Here are 100 books that The Diviners fans have personally recommended if you like
The Diviners.
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I am Julia Buckley. I am an avid reader and writer of mysteries. This particular subgenre of mystery focuses on schools and academic settings. I love institutions of learning as settings for mysteries because the buildings can be spooky and oppressive, but also because the dialogue is always intelligent. There is great potential for conflict between students, faculty, and campus interlopers. All of it is intriguing, and it allows for a closed world with limited suspects! If you haven’t read an academic mystery, give it a try! It’s like going back to school, but as a detective.
All of the Peter Wimsey novels are delightful, but I greatly enjoy the ones that feature Peter’s love interest, Harriet Vane.
In this one, Harriet, recently exonerated of a murder charge, returns to her Alma Mater, Oxford, for a traditional Gaudy dinner. Naturally, the event leads to murder, and Peter must be consulted to help resolve the case.
The twelfth book in Dorothy L Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series, introduced by actress Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries.
'D. L. Sayers is one of the best detective story writers' Daily Telegraph
Harriet Vane has never dared to return to her old Oxford college. Now, despite her scandalous life, she has been summoned back . . .
At first she thinks her worst fears have been fulfilled, as she encounters obscene graffiti, poison pen letters and a disgusting effigy when she arrives at sedate Shrewsbury…
What do Jesus Freaks in the 1970s, parental divorce, first love and Old English Sheepdogs have in common? Belinda Pompey.
Thrust into the turbulent 1970s and forced to make bold decisions, she must chart a new course at seventeen. Whether an impetuous teenager headed for ruin or an independent young…
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...
This is the novel, more than any other, that inspired me to write my book.
It’s the story of Pale Fire, the final poem of the murdered American poet John Shade. It’s put into an anthology, and his editor, Charles Kinbolt, is asked to provide a preface, commentary, and notes. As these notes get wildly out of hand, another narrative starts to emerge. Did Kinbolt murder Shade? And was he using Pale Fire to identify his murderer? A great book.
Nabokov is a modernist master, and in no way can I compete with him, so I didn’t try. But it’s kind of the first metathriller and should be read by anyone with an interest in great writing.
A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue—and "one of the great works of art of this century" (Mary McCarthy)—from one of the leading writers of the 20th century.
In Pale Fire Nabokov offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue.
I’m primarily a music composer for film and TV, but I’ve also ventured into filmmaking, with one of my films being featured at an international film festival, so my journey in storytelling spans many years, and comedy has always been at its heart. Growing up, my father worked as a pit musician, which gave me exposure to the comedy acts of the time. Humor was a constant in our home, so when I started writing fiction, it felt only natural my writing would find a home in comedy.
This is an absolute classic of the comic novel genre, so popular that it found its way onto the big screen. This dark comedy plays out more like a farce as we follow the misadventures of Henry Wilt, an underappreciated and frustrated teacher. His life spirals out of control due to a series of absurd and ridiculous misunderstandings. The novel’s momentum is driven by these absurdities and gross misinterpretations, all skillfully woven together by the flawed actions of a cast of colorful characters, each caricatured to deliver maximum comedic impact.
Tom Sharpe imbues his characters—whether it's the incompetency of the police, Wilt’s oppressive wife, or Wilt himself—with wit and cynicism. His writing is a blend of slapstick, satire, and dark comedy, frequently veering into the absurd and ridiculous. Despite the over-the-top plot, the novel maintains a consistent pace and a dry, ironic tone. As a comic novelist myself, who values…
La más famosa novela de Tom Sharpe, en la que el autor no deja títere con cabeza. El protagonista, Henry Wilt, encadenado a un empleo demencial como profesor en un politécnico, acaba de ver postergado su ascenso una vez más. Mientras, las cosas no marchan mejor en casa, donde su maciza esposa, Eva, se entrega a imprevisibles arrebatos de entusiasmo por la meditación trascendental, el yoga o la última novedad recién olfateada. Wilt, que se siente impotente con respecto a su empleo, no vacila en entregarse a fantasías cada vez más asesinas y concretas acerca de su mujer, con la…
What do Jesus Freaks in the 1970s, parental divorce, first love and Old English Sheepdogs have in common? Belinda Pompey.
Thrust into the turbulent 1970s and forced to make bold decisions, she must chart a new course at seventeen. Whether an impetuous teenager headed for ruin or an independent young…
I am a Western Canadian nerd, and when I got to university, I knew that I had “found my people,” and I spent half my adult life studying and then teaching on various campuses. Universities are often as large as small cities, and each has its own particular atmosphere. What some folks don’t realize is that campuses have such a wide variety of niches and specialties that you could write a whole series featuring new facets of post-secondary life in each book. And, of course, that is what I did with my first detective series, the Randy Craig Mysteries.
