Here are 89 books that The Vacationers fans have personally recommended if you like
The Vacationers.
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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…
Think how tough it is to reach adulthood in today's complicated world. Now imagine doing so in front of a global audience. That's what growing up in show business is like. Every youthful mistake laid bare for all to see. Malefactors looking to ensnare the naive at any turn. Each…
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.
First of all, The Red House is set in the English countryside, which I love. And it brings together a group of family members with legitimate grievances.
Some of them involving caretaking of an elderly mother, and I feel like the issue of caretaking is always underrepresented in literature, and yet it’s such a huge issue and can change the trajectory of a person’s life.
This is quite different than Mark Haddon’s better-known book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, so you might just want to pretend someone else wrote it, or you’ll find the change in tone unsettling.
From the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes a novel about families and secrets
Two families. Seven days. One house.
Angela and her brother Richard have spent twenty years avoiding each other. Now, after the death of their mother, they bring their families together for a holiday in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.
But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents…
Think how tough it is to reach adulthood in today's complicated world. Now imagine doing so in front of a global audience. That's what growing up in show business is like. Every youthful mistake laid bare for all to see. Malefactors looking to ensnare the naive at any turn. Each…
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!
Jason Webster is the international best-selling author of fifteen books on Spain, including Duende, Sacred Sierra, The Spy with 29 Names, Violencia: A New History of Spain, and the Max Cámara series of crime novels. He is a publisher, broadcaster, award-winning photographer, a board member of The Scheherazade Foundation, and is married to the Flamenco dancer Salud.
The books in this list are all written by non-Spaniards, for obvious reasons. This one is almost an exception. Tomás Graves is the eighth son of the English poet and novelist Robert Graves. He has lived almost his entire life on the island of Mallorca, and is, effectively, as native as they come. Tuning Up at Dawn is a wonderfully lyrical account of his upbringing, his memories of his father, and his life as a musician. It is deliciously evocative of a slower world which has now all but disappeared.
A loving portrait of the other Majorca, and of a blissful life there revolving around the magic of music - a book to savour, perfect for escaping those crowded beaches.
Tomas Graves was born in and belongs to Majorca. His father, the great love poet Robert Graves, famously ended up on the beautiful Mediterranean island pretty much by accident, but it is the happiest accident of Tomas' life. His love for the special beauties of Majorcan culture shines on every page of this infectiously happy book. This is the real Majorca. 'Tuning Up at Dawn' examines both the suppression and…
I am passionate about the written word and effective communication. My articles and reviews have been published in major newspapers and magazines and for two decades I taught writing on the university level. Travel writing is a subset of my experience as editor of the best-selling In Mind literary anthologies and editor and writer for more than a dozen guidebooks. In addition, I have been “first reader” and editor for prospective authors and shepherded several books to publication, the most recent Red Clay Suzie by first-time novelist Jeffrey Lofton (publication January 2023).
Snowball Oranges is by my Scottish friend Peter Kerr. Kerr and his wife left their home in East Lothian, Scotland, and moved to Majorca to grow oranges. Anyone familiar with the Peter Mayle/Frances Mayes genre can predict what happens to the Kerrs. They are buffaloed by the locals, battle the elements, and ultimately triumph—or not.
After three years in Majorca, the Kerrs returned to Scotland, but Spain left an enduring impression. “We were beginning to realize that the passage of time through the unhurried serenity of Majorcan country life was something to be marked by the slowly changing face of nature, not by the hands of a clock or the pages of a calendar.”
I could hardly believe my eyes. A cold mantle of white was rapidly transforming our sunny paradise into a bizarre winterscape of citrus Christmas trees, cotton wool palms and snowball oranges.
When the Kerr family leave Scotland to grow oranges in a secluded valley on the island of Mallorca they are surprised to be greeted by the same freezing weather they have left behind. Then they realise that their new orange farm is a bit of a lemon...
Laughter, finds Peter Kerr, is the best medicine when faced with a local dish of rats and the live-chicken-down-a-chimney technique of household…
I am passionate about the written word and effective communication. My articles and reviews have been published in major newspapers and magazines and for two decades I taught writing on the university level. Travel writing is a subset of my experience as editor of the best-selling In Mind literary anthologies and editor and writer for more than a dozen guidebooks. In addition, I have been “first reader” and editor for prospective authors and shepherded several books to publication, the most recent Red Clay Suzie by first-time novelist Jeffrey Lofton (publication January 2023).
I love to read books about women travelers whose lives take an unusual path. Lucia Graves is the daughter of poet Robert Graves and his second wife. Her parents moved to Majorca after World War II, and their daughter—like many ex-pats—had to bridge the cultures between the land of her birth, England, and the land of her heart, Spain.
She was raised in a Bohemian household but educated in the strict Catholic schools of Franco’s Spain. Her book A Woman Unknown explores the sense of dislocation and disorientation of her bifurcated life. “I found myself creating an imaginary land where I spent much of my time.”
