Here are 71 books that The Past Is Red fans have personally recommended if you like
The Past Is Red.
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Before becoming an author, I’d dabbled in almost every other genre—science fiction, western, coming-of-age, fantasy, and the like. When I wrote, published, and won awards for my first two mystery thrillers, I felt like I had finally found my niche with mystery readers. Good writers are good readers, so for years, I read only the genre for which I was writing. After a time, all those mysteries started to become rather formulaic, so I decided to branch out into other genres I used to enjoy. When I heard that other mystery fans were experiencing “genre burnout,” I built this list to encourage them to enjoy the fruits of all genres.
Much like the bibliophilic protagonist of The Shadow of the Wind, I discovered this life-changing novel in a most hidden corner of the world—in my case, tucked out of sight on the bottom shelf of a discount bookstore in the Red Light District of Amsterdam.
While the narrative focuses on one child’s unwavering perseverance to solve the mysterious disappearance of his favorite author and unmask the pyromaniac burning all his books, I became enmeshed in the noir-style, labyrinthine backdrop of 1940s-50s Barcelona in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.
This masterpiece is equal parts mystery, coming-of-age, midcentury gothic, and European historical fiction, and left me with eyes brimming with tears when I finished the final page.
"The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero." -Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice)
"One gorgeous read." -Stephen King
Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been…
This is the part of the Bible they don't want you to read. Lucifer is God’s attempt at perfection. But Lucifer betrays God to live among the mortals on Earth, making enemies of God and God’s many followers.
Lucifer is just like you and me, looking for love in all…
This astonishing novel is a rare treasure for any reader who loves both imaginative high fantasy and exquisite, sometimes challenging literary fiction. I read with a double sense of wonderment: at the powerful beauty of the story itself, and at the very fact that it was so powerful and beautiful. It is not often I find a book as good as this.
The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family-the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors-hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.
But that god cannot be contained forever.
With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her…
As a child, I was a maladaptive daydreamer. I could often be found crafting elaborate fantasies in my head featuring fully-fledged worlds and characters that I would actively interact with and speak to as if they were real. I was a strange child, and I kept that strangeness with me when I went into fiction. Since then, I’ve always wanted to encapsulate the feeling of giving a movie-like experience in book form. I want the people who read my work to feel like they’re experiencing something real.
Reading this book felt like drinking a pitch-black winter night. That’s the best way I can describe it. Somehow, Valente managed to masterfully bottle the frigid sensation of a bleak midwinter and transport it to the page.
I’ve always loved this book for how mythic and grandiose it feels even in the short amount of pages it has. This is something that I feel would come alive in an animated adaptation where you can really capture the eerie and surrealist imagery used.
A handsome young man arrives in St Petersburg at the house of Marya Morevna. He is Koschei, the Tsar of Life, and he is Marya's fate. For years she follows him in love and in war, and bears the scars. But eventually Marya returns to her birthplace - only to discover a starveling city, haunted by death. Deathless is a fierce story of life and death, love and power, old memories, deep myth and dark magic, set against the history of Russia in the twentieth century. It is, quite simply, unforgettable.
This is the part of the Bible they don't want you to read. Lucifer is God’s attempt at perfection. But Lucifer betrays God to live among the mortals on Earth, making enemies of God and God’s many followers.
Lucifer is just like you and me, looking for love in all…
"One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century."—Time magazine, on the Fairyland series
Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can…
The genius that lies behind the best collections of short stories, such as Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber," relies on developing a theme in the stories that is inherently dependent upon the reader's response.
In "The Bloody Chamber," Carter re-tells fairy tales such as Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, from a feisty feminist point of view meant to evoke both horror and a bit of revenge from most feminist readers. How that combination of horror and revenge affects our psyches is most revealing to the readers as to how they react to the new version of a very old, if not myth-based tale from the patriarchal cultures of the past where women were mistreated and abused on a regular basis.
My favorite was the re-telling of Red Riding Hood called "The Company of Wolves," a prelude to her next tale called "Wolf-Alice"!
With an introduction by Helen Simpson. From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.
My life quest has been to find true magic. Once believing it could only be uncovered in ruins or cathedrals continents away, I ended up discovering it in my own backyard under the Big Sky. When I was young, I read everything science fiction and fantasy to feel like that magic was real and bask in worlds far different from my own. Now, as a professional editor and author based in the West… I still read everything science fiction and fantasy, but now I get paid to do it.
I read this when my son was born, looking for a familiar story in more ways than one. This imported classic European fairy tale has our gunslinging Snow White escaping to the wild west and feels like a new comfort fable… if replacing dark twisted forests for a wind-whipped big sky can be comforting. It’s a story that doesn’t know how to end, or even if it should end—making it another facet to join numerous retellings. The Huntsman becomes a Pinkerton, the dwarves now a band of women on the run, and the Prince a melancholy expression of America’s history where many have no voice. It’s a bit cerebral and reveals heart-wrenching lessons when reflected on current times. Which, I suppose, is the purpose of a fable, right?
A New York Times bestselling author offers a brilliant reinvention of one of the best-known fairy tales of all time with Snow White as a gunslinger in the mythical Wild West.
