Here are 28 books that The Glass Hotel fans have personally recommended if you like
The Glass Hotel.
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I am passionate about the selected books because they have a unique way of broadening one's horizons and inspiring change in life. Their diverse narratives and profound insights invite all of us to discover new perspectives, challenge our beliefs, and deepen our understanding of the world.
Klein focuses on the most crucial issue we face today, climate change, fueled by a system obsessed with profits and constant growth, which resonated very deeply with me. This book is imperative because it shows how the consumption of resources and materials is what drives powerful states around the world to dominate and make modern colonies of weaker countries in the name of profit and at any cost.
I really liked how Klein breaks down ways that show us how our current economic system is at the heart of this crisis and that change will have to be made. I loved the insights she gave, and they made me think about how we can truly turn things around and create a sustainable world. I like how she explains clearly why late capitalism cannot be sustainable. This book is must read, especially by those who…
Naomi Klein, author of the #1 international bestsellers, The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, returns with This Changes Everything, a must-read on how the climate crisis needs to spur transformational political change
Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It's not about carbon - it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this existential crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.
In her most provocative book yet, Naomi Klein, author of the global bestsellers The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, tackles the most profound threat humanity has ever faced: the…
When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.
When I was six, I wrote an eleven-page epic about an adventurous otter named "Ottiga." The causality between that early effort and my career as a novelist is uncertain, but it did establish a pattern. I was the perpetual new kid on the block, and novels provided a pathway to escape the difficulties of being young and introverted. I learned that fiction is an antidote to loneliness; that it has the power to transport us to entirely new worlds, or to show us the familiar world in entirely new and unexpected ways. The speculative novels on this list did that for me, and I hope they do the same for you!
This is a highly propulsive and emotionally engaging novel with a sympathetic protagonist at its core.
It could be considered a portal fantasy, but I'd categorize it, along with the other books on this list, as “speculative,” because it doesn’t fit neatly into either the fantasy or science fiction genres and is anchored in contemporary or near-future realism.
Piranesi’s beautifully executed theme, about how a dramatic change in perspective can lead to a deeper appreciation for the beauty and nobility abiding beneath the ugliness of humanity and our one and only world, is one for the ages.
This highly original and beautiful book is destined to endure as one of the classics of early twenty-first century literature.
Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE __________________________________ Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.
In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend,…
I’m the child of immigrants and grew up imagining a second self—me, if my parents had never left India. Then, when I became a writer, doubles kept showing up in odd ways in my work. In my first play, House of Sacred Cows, I had identical twins played, farcically, by the same actor. My latest novel features two South Asian women: one, slightly wimpy, married to an unsympathetic guy called Mac, and another, in a permanent state of outrage, married to a nice man called Mat. My current project is a novel about mixed-race twins born in India but separated at birth.
This is actually just the first book of Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels, which tell a single riveting story of two girls, Lila and Lenù, from a depressed Naples neighborhood. Lenù is the narrator, taking us through fifty years of friendship and the latter half of the 20th century. (Her actual name is Elena, like the author—another doubling, especially since she writes under a pseudonym.)
I am a sucker for event: a lot happens and we get to know a huge cast of characters from the neighborhood. But our anchors are these two friends and rivals, vibrant and injured, striving to transcend their origins.
OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE
NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES
GUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY
58 WEEKS ON THE BOOKSELLER'S TOP 20 ORIGINAL FICTION BESTSELLERS LIST
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015
43 INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS DEALS
Now in B-format Paperback
From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and…
A hundred years in the future, the world has been ravaged by climate change, dwindling resources, and pandemics – one of which has wiped out most of the men. A women’s republic has arisen, sustained by cloning, and privileged teenager Clara Perdue is desperate to become…
I am passionate about in-depth character development because it’s something I strive for in my own writing. Humans are very complex creatures who are capable of a full range of responses on any given day, moment, or set of circumstances. Offering readers an opportunity to consider what motivates characters to behave in the ways they do makes a story worth sinking your teeth into. I think making these kinds of considerations about characters who are not real also opens up our collective ability to exercise our empathy muscles in real life. These days, we need that more than ever.
The masculine voice in this novel is absolutely masterful. It’s tender, nuanced, earnest, and intelligent. Stegner offers a sweeping, unflinching story about friendships, marriage, the human ego, and the passage of time with a set of characters who are flawed, fragile, and therefore, very believable.
