Here are 97 books that The Red House fans have personally recommended if you like
The Red House.
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I’ve spent a lifetime reading horror, I was probably in third grade when I stumbled across a battered collection of short stories by Saki in the adult section of the library—where I wasn’t supposed to be. I snuck the book back to the children’s section, started reading, and I was hooked. Then it was Edgar Allan Poe, and from Poe until now, it’s been every horror novel or short story I could find. The best of them have never left me. And they make up my list, The Most Terrifying Novels You Can’t Escape From.
Like the other books on the list, The Shining felt personal, more like something that was happening to me than a story I was reading.
Like Jack, I could feel myself hanging on while the menace around me grew more real, more concrete. And more overwhelming. Even today, I can feel the terror of losing control, of becoming part of the menace, part of the threat to everything of meaning and value. Snowbound with horror, and Spring will never come.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Before Doctor Sleep, there was The Shining, a classic of modern American horror from the undisputed master, Stephen King.
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote . . . and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around…
The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman
by
Robin Gregory,
After his doting aunt dies, a special fourteen-year-old boy who has trouble fitting into a remote 1906 village goes against a powerful retired Army captain determined to eradicate his outcast kin.
My family did not take vacations when I was young. We went to a hotel in Connecticut once (from New York), but my father got sick and we went home. So I always had an idealized vision of the sorts of family vacations you see in movies, where people sit in glamorous locations and drink bottles of wine and share intimate thoughts. I wanted to tap into that fantasy in writing Merry and think about what happens when reality and fantasy collide.
I love when Agatha Christie writes about family vacations (which she did a fair amount) because she pushes everything to extremes—with the highest stakes possible.
Appointment with Death is my favorite of her family vacation mysteries because the plot twist is so satisfying and the mother so evil.
What Christie does, in an over-the-top sort of way, is show how claustrophobic family vacations can be. Grown children are forced to behave like a younger version of themselves, and they are stuck in a remote location. In this case, Petra, in Egypt. All those dormant grievances have a chance to flourish.
I don’t think there’s ever been an Agatha Christie opera, but there should be.
In this exclusive authorized edition from the Queen of Mystery, the unstoppable Hercule Poirot finds himself in the Middle East with only one day to solve a murder.
Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sits the corpse of Mrs. Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist is the only sign of the fatal injection that killed her.
With only twenty-four hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back in Jerusalem: “You see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?” Mrs. Boynton was, indeed, the most…
My family did not take vacations when I was young. We went to a hotel in Connecticut once (from New York), but my father got sick and we went home. So I always had an idealized vision of the sorts of family vacations you see in movies, where people sit in glamorous locations and drink bottles of wine and share intimate thoughts. I wanted to tap into that fantasy in writing Merry and think about what happens when reality and fantasy collide.
I’m predisposed to like anything by Emma Straub. She writes with an emotional honesty I find appealing.
This one is about an affluent New York family that goes on vacation to Mallorca. I was looking through the reviews and was surprised to read that a lot of people found the characters unsympathetic, but that’s what I like about the book.
I think a lot of the stress people feel about family vacations is because they feel like everyone and everything should be perfect. I just don’t think that’s how real families are. So bring on the unlikability. Tell me a true story.
'Funny, poignant and beautifully observed' - Jojo Moyes, bestselling author of Me Before You
Two weeks in a remote island villa with America's most dysfunctional family - what could possibly go wrong?
It was set to be the family vacation of a lifetime.
From Manhattan to Majorca, two weeks in a remote island villa, with the sort of relaxation, culture and cuisine that only Europe can offer. At least, that was Franny's plan. She wasn't counting on the extra baggage . . .
Warm, wry and glowing with life, The Vacationers is a glorious novel…
A quiet, unsettling literary fiction novel about damaged outsiders finding each other. Ideal for fans of Never Let Me Go, Atonement, or The Virgin Suicides. From a BAFTA-winning screenwriter, now returning to novel writing.
In 1986, with Chernobyl smouldering on the news and the Cold War casting a…
My family did not take vacations when I was young. We went to a hotel in Connecticut once (from New York), but my father got sick and we went home. So I always had an idealized vision of the sorts of family vacations you see in movies, where people sit in glamorous locations and drink bottles of wine and share intimate thoughts. I wanted to tap into that fantasy in writing Merry and think about what happens when reality and fantasy collide.
My children loved this book when they were little, and so did I.
The poor Berenstain Bear family goes on what they think will be the best family vacation ever, but instead, one thing after another happens. At the end of the book, they look at photographs and remember it as the best family vacation ever.