Almost everyone I know read this risque novel about the supposed sexual experiment of a school creating not just coed dorms, but coed roommates. I think any book one remembers vividly from having read it back in high school deserves some sort of kudos, even if it might be just that it was so wildly salacious that it just stuck there.
However, I think it had something going for it in its ability to convey adolescent lust along with clinical overlay. Whatever the case, the combination offers up a truer vision of the undergraduate experience than most novels of its time.
A new-age "experiment" takes place in the 1960s at Harrad College, a privately endowed and liberally run school that admits carefully selected students. This social experiment encourages premarital living arrangements and is totally committed - not mere lip-service or public-relations hype - to getting young men and women to think and act for themselves.
What do they think about? Everything that interests the author, Bob Rimmer: human relations, sex, history, philosophy, anatomy, existentialism, art, music, Zen, politics - and, once more, sex.
Four Harrad students record their thoughts regularly for four years. Their diaries include large chunks of college "action,"…
As a young person I loved to read history novels, but each book had to be about either British monarchs or American generals. Then I watched the movie Bye Bye Blues, a Canadian prairie story by Anne Wheeler, and realized for the first time that the story was about me, about us. It was such a heady feeling that I decided to study Western Canadian history at university. Three weeks after I got my M.A. from the University of Victoria I was offered the chance to write about Vancouver Island coal miners and the rest, as they say, is quite literally history.
Who would have thought that a novel about a ninety-year-old woman determined to avoid being put into a nursing home would become required reading for high school and university students? And yet this novel has been listed by several sources as one of the greatest Canadian novels ever written. Laurence’s writing style inspired me and gave me the assurance to write about Western Canadian history. It demonstrates one of the reasons why Laurence was named posthumously as “A Person of National Historic Significance” by the Canadian government in 2018.
Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to stand. I wonder if she stands there yet...
Hagar Shipley - an irascible, independent nonagenarian - has lived a quiet life full of rage. As she approaches her death, she retreats from the squabbling of her son and his wife to reflect on her past - her ill-advised marriage, her two sons, the harshness of farm life on the prairie, her own failures and the betrayals and failures of others.
I am an author and natural navigator. I set up my natural navigation school in 2008 and am the author of award-winning and internationally bestselling books, including The Natural Navigator (2010) The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs (2014), How to Read Water (2016), and The Secret World of Weather (2021), some of the world’s only books covering natural navigation. I have spent decades hunting for clues and signs in nature, across the globe, which may be why I am sometimes nicknamed: “The Sherlock Holmes of Nature”.
The best travel writing allows us to explore a place vicariously and this book certainly does that. But it also gives a sense of what it is like to explore as a woman and on horseback, two things I cannot claim to have ever done. It is rich with insights into the nature of the land and people. And it is sensitive without being sentimental. Schaffer was a true pioneer and the book gives a sense she would have been good company too.
“We seemed to have reached that horizon, and the limit of all endurance, to sit with folded hands and listen calmly to the stories of the hills we so longed to see, the hills which had lured and beckoned us for years before this long list of men had ever set foot in the country.” —Mary T.S. Schäffer
Mary T.S. Schäffer was an avid explorer and one of the first non-Native women to venture into the heart of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, where few women—or men—had gone before.
First published in 1911, Old Indian Trails of the Canadian Rockies is…
I’m a journalist in Edmonton, Canada, who covered former premier Jason Kenney’s rise through Alberta politics, in which he tapped into the populist zeitgeist of Donald Trump and Brexit, and his eventual implosion. I have a newsletter on Substack, "The Orchard," where I cover the intersection of politics, the media, and corporate power. Through my journalism, I’ve developed a keen interest in this age of mass discontent we find ourselves in, with right-wing political and economic elites promising to blow up the entire system they embody while feckless liberal politicians seek to tinker around the edges to make the established order more palatable.
I regard Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the embodiment of an empty progressive politics that is far more concerned with style over substance.
Martin Lukacs does a great job in The Trudeau Formula of outlining how Trudeau’s combination of soaring rhetoric and tepid reform on issues like economic inequality, Indigenous reconciliation, and the climate crisis works to stave off the more systemic changes needed to address these concerns in a substantive way.
Lukacs aptly demonstrates how Trudeau serves to uphold the status quo while presenting himself as an agent of transformative change.
