Here are 90 books that The Ninth Hour fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a writer who has spent my entire reading life emersed in the past, reading everything from Russian literature, to nineteenth-century English, to early modern American. It’s no surprise I became a historical fiction novelist. The 1950s is one of my favorite eras to write about because of its complexity. The glamour of the Golden Age and the dark truths it represents make for compelling reads. I hope you love the list below as much as I do.
Ireland is one of my favorite locations for novels, as well as New York City, and this one toggles between both. It’s the story of a young girl in a small town with no opportunity who travels to find a place where she can thrive. It’s a story we’ve heard many times before, and yet it never gets old.
I was drawn to the aspects of this novel that uncover the realities of the 1950s from the perspective of a young, female immigrant with no resources. It deals with survival in a totally different way than the books I listed above. There’s an intensity and reality to it that is profound.
Colm Toibin's Brooklyn is a devastating story of love, loss and one woman's terrible choice between duty and personal freedom. The book that inspired the major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan.
It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time.
Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is…
A poignant narrative about one young immigrant’s triumph in America, inspired by true events.
1938. Eli Stoff and his parents, Austrian Jews, escape to America just after the Nazis take over their homeland. Within five years, Eli joins the US Army and, thanks to his understanding of the German language…
I’ve been fascinated by "sea stories" since I could read, maybe before. I was born in Liverpool, my dad was in the navy, my family ran an 18th-century inn named the Turk’s Head after a nautical knot, and I’ve directed or written more than twenty films, plays, and novels with the sea as their setting. But they’re not really about the sea. For me, the sea is a mirror to reflect the human condition, a theatre for all the human dramas I can imagine. More importantly, I’ve read over a hundred sea stories for research and pleasure, and those I’ve chosen for you are the five I liked best.
I love this story because, for me, it’s a perfect example of why a ship is such a great platform for storytelling, a moving stage for a compelling cast of characters to act out the drama of their past and present lives while heading into an uncertain future.
The Star of the Sea is a "coffin ship," the name given to the leaking hulks that transported a million emigrants from Ireland to America during the Great Famine of the 1840s.
It’s a historical novel but for me, a timeless story about emigration and the human condition, of refugees fleeing the monsters of their past, war, famine, disease, whatever, into what they hope will be a brighter future, and of what happens to them on the way.
Rediscover Joseph O'Connor's monumental #1 international bestseller.
In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by injustice and natural disaster, the Star of the Sea sets sail for New York.
On board are hundreds of fleeing refugees. Among them are a maidservant with a devastating secret, bankrupt Lord Merridith and his family, an aspiring novelist and a maker of revolutionary ballads, all braving the Atlantic in search of a new home. Each is connected more deeply than they can possibly know.
But a camouflaged killer is stalking the decks, hungry for…
I’m an Irish historian and biographer living in London and have always been fascinated by the confused attitudes that bedevil the relationship between Ireland and England. Educated in Ireland and the USA, I came to teach at the University of London in 1974, a period when IRA bombings had penetrated the British mainland. In 1991, I moved to Oxford and taught there for twenty-five years. As I constantly move between the two countries and watch my children growing up with English accents but Irish identities, I remain as fascinated as ever by the tensions, parallels, memories, and misunderstandings (often well-meaning) that prevail on both sides of the narrow Irish Sea.
Elizabeth Bowen once described the Ireland-England relationship as ‘a mixture of showing-off and suspicion, nearly as bad as sex’. Her 1928 novel demonstrates this beautifully, eviscerating the attitudes of Anglo-Irish grandees in their Big House as the country around them crackles with guerilla war and showing the incomprehension between the Irish (at all social levels) and the British soldiers sent ostensibly to keep the peace.
Though it ends in tragedy, social comedy, as so often, shows the brutal realities beneath the surface. And the atmosphere of the Irish landscape, at once idyllic and brooding, comes alive in Bowen’s supercharged prose.
Read Elizabeth Bowen's accessible feminist take on the Irish aristocracy
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIA GLENDINNING
The Irish troubles rage, but up at the 'Big House', tennis parties, dances and flirtations with the English officers continue, undisturbed by the ambushes, arrests and burning country beyond the gates. Faint vibrations of discord reach the young girl Lois, who is straining for her own freedom, and she will witness the troubles surge closer and reach their irrevocable, inevitable climax.