This resonated with me because it’s the most disastrous family vacations that I remember most fondly. Once, I got a coupon to go to Niagara Falls, and only when we got there did I realize it was cheap because it was too cold to leave the hotel. I kept a copy of this Berenstain Bears book on my desk when I was writing Merry.
This classic Berenstain Bears story is a perfect way to teach children about making the best out of a bad situation!
Go on a vacation with the Bear family in this classic First Time Book (R) from Stan and Jan Berenstain. Papa, Mama, Brother, and Sister are heading to the Great Grizzly Mountains for a relaxing vacation. But a messy cabin, noisy animals, a swarm of mosquitos, and a rainstorm just might dampen all of their fun. Includes over 50 bonus stickers!
Since I was a child I’ve been drawn to mystery plots, because I love the sense of there being an agreement between author and reader, which leads to an ability to play with expectations. My most recent books have been Sherlock Holmes novels in the style of the classic Arthur Conan Doyle tales, though I’ve also written mysteries set on an isolated island and even on Mars! With each new story, I’ve found the act of plotting deeply satisfying. Of course, the next best thing to writing my own stories is reading another author’s novel that has a satisfying mystery, with a solution that in retrospect seems totally fair, but that I didn’t see coming.
A classic murder mystery from an unlikely author. Until recently I knew nothing about Winnie the Pooh author A. A. Milne’s single mystery novel—and now I feel it’s a great shame he didn’t write more. The Red House Mysteryis an archetypal murder mystery set in a country house and featuring a large cast, and there’s a wonderful locked-room puzzle at its center. Like many great mystery stories, it’s as much concerned with the rules of the genre as its characters, and it managed to wrongfoot me again and again, to my delight.
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 diverse…
I've often lived around the fringes of nature, from late-night cross-country road trips through forested backwoods, to living off-grid in New Mexico's high desert. As much as I've lived in the shadow of mountains and extreme environments, I've never dared to venture up into them – and I'm endlessly fascinated by the people who do. What is it that drives people toward extreme sports and outdoor challenges, even understanding the risks? Why do people risk life and limb to venture into places where man isn't meant to be? It's a question I don't think I'll ever stop finding fascinating.
Lotz's book is an intense character study, painting a portrait of her protagonist in masterful strokes.
Simon Newman is complex – simultaneously thrill-seeking but lazy, ambitious but anxious, traumatized but desperate to hide his weakness.
He has no business searching for bodies in the notoriously dangerous Cwm Pots, and he takes away exactly the wrong lessons from his survival. He certainly has no business on Mount Everest, and knows it. But now he's haunted by the (possibly literal) ghosts of his own bad choices, and he's in too deep now.
*****From the author of The Three, coming soon to your screen as a major BBC adaptation by Golden Globe winner Peter Straughan*****
Adrenaline-junky Simon Newman sneaks onto private land to explore a dangerous cave in Wales with a strange man he's met online. But Simon gets more than he bargained for when the expedition goes horribly wrong. Simon emerges, the only survivor, after a rainstorm trap the two in the cave. Simon thinks he's had a lucky escape.
But his video of his near-death experience has just gone viral.
Suddenly Simon finds himself more famous than he could ever have…
I was lucky enough to be introduced to medieval Welsh literature when I was an undergraduate, and the Welsh language mesmerised me. It is so unlike any other language that I had come across and translating texts from Welsh into English was as absorbing as code-cracking. My apprenticeship as a scholar was long and hard and I soon realised that my particular contribution was to make Welsh literature accessible to non-Welsh speakers, not simply through translations, but by aligning the Welsh tradition with the wider literary cultures of Europe. I want Wales and its two literatures to take their place as two of the great literatures of Europe.
M. Wynn Thomas is the foremost literary critic writing in Wales today, and a writer I particularly admire.
He pioneered the concept of ‘Welsh writing in English’ as distinct from ‘Welsh writing’ (in Welsh), honouring the bilingual culture of Wales. Thomas’s twelve poems are selected from three key periods of Welsh history, the Middle Ages, the pre-modern period, and our own time.
Each poem is read in the context of its social and political background, educating us about the politics of Welshness, the cultural assumptions written into the literature, and above all what it means to be Welsh in a nation that is not a state.
This is such an elegant and original way to foreground the creativity of Welsh poets alongside the cultural forces that shaped them.
Down the centuries, poets have provided Wales with a window onto its own distinctive world. This book gives the general reader a sense of the view to be seen through that special window in twelve illustrated poems, each bringing very different periods and aspects of the Welsh past into focus. Together, the poems give the flavour of a poetic tradition, both ancient and modern, that is internationally renowned for its distinction, demonstrating how Wales boast one of the oldest and yet continuing vibrant poetic traditions, the former in the Welsh language and the latter in English and bilingually.
