Books like The Notebook, the Proof, the Third Lie — picked by fans

Hedayat (1903-1951) was an Iranian writer who knew that death and the mythic experience of Kairos time exists a hair’s breadth away from what we commonly experience as human life.

The Blind Owl was the book that gave me permission to write fiction: instead of writing a novel in standard form, I wanted to create a liminal space, a threshold world between real and unreal; to invite readers into an unfamiliar (and hopefully transformative) vision of humanity.

This is exactly what Hedayat does in The Blind Owl: we are immersed in a fable of otherworldly, repetitive, poetic, dark, and mesmerising power. The story (of jealousy, despair, the cyclical nature of life and death) has a rare depth and a sense of universal reach precisely because it has one foot in the liminal.

I thought it was great to have Circe herself narrate her love affair with Odysseus.

The first half of the novel interestingly shares her tribulations growing up as a child in a family of gods. I found that this establishes a theme of immortality vs. mortality that the book explores in profound ways. Especially fascinating was Circe’s personal story of her love affair with Odysseus.

I was surprised and delighted that Miller included the resulting child, Telegonus, who is not in Homer but is in ancient myth. Even more surprising to me was Circe falling in love with Telemachus, Odysseus’ son by Penelope (also not in Homer!). This relationship allows the novel to end on a positive note as Circe learns to live like a mortal in her new life with Telemachus.

The famous Hannah Arendt coined “the banality of evil." Not monsters, but ordinary people were able to follow Hitler’s murderess ideology. Ordinary Men clearly shows how men and women from all walks of life were capable of becoming cold-blooded killers. Ordinary Men were the Nazi mobile gas units and death squads responsible for the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Poland & Ukraine.   

I was forever changed by the sheer poetic authenticity and ferocity of how Primo Levi captured his nearly one year of suffering unbearable atrocities at the Auschwitz Nazi prison camp with such humanity, causing me to gasp for air page after page; I literally had to stop and catch my breath.

As we are in a time of truth denial, as we drift further away from the holocaust, Levi wrenched me back to the horror and reminded me, and all who read his book, to “Never Forget.” I was both entertained and astonished by Levi’s exquisite yet unpretentious prose, captivating me, engaging me, and requiring me to ponder how man can find hope in the midst of evil. My hope for me and all who read this book is that we become a more compassionate species. This book is at the top of my recommended reading list. 

I recommend this book because James Baldwin’s brilliant voice and profound writing explore the intersection of personal truths and deeply held beliefs. Baldwin masterfully captures the youth and naivety of John Grimes as he wrestles with sexuality, faith, and the pervasive racism of his time.

This book brilliantly brings these struggles to life while showcasing Baldwin’s gift for conveying complex emotions and societal pressures with intimacy and precision. 

Like meat, this book was hard to digest. It made me feel anxiety, turmoil, and pain despite my uncertainty as to what exactly triggered these responses. The isolated experience of a woman believing herself to be a tree, attempting to achieve spiritual happiness while others overstepped their boundaries, felt so very violating and personal.

I love it when stories slice me down raw, revealing wounds I did not know existed beneath my skin.

Repila (b.1978) is a Spanish writer, whose work was recommended to me by a UK publisher: “The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse is a work of mythic genius that portrays tragic inevitability in a quite terrifyingly awesome way (I mean awesome in the archaic sense)."

The book tells the story of two brothers – Big and Small – trapped in a deep well and slowly starving to death. The language is precise and gut-wrenching, but the narrative reaches beyond its own particulars – compelling as they are – to work as a furious allegory of inequality and injustice.

What I love about the book is precisely this combination: one visceral scene in a well becomes a global commentary on the shadow side of the human. 

This is an award-winning book that will take you somewhere you are unlikely to have been before. I recommend having been a soldier, as someone who directly and indirectly writes on war, and with the knowledge of it being a domain of human folly, enfolding extreme emotions extending from hate to love. It held me in its grip. It made the familiar unfamiliar in a way that invited self-reflection. While a translation, its command of language was evident

A driving force behind so many fiction writers is not just to tell a compelling story but to expose particular aspects of the human condition. Diop’s book does this very powerfully. He puts the tragedy of racism, the consequence of colonialism, and questions of masculinity directly before the reader with no option to look away, but with an implied command to look at your own views and values.

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With this Hungarian author, I share the same birthday, as well as our mystical philosophy on life. Her book is an epic alchemical tale spanning centuries that describes the evolution of consciousness through subsequent incarnations from one life to the next.

I find not only the book itself fascinating but also the story of how it came into being. The author began to write it in a bomb shelter during WWII. Afterward, the Communists banned it and burned it, yet a few copies were miraculously rescued and hand-copied during dictatorial times.

Today, the book enjoys cult status in its homeland of Hungary. Unfortunately, the English translation is currently out of print, but if you can lay your hands on a version you can read, don’t miss out on this masterpiece.   

I can’t forget my very talented compatriot, Magda Szabó’s great writing. I am very proud of her and her success. It was hard work and lasted a lifetime for her to reach as Hungarian her books became popular worldwide. I hope one day I can follow her… This book is set in a religious school in the middle of World War II. The protagonist is young Gina, the daughter of a Hungarian General. The novel analyzes important social problems, teenager problems. At first, Gina is an outcast then we can see how she tries to fit in the class, and she makes friends. Friendship and togetherness are in the spotlight in this novel.