Here are 58 books that The Sketchbook fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have always loved stories, and I love the clash of ideas – political and philosophical, religious and atheistic. And if you can put them together in a novel, so much the better. But I insist that it has to be a real story, with real characters, not ciphers. They must be inconsistent, their ideas half-formed and subject to change. And they must be allowed to put their point of view with their own voice, so I’m never entirely sure what the author thinks. The characters have to be people I can care about, people I can love or hate, people whose fate can cause me anxiety, sorrow, or joy.
I loved the way Dostoevsky took me deep inside the head of a murderer and showed how his crime almost destroyed him long before he was caught.
Though I found the killings shocking and appalling, I couldn’t help but sympathise with the killer as he fell apart. I later read that many of the characters represented currents of thought that were influential in Dostoyevsky’s day. Much of that went above my head, but that was okay because the characters were well-drawn and came across as real people, not ciphers.
One thing that shocked me was the crushing nature of the poverty that so many supposedly upper-class characters faced, and how low they had to stoop to survive it.
Hailed by Washington Post Book World as “the best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s birth.
With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel.
When Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that is…
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…
My greatest passion? Human nature and the endless cycles we repeat, different on the surface yet identical at their core. We build systems, cultures, and rules, destroy them, then rebuild everything in remarkably similar forms, as though we possessed no memory of the past. I have studied human nature throughout my life, but this passion took shape at university through cultural anthropology and comparative theology. Over thirty years, it has guided my work in developing human potential and talent, and has been refined further through working with thousands of people from more than 200 countries and territories. It is now the lens through which I write speculative fiction.
Not everything that seems harmful does us harm, and not everything that seems good does us good.
I love books that make me reconsider the world I live in, and although Brave New World was published in 1932, its use of empty entertainment, sex, drugs, and medicated happiness as instruments of social control feels startlingly contemporary.
In dystopias built around punishment, power forces people to obey; here, pleasure makes them willing. The Romans already understood this through panem et circenses, and I see the same mechanism around us today. We fail to notice the cage because we are too busy seeking it out and locking ourselves inside.
This book broadened my perspective and taught me to look at apparent comforts with more suspicious eyes.
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
EVERYONE BELONGS TO EVERYONE ELSE. Read the dystopian classic that inspired the hit Sky TV series.
'A masterpiece of speculation... As vibrant, fresh, and somehow shocking as it was when I first read it' Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale.
Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. Our perfect society achieved peace and stability through the prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Now everyone belongs.
You can be happy too. All you need to do is take your Soma pills.
I look to books as an enlightening way to escape. I’ve always sought out things that paint the world in different hues than what is often presented in reality. When the lines between what you’re told and what it really is become blurry, I like to find the truth that is often available by reading between the lines.
As much as the late 80s and early 90s are prevalent in the story, the Magnum PI-esque crime novel features more than meets the eye in its characters. If you go beyond the often hilarious and familiar pop culture situations, you find a deeply disturbing chain of events by equally disturbed people. Even the main character is a bit of an unapologetic anti-hero, which only adds depth beyond the printed word.
At times I wasn’t sure who I should be rooting for, and for that, I highly recommend this book and others in his Skink Series of stories.
Bestselling author Carl Hiaasen serves up a humorous helping of "taut, fast-paced action...crisp and hot" (The New York Times).
After dispatching a pistol-packing intruder from his home with the help of a stuffed Marlin head, Mick Stranahan can't deny that someone is out to get him. His now-deceased intruder carries no I.D., and as a former Florida state investigator, Stranahan knows there are plenty of potential culprits. His long list of enemies includes an off point hit man, a personal injury lawyer of billboard fame, a notoriously irritating TV journalist, and a fumbling plastic surgeon.
I look to books as an enlightening way to escape. I’ve always sought out things that paint the world in different hues than what is often presented in reality. When the lines between what you’re told and what it really is become blurry, I like to find the truth that is often available by reading between the lines.
As a descendant of Rus Vikings, I find anything dealing with barbarians and pre-Christian faith fascinating. There is nothing in the world quite like Nordic justice.
This tale follows the life and times of Egil Skalagrimmson in the 10th century. At times, Egil is an eloquent, thought-provoking shaman-like character, and at others, he is a maniac bent on homicide as a means to settle the score. The imagery of Nordic life is unmatched, as is the imagery of how disputes, pacts, and society function in a time that isn’t as far gone as many realize.