Forget the dark, enchanted forest. Picture instead a masterfully evoked Old West where you are more likely to find coyotes as the seven dwarves. Insert into this scene a plain-spoken, appealing narrator who relates the history of our heroine’s parents—a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. Although her mother’s life ended…
From dancing on a crane in a meteor shower, to earning a history degree at the top program in my country; bathing under a waterfall to cradling the dying as a physician—I’ve always straddled the line between adventure and hunger for the truth beyond. Some books are the same way: they pull you in with fun and plot, and colors, and they leave you with bigger thoughts and questions about the Universe at large. All genres have this capacity for surprise and depth, but space opera’s best—here’s a list of reads with that special metaphysical power.
I picked up this book because the back cover made it sound like this funny romp where a rock competition decides the fate of the Earth—and who doesn’t want that? But this isn’t just a more uplifting version of that one Rick and Morty episode about “Gettin’ Schwifty.”
With vivid worlds and deeply flawed characters, Space Opera is like a psychedelic trip with that brilliant, probably-drunk friend whose gorgeous mind you could listen to for days. (Stop looking at me like that! I’m not in love with her syntax, you are!)
Don’t get me wrong: there are so many behaviors in Space Opera that I recommend against as a sexual health physician—they’d increase your risk of disease and mental illness—and I’ve got moral positions that don’t jive with Valente’s vision, either. But there’s a scene where Valente touches on immigration and deportation that made me weep and left an indent…
FINALIST FOR HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2019 FINALIST FOR LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL 2019
IN SPACE EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU SING
A century ago, intelligent space-faring life was nearly destroyed during the Sentience Wars. To bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity and understanding, the Metagalactic Grand Prix was created. Part concert, part contest, all extravaganza, species far and wide gather to compete in feats of song, dance and/or whatever facsimile of these can be performed by various creatures who may or may not possess, in the traditional sense, feet, mouths, larynxes…
Ever since I was a child, I’ve been dismayed by the humdrum monotony of everyday life. Of course, that is why one is drawn to books. The books on this list are historical fiction with otherworldly wonder. The world of the imagination is not an escape; it’s a portal to a new view of life. I’ve written four books set in the Italian Renaissance and two set in ancient Britain. Because of the depth of research, each one has taken about eight years. I’m constantly astonished at how imagination can fill the gaps history leaves. Striving always for plausibility, it is encouraging to count historians and archaeologists amongst my readers, cheering me on.
I love the way Miller treats mythic figures as sharing reality with humans.
Who can forget blue-green Thetis coming out dripping from the sea to meet her son, the hero Achilles? This is how the ancients wrote about the gods, and it's terrific to see it making a comeback after a hundred years or so when myth was treated as a source for psychoanalysis.
I was not so much inspired by this book (it came late) as encouraged and confirmed in my own treatment of otherworldly figures. They are there, for those with the eyes or imagination to see.
**OVER 1.5 MILLION COPIES SOLD** **A 10th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION, FEATURING A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR**
WINNER OF THE ORANGE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION THE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
'Captivating' DONNA TARTT 'I loved it' J K ROWLING 'Ravishingly vivid' EMMA DONOGHUE
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms…
I’ve loved both history and fantasy since I was a child. The first book I can remember reading at all was The Hobbit. The first historical novel I fell in love with was The Killer Angels. I visited the battlefield of Gettysburg with my family, and currently teach the movie every year to my high school film class. (I’ve never visited Middle Earth, but plan to visit New Zealand as soon as possible). I’ve been reading both genres ever since—and quite by accident my first novel contains a mix of both genres.
It purports to be historical fiction set in the Old West, following one of the last great cattle drives. Yet within a few chapters, it begins to feel like a series of episodes from Grimm’s fairy tales.
I remember at UC Irvine, where I earned my Fiction MFA, several fellow writers were reading this novel alongside me. We kept stopping each other in the hall or at cocktail parties to relive this or that chapter, struggling to understand how it could be both so entertaining and so good.
The fact that it is long—a real doorstopper of a book—adds to its “too-big-for-one-genre” feel.
Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. From Texas to Montana, it follows cowboys on a grueling cattle drive through the wilderness.
It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande. It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . .
More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America.
I grew up when the space race was starting, and I became fascinated by all things regarding the planets, rockets, and the cosmos. For several years, I lived in the Houston area and spent hours and hours at the Johnson Space Center, where the history and future of space exploration are on display. The books on my list represent a major theme in my writing, which is futuristic in concept and asks the question: what we would do if our planet became uninhabitable. The answer provides the canvas to explore the advantages of technology, but most importantly, the determination of the human spirit.
This book grabbed me with the horrific opening scene and made me think about how this planet is moving into a climate-threatening situation.
I loved the way Robinson made me feel what it was like to live in a heat-ravaged world. I liked the main character, the head of the Ministry for the Future, because she was believable. She was smart, compassionate, and politically savvy, the kind of person you could trust in this position.
I like that the climate threat is the canvas upon which the characters need to react. For me, it is very relevant to our current situation.
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite…