Alice Wilson wants children; her husband, Dan, doesn’t. So Alice "accidentally" gets pregnant, trusting that Dan will eventually go along—and he seems to, at first. But as their marriage falls apart, Alice realizes that, even from the beginning, Dan has cruelly used small criticisms and belittling comments to undermine her…
I am a lover of all things Irish because of my heritage, with my maiden name O’Shea. Both of my parents’ grandparents came from Ireland to the United States: the O’Sheas from County Kerry and the Ward and Sullivans from Galway and Bantry. As an English major, I have loved the works of Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and I wrote my Master’s thesis on Ulysses by Joyce. Both of my own novels center around the Irish. I understand their love/hate relationship with the Catholic Church, and I love the stinging wit and lively humor of the people. The Irish are great storytellers!
Edna O’Brien’s work makes me laugh and cry at the same time!
The Country Girls is a rollicking tale of two girls from rural Ireland in the 1950s, convent-educated, who leave home after their secondary school graduation to seek freedom and fun in the big city of Dublin.
Not quite Sex in the City, but a reader will laugh with the girls and sympathize with their troubles with men and work.
The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls trilogy begins in August 2019.
Edna O'Brien's wonderful, wild and moving novel shocked the nation on its publication in 1960. Adapted for the stage by the author, The Country Girls, the play, is a highly theatrical and free-flowing telling of this classic coming of age story.
This new edition of The Country Girls was published to coincide with its UK premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in June 2017.
Edna O'Brien's stunning new novel Girl will be published by Faber in September 2019, available to pre-order now.
I studied French language and literature from the time I was 13 until I graduated from college. Alongside that work, I also became more interested in African American literary and artistic histories, so I studied that as well. I realized there was a lot of overlap as many Black American artists would flee to Europe to “escape” American racism. Learning more about these historical writers throughout my graduate school journey made me very interested in researching further and writing my own take on the subject for young people.
I loved that this classic by one of America’s greatest literary minds gave me answers about what it would be like if I did what I always dreamed of doing: leaving America behind and moving to France. One of the important things I came to realize was that The Great Escape would not solve your problems, but it would help give you a fresh perspective on things.
'A masterwork... an almost unbearable, tumultuous, blood-pounding experience' Washinton Post
When Another Country appeared in 1962, it caused a literary sensation. James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit.
'In Another Country, Baldwin created the essential American drama of the century' Colm Toibin
PoppyHarp has at its heart the mystery of a forgotten children’s TV show from the 70s, so I wanted to share books that explore a similar idea–the fiction in fiction–be it an invented book, movie, or TV show that drives the narrative in some way. These five books all feature the enigmatic quality of something lost or some kind of age-old mystery waiting to be unraveled by its protagonists. They are also five books that I absolutely adore.
I absolutely fell for and into this seductive and sublimely entertaining book about a journalist investigating the enigma of Stanislas Cordova, an infamous and reclusive horror movie director. Nobody knows where he is or even if he’s still alive.
The invention of Cordova’s legend in the book is inspired; I love how Pessl builds layers of fake pop culture references and internet rabbit holes that feel so real you can almost hear the flicker of celluloid of one of Cordova’s movies playing out in your head. Even years after reading this book, I still recall it vividly in my mind’s eye.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Cosmopolitan • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage
A page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson, Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy—the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange…
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is…
As someone who has experienced a lot of loss in my life, I’ve done a good amount of research and exploration into the soulful nature in all of us (the living and the dead) through reading nonfiction (Laura Lynn Jackson, Brian Weiss, Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts, John Edward and Suzane Northrop among them) and fiction that deals with strong soulful connections. Through my own work as an author, I seek to provide the message love, in any form, transcends life and death. We only have to be open to the possibility to know it and experience it. Nothing is a coincidence and we are all connected. I hope these selections open you to the possibility.
Fabiaschi’s story is told from two very different perspectives.
One is from earth and told from the perspectives of a grieving daughter and husband as they grapple with their loss. The other is from purgatory or a stasis from the perspective of the mother/wife who seems to have committed suicide. But everything is not as it seems. From the afterlife, Maddy tries to help her grieving family find answers and closure.
I was fascinated by the way Maddy attempts to affect the lives of her loved ones.
Maddy was a loving, devoted stay-at-home mother... until she committed suicide, which left her husband Brady and her teenage daughter Eve heartbroken and reeling, wondering how they can possibly continue without her. Maddy, however, isn't quite done with them. In an attempt to fulfil her family's needs, Maddy watches and meddles from beyond the grave, determined to find the perfect wife and mother to replace herself and heal her family. That's when she finds Rory: a free-spirited schoolteacher, who Maddy manoeuvres into Eve's confidences, but who turns out to be harbouring a tragedy of her own.