Egil's Saga or Egill's saga is an Icelandic saga (family saga) on the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrímsson (Anglicised as Egil Skallagrimsson), an Icelandic farmer, viking and skald. The saga spans the years c. 850–1000 and traces the family history from Egil's grandfather to his offspring. Its oldest manuscript (a fragment) dates back to 1240 AD, and comprises the sole source of information on the exploits of Egil, whose life is not historically recorded. Stylistic and other similarities between Egil's Saga and Heimskringla (Heimskringla is a collection of sagas about Swedish and Norwegian kings) have led many scholars…
I’ve always looked for stories that aren’t stamped out of the same mold. Having broken that mold in my own writing years before with Tanyth Fairport and Ravenwood, I dove into this new blend of second chances, paranormal romances, and characters that might be fighting for their lives against supernatural forces but always kept the human spark burning.
Elizabeth Hunter’s foray into Paranormal Women’s Fiction, before it was even A Thing, starts slow. She takes the time to introduce Robin Brannon and her world through the commonest of lenses—divorce, kids, finances, friends, obligations, and crappy knees. All of it.
Laying the “nothing to see here” life out on full display before dropping in the fireworks when it all goes wrong. This was one of my earliest PNWF reads, and I loved it.
A Paranormal Women's Fiction with a bit of class and a lot of sass, for anyone who feels like age is just a number!Every woman goes through changes in their forties. Just not… these changes.Robin Brannon was a normal wife, mom, and antique-shop owner until a brush with death turned her day-to-day life upside down. Now she and her two best friends are seeing things that belong in a fantasy novel. Ghosts. Visions. Omens of doom. Nothing that belongs in the peaceful mountain town they call home.Added to that, Robin’s marriage is on the rocks, her grandmother’s health is failing,…
Having taken up the brush myself, I can attest to some sort of mystical, out-of-body experience that sometimes surfaces as an artist creates. Emotions and senses become directly connected to one’s hands, releasing the unconscious, allowing the artist to bring something to life that was buried deep inside. My favorite class in art school was Aesthetics, which explored the philosophy of art – what possessed the artist to paint – and what passions and beliefs were behind some of the art movements, including Surrealism, Dadaism, and Futurism. Books that delve into the craft and passion behind great works of art are my favorite reads.
Peter Lovesey’s detective discovers the power of art in this recent mystery set in Bath, England.
This book in the series is unusual, since most of the story is told through the eyes of a cheap private detective, who views Diamond as a grumpy old man. A body found in an antique sarcophagus and the disappearance of the antique dealer is at the start of the mystery, but the piece of art which was purchased in an antiques roadshow drives the plot.
Greed and ambition, stirred by the provenance of the art, results in several murder attempts which confound Diamond’s and the private detective’s investigation.
Of all the weird characters Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond has met in Bath, this one is the most extreme: a twenty-first-century private eye called Johnny Getz, whose office is over Shear Amazing, a hairdressing salon. Johnny has been hired by Ruby Hubbard, whose father, an antiques shop owner, has gone missing, and Johnny insists on involving 'Pete' in his investigation.
When Diamond, Johnny and Ruby enter the shop, they find a body and a murder investigation is launched. Diamond is forced to house his team in the dilapidated Corn Market building across the street. His problems grow when his boss…
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
My first editor informed me I was a mystery writer and my first mystery conference categorized me as a Southern humorous mystery writer. I didn’t intend to write Southern humorous mysteries but find the world-view of my characters and the world they live in quite comical and southern (my characters and I live in Georgia). I also abhor crime, so the dead bodies that keep appearing in my stories need to be dealt with lightly. I’m happy to be a Wall Street Journal bestselling and international award-winning author with eighteen books and counting in three series, Cherry Tucker Mysteries, Maizie Albright Star Detectives, and Finley Goodhart Crime Capers.
I love Andrews’ combination of Women’s Fiction and Mystery, and I think this series creates a wonderful bridge between Andrews’ writing style between the two genres and her pen names (originally, she wrote mysteries as Kathy Hogan Trocheck). Savannah Blues is more character- than plot-driven, but for those looking for a light mystery in a sultry southern setting with all the ubiquitous eccentrics and some BFFs bent on ex-husband revenge, you’ll enjoy the story like I did. You learn a bit about antiquing and Savannah architecture while cheering on amateur sleuth Weezie and enjoy a lot of laughs with her friend Bebe Loudermilk. By the end of Savannah Blues, I wanted to move across Georgia and have Weezie dress me up at home in Savannah.
“Mary Kay Andrews has perfect pitch when it comes to endearing, smart-mouth heroines, and she has caught the languid looniness of the Low Country perfectly.” — Anne Rivers Siddons
Meet Weezie (aka Eloise) Foley, a feisty antiques “picker,” banished by her spiteful ex-husband from the house she herself restored in Savannah’s historic district, who must come to terms with a life that has suddenly changed…and not, it seems, for the better.