I’ve read this book more than once, and discover something new and lovely each time. This book honors a reader’s intelligence and heart. Again, the complexity in the characters and how they relate to one another gets me every time.
A novel of the friendships and woes of two couples, which tells the story of their lives in lyrical, evocative prose by one of the finest American writers of the late 20th century.
When two young couples meet for the first time during the Great Depression, they quickly find they have much in common: Charity Lang and Sally Morgan are both pregnant, while their husbands Sid and Larry both have jobs in the English department at the University of Wisconsin. Immediately a lifelong friendship is born, which becomes increasingly complex as they share decades of love, loyalty, vulnerability and conflict.…
I’ve loved character-focused stories long before I loved horror, which is saying something, because I’ve loved horror for a long time. It’s my belief horror is at its best when a storyteller focuses on the characters, as it adds a new dimension to the scare and forces the audience to worry about the characters. Anyone can do a jump scare; they’re not hard, but a well-crafted character that amplifies the horror is more difficult, and that’s why it’s so special when it works. It’s why authors like Stephen King and William Peter Blatty are timeless – their stories are character-first.
I own two physical copies – one paperback and a special edition hardback that released for a recent anniversary. It’s Stephen King’s debut, but you wouldn’t know it since he was already so comfortable with his writing and understanding his voice. I love that the story isn’t told through conventional means but using news reports and journals.
Carrie White is a character I can relate to, not because I secretly have powers – I don’t, I promise – but because she is the oddball, the type of person who doesn’t fit in. She’s the exaggerated poster child of why bullying is bad, but the book holds one very special message at its core – what does it cost to be nice?
Carrie is shown throughout as this sweet and simple girl who longs for connection, and we see the slow breakdown of her character…
Stephen King's legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates, is a Classic. CARRIE is the novel which set him on the road to the Number One bestselling author King is today.
Carrie White is no ordinary girl.
Carrie White has the gift of telekinesis.
To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie - the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues.
But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night as she is forced to exercise her…
We live in a bizarre era of Elon Musk stans who seem certain that if you work hard you’ll be rewarded not only with ‘fuck you’ money, but ‘fuck everyone’ money. I think any writer worth their salt should at some point tackle the issues of their age in their writing. In our era racism, sexism, climate change, and a range of other social justice issues are all exacerbated through the improper distribution of wealth. You could give a man a fish, and he might eat for a day. Or you could eviscerate the rich, share their wealth, and throw the whole world a parade!
While I enjoyed this book while I was reading it, it was only after I’d digested it (pun intended) that I really came to appreciate its value. I think one of the real measures of an artwork is how much it sits with you in the months and years after the initial read/watch/listen, and this is one I think about often. The story follows a documentarian attempting to serve the corporate hierarchy and produce an asinine show about American wives and the meat-filled dinners they serve their husbands, but the novel gradually unfolds as a complex critique of misogyny, corporate control, Japanese and American culture, and the brutal nature of the modern livestock industry.
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In a single eye-opening year, two women, worlds apart, experience parallel awakenings.
In New York, Jane Takagi-Little has landed a job producing Japanese docu-soap My American Wife! But as she researches the consumption of meat in the American home, she begins to realize that her ruthless search for a story is deeply compromising her morals.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, housewife Akiko Ueno diligently prepares the recipes from Jane's programme. Struggling to please her husband, she increasingly doubts her commitment to the life she has fallen into.
An intense and thoughtful time-hopping dystopian fantasy where three individuals, psychically linked through time, fight enslavement, exploitation, and environmental collapse. A great read for fans of Emily St. John Mandel.
In 2106, Maida Sun possesses the ability to see the entire history of any object she touches. When she starts…
These books aren't just the best in their field–they're the best at pinpointing the place I am from. Tartan Noir is a rich world, and I'm just about to join it. These books give a sense of place and people and sometimes bring a little laughter in the dark. To me, that's Scotland, in its magnificence, grandeur, and polar opposite of these things. Scotland is a country with two faces, as everyone from James Hogg onwards knew well... Let's see which side you prefer!
Gonzo journalism meets Tartan Noir as Iain Banks ventures into crime. A journalist who’s a big fan of all the bad stuff seems to have a link to a killer picking off members of the establishment.
