Here are 100 books that The Prisoner in His Palace fans have personally recommended if you like
The Prisoner in His Palace.
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My new thriller centers around a small, mysterious cult and their shocking demise. For years, I’ve read true crime books on the subject, and I wanted to infuse the reality and truth of real-life events into my fictional novel. In a similar vein, these books represent a range of thrillers inspired by true events, ranging from cults to serial killers to teenage criminals. I hope you find these books as gripping and haunting as I do.
I find this book to be an unsettling but impactful read, both thought-provoking and complex. We Need to Talk about Kevin follows the mother of a troubled teenager responsible for a school shooting.
It’s about nature versus nurture, the relationship between mother and child, and deeply seated guilt. It draws inspiration from real events, including the 1999 shooting at Columbine, which wasn’t the U.S.’s first mass shooting at a school, but it would become one of the most infamous.
Shriver’s novel raises unsettling questions about a mother’s guilt and self-justification and a community’s heartache and blame. I consider it to be a captivating and moving book.
Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of a boy named Kevin who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who had tried to befriend him. Now, two years after her son's horrific rampage, Eva comes to terms with her role as Kevin's mother in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband Franklyn about their son's upbringing. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
My psychotherapist has always described me as a black and white thinker. Good and evil. Happy or sad. Up or down. I struggle with shades of gray in my day-to-day life. Which is maybe the reason I am drawn to literature that explores morally ambiguous characters and settings. Not only does every book on this list have no clear hero or villain, but each story forces the reader to question what they think they know about right and wrong. I may be a black and white thinker in every practical sense, but I read and write about people and situations that occupy that very human space of in-between.
Want to laugh out loud? Then read The Princess Bride. I’m sure you’ve seen the classic movie version, but you owe it to yourself to go back to the source material by William Goldman. I never knew a book could be so funny!
The narrative stretches the boundaries of storytelling, taking the reader down a path that is touching, scary, and hilarious in turns. I loved the absurdist characters. I loved even more Goldman’s clear, comic voice throughout.
William Goldman’s beloved story of Buttercup, Westley, and their fellow adventurers.
This tale of true love, high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts was unforgettably depicted in the 1987 film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Fred Savage, Robin Wright, and others. But, rich in character and satire, the novel boasts even more layers of ingenious storytelling. Set in 1941 and framed cleverly as an “abridged” retelling of a centuries-old tale set in the fabled country of Florin, home to “Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest…
I’ve always wanted my work to have meaning beyond the paycheck, and for some reason, my mind automatically seems to drift toward the bigger picture. During my career, I have watched environmental issues change from being distant concerns to a flat-out crisis that we may well have ignored until it is too late. I think the issue of humanity being able to thrive with respect for each other, other species, and the planet itself is the one that matters most.
When I started reading this book, I thought, ‘I don’t even care if it’s a load of rubbish, because it feels so good just to read something nice about our species for a change’. A bonus is that, far from rubbish, it turns out to be extremely well-grounded and evidence-based.
I found this challenge to the negative stories we tell about human nature to be so refreshing and uplifting.
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman and Daily Express Book of the Year
'Hugely, highly and happily recommended' Stephen Fry 'You should read Humankind. You'll learn a lot (I did) and you'll have good reason to feel better about the human race' Tim Harford 'Made me see humanity from a fresh perspective' Yuval Noah Harari
It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
“The truth is exactly the opposite of the words” - I just noticed on my door, I still have an old sticker that bears those words. I guess, I’ve tended to find that common-sense assumptions about major things – politics, religion, war, love, good and evil, relationships, and so on – are simply not accurate and more the results of lazy thinking, ignorance, politics, or ideology. I did a PhD in propaganda, which led me to an eclectic freelance career investigating conspiracy theories, making documentaries, writing novels, doing stand-up comedy, and suchlike – so I have a background in engaging big and crazy ideas.
It is easy especially when young to assume that families are somewhat neutral or generally nurturing. We make our own way through the world and our background is only of some relevance. Oliver James shows how the environment in which we emerge affects every aspect of how we live. But while this is both a self-help book and psychological treatise, James also provides amazing case studies from the celebrity world, including a detailed and uncompromising analysis of how the royal family ended up being so cold-hearted.