On reaching my late 40’s, the topic of ageing and dying raised its head with a clarion call. This wake up call led me to draw upon my 25 years’ experience as a scientist to research why we age, how we die, and what (if anything) we can do about it all. I also looked beyond the physical into the social and emotional aspects. These book recommendations reflect my journey to understanding that a life well lived is about doing things you like with people you love, rather than swallowing vitamin pills.
The end of our lives is full of choices. This book brilliantly presents a range of fictional endgames.
I was leant it by my parents, who described it as hilarious – I, in turn, was somewhat traumatized. But the imagery and the choose your own adventure aspect of it have stayed with me ever since reading it on holiday in France when the last thing I wanted to be thinking about was how we might die.
Shriver is a brilliant wordsmith, and you will return to her thoughts long after you close the book.
When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. Over ten years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man into a paranoid lunatic. Surely one’s own father passing should never come as such a relief.
Both medical professionals, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many elderly patients in similar states of decay. Although healthy and vital in their early fifties, the couple fears what may lie ahead. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal. To spare themselves and their loved ones such a humiliating and protracted decline, they should agree to commit suicide together once they’ve…
I’ve always been fascinated by the political aesthetics and political ferment of the 1960s. As someone born in the 1960s but not of the 1960’s generation, this has allowed for a certain “critical distance” in the ways I approach this period. I'm especially fascinated by the global circulation of cultural protest forms from the 1960s, what the historian Jeremy Suri called a “language of dissent.” The term Global Sixties is now used to explore this evident simultaneity of “like responses across disparate contexts,” such as finding jipis in Chile. In our book,The Walls of Santiago, we locate various examples of what we term the “afterlives” of Global Sixties protest signage.
Tanya Harmer is a noted diplomatic historian who focuses on the left-wing presidency of Salvador Allende in Chile during the early 1970s. Allende, as most people know, was violently overthrown in a CIA-backed coup d’etat in 1973. That event ushered in 15 years of brutal dictatorship and transformed Chile’s experiment with democratic socialism into the first example of neoliberalism in Latin America and the world. Harmer’s biography of Allende’s youngest daughter, Beatriz, is a brilliant, intimate portrait of a young activist torn between loyalty to her Socialist (and non-violent) father and the appeal of Cuba’s revolutionary fervor, with its emphasis on violent insurrection against the old order. It is a tragedy, much like the 1960s itself.
This biography of Beatriz Allende (1942-1977) - revolutionary doctor and daughter of Chile's socialist president, Salvador Allende - portrays what it means to live, love, and fight for change. Inspired by the Cuban Revolution, Beatriz and her generation drove political campaigns, university reform, public health programs, internationalist guerrilla insurgencies, and government strategies. Centering Beatriz's life within the global contours of the Cold War era, Tanya Harmer exposes the promises and paradoxes of the revolutionary wave that swept through Latin America in the long 1960s.
Drawing on exclusive access to Beatriz's private papers, as well as firsthand interviews, Harmer connects the…
Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, a Jewish woman and piano prodigy, who, in 1945 at age twenty-one, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America.
This intimate fictional portrait reveals the transformation of the nearly six-foot-tall, self-deprecating…
My first book love was Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. The game between author and reader that centers a whodunit has always delighted me. The breadcrumb trail of clues, the misdirection, the inevitable I should have seen it! are my jam. Now an author of whodunits—I have one series published and a second on the way, along with several short stories – I read mysteries with greater scrutiny—in admiration and with a selfish desire to learn from other authors’ envious talents. Each of the books on my list excited me for their excellent storytelling. In the end, I found them just plain entertaining. I hope you do too!
Up for a small-town Southern church lady amateur sleuth that kicks ass? After reading Danielle Arceneaux’s cozy-defying debut, my answer is yes!
Story hero Glory Broussard is a small-time bookie, loyal friend, exasperating mother, and intrepid detective. I found myself shaking my head, thinking Oh, no she didn’t! And loving her for it! I admire Arceneaux for crafting Glory as a complicated, hilarious, and surprising character—in other words, a stellar protagonist who is utterly and truly unique.
And there’s more. The bayou setting, Glory’s coffee shop hangout, local criminals, and small-town gossipy intrigue all meld into a steamy, irresistible plot I couldn’t get enough of.
The first in a vivid and charming crime series set in the Louisiana bayou, introducing the hilariously uncensored amateur sleuth Glory Broussard. Perfect for fans of Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club.
*A New York Times Book Review Best Crime Novel of the Year*
*A Washington Post Best Mystery Novel of the Year*
It's a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend-a nun beloved by…