In Mary Kay Andrews’s delectable New York Times bestseller, Savannah Blues, readers will feel the sultry Georgia breezes and taste sea salt in the air, as they lose themselves…
Having taken up the brush myself, I can attest to some sort of mystical, out-of-body experience that sometimes surfaces as an artist creates. Emotions and senses become directly connected to one’s hands, releasing the unconscious, allowing the artist to bring something to life that was buried deep inside. My favorite class in art school was Aesthetics, which explored the philosophy of art – what possessed the artist to paint – and what passions and beliefs were behind some of the art movements, including Surrealism, Dadaism, and Futurism. Books that delve into the craft and passion behind great works of art are my favorite reads.
In the Edgar-nominated The Shadow of Memory, the fourth book in a series set in England, antiques dealer Kate Hamilton is tasked to determine if a painting discovered in a former posh Victorian asylum is an authentic Dutch masterpiece.
The painting may be fictional, but the depiction of art forgery isnot, and it is fascinating to discover the new technologies for discovering a fake as described in this book. The mystery and murder comes in when the painting’s provenance is tied to the murder of an old flame of Kate’s friend Vivian, and Kate fears Vivian may have become the murderer’s next target.
The painting raises the stakes for the futures of Kate, Vivian, and the murderer.
In Connie Berry’s fourth Kate Hamilton mystery, American antiques dealer Kate Hamilton uncovers a dark secret buried in Victorian England.
As Kate Hamilton plans her upcoming wedding to Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, she is also assisting her colleague Ivor Tweedy with a project at the Netherfield Sanatorium, which is being converted into luxury townhouses. Kate and Ivor must appraise a fifteenth-century paintingand verify that its provenance is the Dutch master Jan Van Eyck. But when retired criminal inspector Will Parker is found dead, Kate learns that the halls of the sanatorium housed much more than priceless art.
I’ve been a lifelong horror reader, really since first stumbling onto Stephen King in the 9th grade. There’s something about that genre that has held a particular fascination for me through the years, probably because the best works are some combination of suspenseful, well-written, and cathartic, as they really get your mind racing as to what you might do yourself in a given situation. If you’re lucky, they might even have something to say about the human condition as a whole. But given this prolonged interest and exposure to horror, it’s only natural I would eventually progress to giving it a stab myself.
This is a unique entry in that the cursed place is a framing device, for this collection of mostly disturbing tales. For his first-ever collection of short stories, Palahniuk brings his wretched cast of characters to a haunted house, where each in turn offers his or her own demented tale. They don’t all work, but a number of the stories really stick with you, and this spooky old house at the center of it ratchets the intensity up another level—it’s not a static situation they are in, there, so the plot progresses to its own warped conclusion on this front as well.
"Haunted" is a novel made up of stories: twenty-three of them to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter - sometimes all at once. They are told by the people who have all answered the ad headlined 'Artists Retreat: Abandon your life for three months'. They are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of 'real life' that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them. But 'here' turns out to be a cavernous and ornate old theatre where they are utterly isolated from the…
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
Being overweight presents an intriguing paradox: being physically large and hard to miss, but also being essentially invisible and easy to ignore. Having struggled with weight for my entire life, I’m very familiar with this juxtaposition of opposites. I wanted to write a novel with a plus-sized protagonist set in a different time, the late 1970s in this case, before the notions of size positivity and body diversity had come to life in society’s collective imagination. For me, this was a way of making fat people more visible in books, especially as main characters. I put together this list of books for the same reason.
Bea Schumacher is a plus-sized fashion blogger and outspoken critic of the lack of diverse body types in the media and on the reality dating show, Main Squeeze, in particular.
When she is asked to star on the show and pick the man she wishes to marry, Bea agrees, excited about what this might mean for her career and her love life.
This book gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at reality television and provides a satisfying answer to what is real and what is staged. I loved how the plot ofMain Squeezeand the novel formed co-centric rings and how Bea learns to recognize and use her power in both these arenas.
While romance and insights abound, they are also tempered by laugh-out-loud humor, making this read both enjoyable and thought-provoking.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Real love . . . as seen on TV. A plus-size bachelorette brings a fresh look to a reality show in this razor-sharp, “divinely witty” (Entertainment Weekly) debut.
“Effortlessly fun and clever . . . I found the tension impeccable . . . and that made my reading experience incredibly propulsive. Read it in a day and a half.”—Emily Henry, #1 bestselling author of Beach Read and The People We Meet on Vacation
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • Marie Claire • Mashable