Do your relationships tend to follow the same destructive pattern? Do you feel trapped by your family's expectations of you? Does your life seem overwhelmingly governed by jealousy or competitiveness or lack of confidence? In this ground-breaking book, clinical psychologist Oliver James shows that it is the way we were cared for in the first six years of life that has a crucial effect on who we are and how we behave. Nurture, in effect, shapes our very nature. James combines the latest scientific research with fascinating interviews to show that understanding your past is the first step to controlling…
I have been a teacher, writer, scholar, and, above all, a critic of social injustice for my entire professional life. My experience living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank informed my critical voice around issues of language, knowledge, history, and policy in and about the Middle East, leading to the publication of my two scholarly monographs: Palestine in the American Mind: The Discourse on Palestine in the Contemporary United States and Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses. The titles I introduce here have been vital to my ongoing education on these issues and in my continuing advocacy for peace and justice in Palestine, the Middle East, and around the world.
I would not be the historian or social critic I am today without the guidance of the scholarship of Stephen Kinzer. From his prolific histories about Iran or the Middle East more broadly to his courageous dissection of the international crimes of the CIA, Kinzer’s views on American foreign policy are as relevant as they are important for the development of a complete worldview of contemporary international politics.
In this book, Kinzer brings all of these tools to bear in demonstrating how, time and again, the United States pursued selfish interests to the detriment of millions around the globe, usually with power and riches subsequently being shifted into the hands of American political elites.
Kinzer’s book is informative, provocative, and engaging and, therefore, makes for a necessary companion to my own work in this field.
Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow provides a fast-paced narrative history of the coups, revolutions, and invasions by which the United States has toppled fourteen foreign governments -- not always to its own benefit
"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its…
I am a retired Army officer who served for 43 years. I was also in the Pentagon on 9/11 and knew that life as we knew it would change dramatically. The book I wrote, called The Impossible Mission, is about the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq and the birth of a small contingent called OSC-I, which I had the privilege to command, with the mission to build the Iraqi security systems. This command allowed me to bring closure to the many years I had to deal with “the war on terrorism” both from a policy perspective and by leading America’s soldiers who were at the front lines fighting the war.
This book covers many of the topics my book is about, but from a perspective of serving in Iraq immediately after the Saddam Hussain defeat.
I know the author well, and she did a marvelous job laying the groundwork of Iraq’s challenges immediately after Saddam was captured, to where my book covers 8 years later at the U.S. Forces withdrawal.
I loved this book because the author did a great job capturing some very sensitive topics the U.S. forces faced early on in Iraq. The author also did a great job describing herself as an independent advisor who earned and won the respect of the U.S. senior commanders and became a huge influencer in developing U.S. policy in Iraq.
When Emma Sky volunteered to help rebuild Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, she had little idea what she was getting in to. Her assignment was only supposed to last three months. She went on to serve there longer than any other senior military or diplomatic figure, giving her an unrivaled perspective of the entire conflict.As the representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Kirkuk in 2003 and then the political advisor to US General Odierno from 2007-2010, Sky was valued for her knowledge of the region and her outspoken voice. She became a tireless witness to…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
My passion is fixing our diplomacy. Relatively late in my career, I found a new home working with and for some of the Foreign Service’s most talented people. My assignments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia (during the 1990-91 Gulf War) led to my appointment as ambassador in Oman. After retirement I returned to Cairo to set up a regional multilateral development bank (we were unsuccessful) and later rebuild Iraq’s foreign ministry. I experienced the negative and frustrating impact of politicization and militarization on our foreign policy. Knowing we can and must do better motivated me to writeFrom Sadat to Saddam and to commend to you the five books below.
Although Stephen Coll’s Ghost Wars and Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower deserved the attention they got, Circle in the Sand, in my opinion, did the best job of connecting the dots between our decision to deploy 500,000 troops in Saudi Arabia in 1990 and the 9/11 attack and our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.Alfonsi highlights the misgivings of Chas Freeman, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and my boss from 1989-92, about our continued military presence and the growing Islamic opposition to the Saudi royal family. Our reporting from Riyadh attracted little interest in Washington. Chas Freeman was the last career professional to serve as ambassador to Saudi Arabia until 2022. The influence of career professionals on U.S. policy toward the Middle East continued to diminish during the Clinton years.
An important, massively researched and revelation-filled work of history that uncovers how decisions made by the first Bush White House preordained the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq.
“Is this a one-time thing, or should we foreshadow more to come?”