I spent much of my childhood living close to Whitby Abbey and heard many stories of the famous Saint Hilda. As a mother of three, I began writing stories, initially to entertain my children, and eventually published many historical stories for children and young adults – twice shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. I moved back to the Whitby area in my 60s determined to write for an older age group and indulge my lifelong fascination for the Anglo-Saxon period. I took the half pagan Fridgyth character from my Young Adult adventure mystery – Wolfgirl - and developed her role as a warm, curious, flawed, investigator. I'm working on a third Fridgyth the Herbwife novel.
This is another historical novel set in my favourite time period AD 600’s, this time in Powys. The main character is Heledd – a peace-weaver bride, she is human, flawed, compelling, and courageous. The background detail is vivid and well researched, but what I love most about this book is the lyrical style of writing, which may almost give the reader the sense that the story is being sung, reflecting with feeling and humanity, the real Anglo-Saxon poetry that has come down to us. Here is a powerful sense of sadness, regret, and gathering doom, lifted by moments of pure joy – a true lament!
In seventh century Powys at the hall of King Cynddylan of Pengwern, the princesses, Heledd and Ffreur attend a celebratory feast where fifteen-year-old Heledd develops an infatuation for a travelling minstrel. Their illicit liaison triggers a chain of events that will destroy two kingdoms and bring down a dynasty. Set against the backdrop of the pagan-Christian conflict between kings Penda and Oswiu The Song of Heledd sweeps the reader from the ancient kingdom of Pengwern to the lofty summits of Gwynedd where Heledd battles to control both her own destiny and those around her. Judith Arnopp has carried out lengthy…
I’ve been fascinated by England’s World War II evacuations since I was a child. Appropriately enough, I first learned of this extraordinary historical event in a story: it’s the reason the Pevensies are sent to the Professor’s house in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the dark days of World War II, more than a million English children boarded trains, buses, and ships, to be picked up and cared for by strangers, in some cases for the duration of the war. It’s a historical event that is as astonishing to me now as it was when I first read of it all those years ago.
Not only is this a heartfelt evacuee story, it’s also a brilliant mystery. When Jimmy and his brother, Ronnie, are sent to the Welsh countryside to escape the bombings, Jimmy is angry at the adults responsible – “They think they know everything but all they do is leave or make wars or send their children away.” The boys eventually warm to their kind foster parents, but some of the villagers aren’t so welcoming. When Jimmy finds a skull in a hollow tree, he has no idea how it’s tied to an unsolved mystery, and the reader has no idea how it will figure in this story’s gripping, satisfying, and emotional conclusion.
"Beautifully told. This appealing book is about losses healed, lies uncovered, cruelty defeated and goodness rewarded." The Sunday Times
September 1939.
When Jimmy is evacuated to a small village in Wales, it couldn't be more different from London. Green, quiet and full of strangers, he instantly feels out of place.
But then he finds a skull hidden in a tree, and suddenly the valley is more frightening than the war. Who can Jimmy trust? His brother is too little; his best friend has changed.
Finding an ally in someone he never expects, they set out together to uncover the secrets…
I’m a family physician and therapist, but I was a book-lover first. At age seventeen, I had to choose between studying medicine or literature, and I chose a profession with a clear-cut career path. But books and writing never lost their hold, and I began to write seriously in my late thirties. I’ve had four novels published, and I’m well into my fifth. Being a writer makes me a better doctor, more empathic and curious, and more engaged with patients’ narratives. Medicine is such a rich and fascinating field, and I feel privileged to write about it from an insider’s point of view.
I came upon this 1937 bestseller novel recently and was instantly engrossed by the tale of Dr Andrew Manson, a young general practitioner in a Welsh mining town. Medicine might have changed since 1937, but people’s behavior has not changed so much!
Largely autobiographical, full of derring-do and righteous youthful indignation, this book remains an enjoyable, propulsive read. Due to its exposure to the inequities in access to health care in 1930s Britain, this novel is often cited as a major influence in the introduction of the National Health Scheme in 1948. Cronin was a general practitioner who retired in his mid-thirties to write full-time.
"Cronin's distinguished achievement....No one could have written as fine, honest, and moving a study of a young doctor as The Citadel without possessing great literary taste and skill." --The Atlantic MonthlyA groundbreaking novel of its time and a National Book Award winner.The Citadel follows the life of Andrew Manson, a young and idealistic Scottish doctor, as he navigates the challenges of practicing medicine across interwar Wales and England. Based on Cronin's own experiences as a physician, The Citadel boldly confronts traditional medical ethics, and has been noted as one of the inspirations for the formation of the National Health Service.The…