"The book is not a biography of Justin Trudeau, nor is it a treatment of the minutiae and manoeuvres of party politics. It is an investigation into how the Liberal government governs in the shadow of a silent, multi-decade corporate coup in Ottawa that dares not speak its name. It tells the hidden history of how the Liberal party has served as the most effective vehicle for implementing deeply unpopular neoliberal policies--and how Justin Trudeau continues this agenda today."--
I’m the author of 26 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. I’ve sold over three-quarters of a million books and particularly enjoy writing about dysfunctional families and unpleasant neighbours! I spend a lot of time in the Swiss Alps and love the mountains, so thrillers set in the snow are my absolute favourite. I set one of my own books, Forget Me Not, in the Swiss Alps in a location I know extremely well. I’m a full-time author and I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
This thriller flips between viewpoints and timescales as we follow Bonnie, who struggles to survive not only the elements, but her deceitful husband Steffan and creepy Annalise, who may or may not be the white witch of the Alps.
This gave me feelings of claustrophobia, and, although it requires a bit of stretch of the imagination, it was a quick and easy page-turner.
Bonnie thought she knew her husband. She was wrong.
Bonnie and her husband Steffan are hiking in the beautiful Swiss Alps when they are caught in a freak snowstorm. Fearing they may not survive, the couple are overjoyed when they stumble across an isolated cabin occupied by a lone woman, Annalise.
But their joy soon turns to unease as they realise that Annalise may have a sinister agenda.
And she's not the only one with something to hide. Trapped together in a nightmarish pressure cooker, the cracks in Bonnie's marriage start to show as she discovers that Steffan has been…
I was born and raised as both an anglophone Canadian and a diaspora Jew. After living in Montreal, Jerusalem, and New York for a total of about 15 years, I returned to my hometown of Toronto and took up the position of the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry at York University, where I work as a professor of history. I teach undergraduate students, graduate students, fellow academics, community leaders, and the wide public about all sorts of dimensions of this very religiously diverse, culturally diverse, socio-economically diverse, and politically diverse community of 400,000+ souls, with its 260+-year-old history.
I love this book’s sprawling effort to answer all sorts of basic questions about the living, vibrant Jews of Canada.
The book was so solid and sold so well when it originally came out with a trade publisher it was re-issued. It uses good social science and approachable theories.
I found it highly informative, intuitive, and curiosity-provoking. What’s more, it’s really funny. If you’re a Canadian Jew, you’ll learn something about yourself or some part of the Jewish world of which you’re a part of. And if you’re not both Canadian and Jewish, you’ll get a very good grounding in understanding the world’s fourth-largest Jewish community.
Liberal democratic societies with diverse populations generally offer minorities two usually contradictory objectives: the first is equal integration and participation; the second is an opportunity, within limits, to retain their culture. Yet Canadian Jews are successfully integrated into all domains of Canadian life, while at the same time they also seem able to retain their distinct identities by blending traditional religious values and rituals with contemporary cultural options. Like Everyone Else but Different illustrates how Canadian Jews have created a space within Canada's multicultural environment that paradoxically overcomes the potential dangers of assimilation and diversity. At the same time, this…
I’m the author of 26 twisty psychological thrillers, many of which are Amazon bestsellers. I’ve sold over three-quarters of a million books and particularly enjoy writing about dysfunctional families and unpleasant neighbours! Several of my novels touch upon the theme of creepy obsessions, including Violets Are Blue, Deserve To Die, and The Godchild, to name just three. In case you’re wondering I have drawn upon some creepy obsessions I’ve experienced in real life... I’m a full-time author and I’m also an avid reader of thrillers and enjoy nothing more than reading a book with an ending that makes me gasp!
I was completely hooked by this book—it’s the kind of story that crawls under your skin and refuses to leave.
I love when a thriller explores the fine line between love, guilt, and obsession, and this one does it brilliantly. Sloan isn’t a typical heroine; she makes one impulsive mistake and suddenly her entire world tilts off balance. I found myself torn between rooting for her and shouting at her, which is my favorite kind of reading experience.
Nelle Lamarr’s writing is sharp, funny, and full of energy, but beneath the humor lurks something darker—an obsession that spirals in the very best way.
From Nelle Lamarr, the Amazon All-Star bestselling author of The Family Guest and The Night Nanny, comes an unputdownable new thriller with a jaw-dropping ending.
“A witty and gripping read, All My Lies is Nelle Lamarr's best to date. I couldn't put it down.” Nicola Sanders, Bestselling Author of Don't Let Her Stay.
Someone knows my secret...
All I ever wanted was to write a bestseller. And now, finally, I've done it. People ask me how, where did I get my inspiration?
But I can never tell them – because I have a secret.