This was the prophetic question posed by National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft in a secret April 1991 memorandum about the postwar management of Iraq, two months after the United States had defeated Iraqi forces in Operation Desert Storm—but left Saddam Hussein securely in power. Circle in the Sand challenges the widely held notion that Saddam’s survival was the result of…
I write and teach about nineteenth-century US history, and I am interested in immigration for both personal and professional reasons. A native of Dublin, Ireland, I did my undergraduate work in Edinburgh, Scotland, completed my graduate degree in New York City, moved to Austin, Texas for my first academic job and to Boston for my second job, and then returned to New City York to take up my current position at NYU, where I teach US immigration history and run Glucksman Ireland House. The key themes in my work—migration, diaspora, and empire—have been as central to my life journey as to my research and teaching.
Moral Contagion tells the shocking story of the Seamen Acts, under which free Black sailors were imprisoned during their stay in southern ports during the antebellum era.
At least 20,000 free Black maritime workers, mostly from Britain and northern US states, were confined—and an unknown number, abandoned by their captains, were sold into slavery. The presence of free Black people in the South—widely feared as a source of “moral contagion”—contradicted the logic of slavery and threatened the very survival of that institution.
Why do I include this book on a list about US immigration history in the nineteenth century? Because, as Michael Schoeppner powerfully demonstrates, that history cannot be understood without considering the laws and policies controlling the movement of Black people in a slaveholding republic.
Between 1822 and 1857, eight Southern states barred the ingress of all free black maritime workers. According to lawmakers, they carried a 'moral contagion' of abolitionism and black autonomy that could be transmitted to local slaves. Those seamen who arrived in Southern ports in violation of the laws faced incarceration, corporal punishment, an incipient form of convict leasing, and even punitive enslavement. The sailors, their captains, abolitionists, and British diplomatic agents protested this treatment. They wrote letters, published tracts, cajoled elected officials, pleaded with Southern officials, and litigated in state and federal courts. By deploying a progressive and sweeping notion…
My interest in global issues developed when I was a student. What was my conviction already then became more obvious every year since then. In order to solve our most urgent problems, we need to have a strong and legitimate global governance system. Global governance, therefore, became the core of my research. I am Michael Zürn, the Director of the Research Unit Global Governance at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and a Professor of International Relations at Free University of Berlin. I have also been the co-spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence "Contestations of the Liberal Script" (SCRIPTS) since 2019.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the actors, interests, and politics that define contemporary global governance. Pouliot and Therien break down the “bricolage” of global governance policy-making, establishing a clear framework and methodological approach for assessing global governance in practice.
This book stands out for its “how-to” approach and reframing of global governance, not as a functional response to global problems but as the outcome of struggles about transboundary practices and universal values. It is a must-read for making sense of the patchwork of our increasingly connected but simultaneously conflicted global society.
This book analyzes the politics of global governance by looking at how global policymaking actually works. It provides a comprehensive theoretical and methodological framework which is systematically applied to the study of three global policies drawn from recent UN activities: the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, the institutionalization of the Human Rights Council from 2005 onwards, and the ongoing promotion of the protection of civilians in peace operations. By unpacking the practices and the values that have prevailed in these three cases, the authors demonstrate how global policymaking forms a patchwork pervaded by improvisation and social conflict.…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a historian at the University of Maryland, College Park. In the past forty years, I have published six books and many articles on twentieth-century German history including Reactionary Modernism: Technology Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich; Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys; Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World; and Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989. My personal interest in German history began at home. My father was one of those very fortunate German Jews who found refuge in the United States before Hitler closed the borders and launched the Holocaust.
Radosh and Radosh offer a compelling and dramatic history of Truman’s decision to support Jewish emigration to Palestine in 1947, and to recognize the state of Israel in 1948. They examine Truman’s dilemmas as he made the recognition decision against the advice of the leaders of his own State Department, including his own Secretary of State George Marshall. A Safe Haven offers a careful and essential guide to American politics regarding the Zionist issue, and to the combination of political and religious arguments that were decisive in Truman’s decision making.
“[This] revelatory account of Truman's vital contributions to Israel's founding. . .is told. . . with an elegance informed by thorough research." —Wall Street Journal
"Even knowing how the story ends, A Safe Haven had me sitting on the edge of my seat.” —Cokie Roberts
A dramatic, detailed account of the events leading up to the creation of a Jewish homeland and the true story behind President Harry S. Truman’s controversial decision to recognize of the State of Israel in 1948, drawn from Truman’s long-lost diary entries and other previously unused archival materials.