The second-person narration follows the killer, an unusual stylistic flourish. The answers to the horror lie within, and this book goes to some unbearably dark places. (In theory, The Crow Road is also a murder mystery.)
The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of a modern classic: 'ingenious, daring and brilliant' - Guardian
COMPLICITY n. 1. the fact of being an accomplice, esp. in a criminal act
A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - could be big, could be very big - in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.
The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series…
We live in a bizarre era of Elon Musk stans who seem certain that if you work hard you’ll be rewarded not only with ‘fuck you’ money, but ‘fuck everyone’ money. I think any writer worth their salt should at some point tackle the issues of their age in their writing. In our era racism, sexism, climate change, and a range of other social justice issues are all exacerbated through the improper distribution of wealth. You could give a man a fish, and he might eat for a day. Or you could eviscerate the rich, share their wealth, and throw the whole world a parade!
McGahan is one of my all-time favourites for numerous reasons. When I was a baby writer just getting started, I was so excited to have McGahan writing about my home city of Brisbane, showing all its scars and burn marks. He has an incredible knack for writing across genres, something that I think more writers should aspire to. In this case he turns his hand to an elegant take on the supernatural thriller. The supernatural elements here are uniquely and beautifully presented. There are no vampires or magic, just nature in a primal and anthropomorphic capacity. Many books are described as ‘man vs nature,’ but that relationship has never been more savagely explored than in this book. It also has the most bittersweet author’s note I’ve ever read. Gets me every time.
In the freezing Antarctic waters south of Tasmania, a mountain was discovered in 1642 by the seafaring explorer Gerrit Jansz. Not just any mountain but one that Jansz estimated was an unbelievable height of twenty-five thousand metres.
In 2016, at the foot of this unearthly mountain, a controversial and ambitious 'dream home', the Observatory, is painstakingly constructed by an eccentric billionaire - the only man to have ever reached the summit.
Rita Gausse, estranged daughter of the architect who designed the Observatory is surprised, upon her father's death, to be invited to the isolated mansion to meet the…
I’ve always been drawn to locked-room mysteries, the baffling mysteries where the crime looks truly impossible. The mystery becomes not only who did it, but also how. It’s the ultimate puzzle. The best locked-room mysteries include gothic elements that make you wonder if something supernatural is responsible, but then are resolved with a satisfying rational explanation—like Scooby-Doo for adults. I’ve written more than a dozen mystery novels, but until now, I’ve only focused on locked-room mysteries in my short fiction. In my new Secret Staircase mystery series, I’m focusing on these puzzles in my novels. Here, I’m sharing some of my favorite locked-room mysteries that feature truly ingenious puzzles.
Set on a treacherous sea voyage in 1634, this impossible crime is cloaked by an atmospheric setting. Is a demon hiding on the ship—or is there a very real killer stalking victims in the claustrophobic setting? This was unlike any locked-room mystery I’d ever read, and it was impossible not to get swept up in the adventure on the high seas. With detective Samuel Pipps accused of a crime and imprisoned in cramped quarters on the ship, it’s up to his bodyguard to act on his behalf and prove a human hand—not a demon—is responsible for the murder and mayhem aboard.
'If you read one book this year, make sure it's this one' Daily Mail CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY MAIL, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY EXPRESS AND i PAPER WINNER OF THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD FOR FICTION SELECTED FOR THE BBC TWO BOOK CLUB BETWEEN THE COVERS AND THE RADIO 2 JO WHILEY BOOK CLUB An impossible murder A remarkable detective duo A demon who may or may not exist It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he…
I grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
I admit I was drawn to this book because of the author.
I grew up, as many did, reading all the beloved Winnie the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne, so when I discovered he had penned a murder mystery, I was curious. A large house, a murder, compelling characters, and subtle clues kept me reading until the very end. A clever who-done-it mystery with a satisfying ending.
The Red House Mystery (1922) is a detective novel by A.A. Milne. Known more for his series of Winnie-the-Pooh stories and poems for children, Milne also wrote novels and plays for adults, including this successful whodunnit. The Red House Mystery, Milne's only detective novel, was highly successful upon publication and is noted for its use of an amateur sleuth as well as its intricate, puzzle-like plot. Despite earning the ire of Raymond Chandler, Milne's novel was reprinted in the U.S. and in Britain numerous times.
At his house in the English countryside, Mark Ablett hosts a small party of…
