novel on it.
My favourite author, the one I return to time and again. I reread this novel while I was writing my book, and it had lost none of its power or, indeed, glory since the last time I read it.
The story of a whisky priest on the run in the anti-Catholic purges in South America, it’s about faith, hope, self-worth, and fear. And redemption? Maybe. Maybe not. No one writes tortured souls like Greene. No one makes you care for them more.
During an anti-clerical purge in Mexico, a priest is hunted like a hare. Too human for heroism, too humble for martyrdom, the little worldly priest is nevertheless impelled towards his squalid Calvary as much by his own compassion for humanity as by the efforts of his pursuers.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
It’s a fantastic re-imagining of David Copperfield, which I enjoyed much more than the original. It taught me a lot about a side of the USA which, as a Brit, I had never given much thought to. The characters were fresh and engaging - even when they were unlikeable - and I became really invested in them. I know this is a book I’ll re-read and it might even tempt me to have another try at the Dickens,
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
Joy offers an unflinching look at modern Appalachia through a compelling narrative that twists through a small, mountain town's dark shadows. Joy knows this place and these people. This brave telling brings to light the seen, yet often unnamed undercurrent of racial animosity that persists among those we think we know. This can be a hard read for what it stirs up. But it is all-too-relevant, a work of fiction ripped straight from the headlines, and as well-told a story as you'll see anywhere.
Winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction Winner of the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award Winner of the 2024 Sir Walter Raleigh Award
From award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center.
Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets…
Writing a new John le Carré novel when you are not John le Carré would be a daunting task for any author. Maybe even more so when he happened to be your dad. But Nick Harkaway has risen impressively to the challenge. Karla’s Choice is a return to the murky labyrinthine world of international Cold War chicanery and espionage. Murder, betrayal, deceit, clandestine ops and geopolitics - George Smiley and the Circus are back. It’s as if John le Carré never left us.
A gripping new novel set in the universe of John le Carre's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway
Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway's Karla's Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer, John le Carre.
It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West's spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
There are places one feels at home, even though not from there. The South does that to me. I'm drawn to its exotic beauty—the magnolias and moss. It's deep porches and melodic accents. There is a degree of tranquility that hangs over it, veiling the repulsive scars of years of master-slave culture. The South is the perfect backdrop for the themes that appeal to me—coming-of-age, political unrest, and social activism. These excellent Southern novels below all place the reader deep in the culture.
Pat Conroy once said, "Great words arranged with cunning and artistry could change the perceived world of some readers." This book did that for me. Throughout the read, I felt wrapped in a velvet cloak of beauty and struggle woven by a master.
Throughout the book, Conroy sets me in the narrator's struggle with how much someone can love their family despite the pain and anger they've caused. Especially with his mother, Lila, because he loves her as much as he hates her. It's a family epic of the highest order. I found it beautiful, brilliant, and brutal.
Pat Conroy's inspired masterpiece relates the dark and violent chronicle of an astounding family: the Wingos of Colleton, South Carolina. No reader will forget them. And no reader can remain untouched by their story.
All Wingos share one heritage ... shrimp fishing, poverty and the searing memory of a single terrifying event - the source of Tom Wingo's self-hatred and of his sister Savannah's suicidal despair.
To save himself and Savannah, Tom confronts the past with the help of New York psychologist Susan Lowenstein.
As Tom and Susan unravel the bitter history of his troubled childhood, in episodes of grotesque…
As an American Southerner, I know things that can be the most nurturing ever, but there's always a cost—emotional, physical, or other. The landscape and nature are where I can always go when I feel heartbroken. And my heart is renewed. Always. Being in tandem with nature calls me. It might be time to look a little closer. If we don't, we might lose more habitat and humanity. This topic or theme haunts me every day. This won't be all I write about, and I hope to have at least another five decades to see more. How amazing to have a sense of history while looking to the future? That walkabout is such a blessing.
What can pain be when you are trying to be free? Who is safe from that when you are trying to be a compassionate person? This book will quell your questions. A girl with scares and scars. Do not be faint of heart on this one. And especially stay away from wells. Really. But also know there is that light that might free us all.
George and Serena Pemberton arrive in the wilds of the North Carolina mountains to build a life together in a rural logging town. But Serena Pemberton is unlike any woman this town has ever seen: overseeing crews, hunting rattlesnakes and even saving her husband in the wilderness. So when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she is determined that her intensely passionate marriage will not unravel. A course of events unfolds that will change the lives of everyone in their rural community and bring this riveting tale of love and revenge to its shocking reckoning.
Herman Melville's MOBY DICK is a story with a deep and rhythmic flow that swallows the reader into the depths of a man verses beast saga. The beauty of his words transfixes the story into one that emphasizes the confusing emotions of love and hate. Can one exist without the other? The novel takes a person into emotional turmoil as the quest to conquer rises above any common sense as Ahab throws his crew into an ill-fated adventure.
Melville's tale of the whaling industry, and one captain's obsession with revenge against the Great White Whale that took his leg. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of Herman Melville and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom or at home to further engage the reader in the work at hand.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I loved everything about this book, which was inspired by true events. I didn’t know about the Pack Horse Library initiative, which brought books, newspapers, and magazines to people in remote communities in Kentucky during the Great Depression.
The central character is Cussy Mary Carter, a 19-year-old librarian with a genetic condition that turned her skin blue. Blues, as they were called, often faced bigotry and were blamed for many problems in the community.
She faced fierce prejudice. That didn’t stop her. Her love of books and her determination to bring stories to people in isolated communities was stronger than her fears.
Carter believed books unite people from all walks of life and that literature leads to hope and change. President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) created this program to help lift Americans out of the Great Depression; by 1933, unemployment had risen to 40 percent in Appalachia. Carter…
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER AN OKRA PICK The bestselling historical fiction from Kim Michele Richardson, this is a novel following Cussy Mary, a packhorse librarian and her quest to bring books to the Appalachian community she loves, perfect for readers of Lee Smith and Lisa Wingate. The perfect addition to your next book club! The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything-everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only…