Lucia Graves, daughter of the poet Robert Graves and his wife Beryl, grew up in the beautiful village of Deia on the island of Majorca. Neither Spanish nor Catholic by birth, she nevertheless absorbed the different traditions of Spain and felt the full impact of Franco's dictatorship through the experience of her education. Lucia found herself continually bridging the gaps between Catalan, Spanish and English, as she picked up the patterns and nuances that contain the essence of each culture.
Portraying her life as a child watching the hills lit up by bonfires on Good Friday, or, years later, walking…
Edith de Belleville is a native Parisian woman who was an attorney for many years. Her passion for Paris led her back to university to get her official tour guide license. Deeply inspired by great Parisian women of the past, Edith decided to write a book, in French, entitled The Beautiful Rebels of Paris (Belles et Rebelles Editions du 81). She just published her memoirs in English to share her literary & dreamy adventures in Paris, Parisian Life, adventures in the City of Light. When she's not at Versailles or the Louvre Museum to do her 'Beautiful Rebels of Paris Tour' Edith is sitting on a café terrace in Paris watching the world go by.
You should meet her. She is a great woman. She is even the chapter four of my book written in French about 5 inspirational Parisian women.
Unfortunately my book is not translated in English yet. So in the meantime, don't miss this biography of George Sand, famous French writer from Romantic era who took a male nom de plume.
George Sand inspired Charlotte Brontë, she was lover and muse of Chopin and Alfred de Musset.
In the rigid 19th century she did not care to have younger lovers, to wear trousers, when it was illegal for women to wear trousers, and smoking cigars in public. How shocking!
The romantic and rebellious novelist George Sand, born in 1804 as Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, remains one of France's most infamous and beloved literary figures. Thanks to a peerless translation by Gretchen van Slyke, Martine Reid's acclaimed biography of Sand is now available in English.
Drawing on recent French and English biographies of Sand as well as her novels, plays, autobiographical texts, and correspondence, Reid creates the most complete portrait possible of a writer who was both celebrated and vilified. Reid contextualizes Sand within the literature of the nineteenth century, unfolds the meaning and importance of her chosen pen name,…
The stories I’ve loved the most in my life have all been about the richness of human relationships, told by a memorable narrator who can find humor and hope in almost everything, no matter how screwed up. Whether it’s Charles Dickens poking fun at his contemporaries in Victorian England or Armistead Maupin sending up friendship and love in San Francisco in the 1980s, I’m a sucker for well-told, convoluted, and funny tales about people who find life with other human beings difficult, but still somehow manage to laugh about it and keep on going. As the author of six novels myself, these are the kinds of stories I always try to tell.
I love this novel. It’s about a young man mourning the death of his wife and trying to deal with crippling grief while also repairing his relationship with his sixteen-year-old stepson. With such a premise you wouldn’t think the book would be funny, but it’s both hysterical and emotionally touching.
Trooper has a gift for making extremely dysfunctional characters lovable, putting them in ludicrous situations and turning them loose on each other. This book really resonated with me because of the damaged-yet-enduring family dynamic after the death of a loved one, which is similar to my own experience following the death of my father.
The evolving relationship between the main character and his stepson is also great, and Tropper nails the adolescent angst I remember so well from my own childhood.
When Doug Parker married Hailey - beautiful, smart and ten years older - he left his carefree Manhattan life behind to live with her and her teenaged son, Russ, in a quiet Westchester community. Three years later, Hailey has been dead for a year, and Doug, a widower at 29, just wants to drown himself in self-pity and Jack Daniels. But his family has other ideas.
Russ is furious with Doug for not adopting him after Hailey died, and has fallen in with a bad crowd. Claire, Doug's irrepressible and pregnant twin sister, has just left her husband and moved…
As a cozy-style mystery writer, I get to live in a world where I know that everything will work out as it should in the end. I look for this in the books that I read and recommend. Do they give the reader something interesting to ponder as they go along with the sleuth (amateur or “real detective)? My father was a police captain, and I grew up looking at things through the eyes of “the law”, I admit. Most people find comfort reading about a small town where nothing will go too wrong. The bad stuff and the bad people are kept at arm’s length, and all is well.
I was late coming to this author, but once I discovered her I knew I’d go back to her earlier books in the Lady Eleanor Swift series.
In this book, Lady Swift leaves England to see what Manhattan is all about. With her butler, Clifford, (and her dog Gladstone) in tow, she is soon ensconced in a high-end apartment and is giving and attending all of the parties with the rich and famous. But her society status is put on hold when she witnesses the doorman of her building killed in a hit and run.
This is soon followed by another murder connected to the doorman. She, of course, gets involved and is determined to right the wrong. The book is a perfect bit of escapism, written with humor.
Glitzy parties, sightseeing at the Statue of Liberty and strolls through Central Park with Gladstone the bulldog… Lady Eleanor Swift is loving her first trip to the city that never sleeps, until she witnesses a murder!
After crossing from England on the SS Celestiana, Lady Eleanor Swift sets up her home-away-from-home in a lavish apartment in New York City. She is soon the toast of the town, with no high-class soirée complete without her presence. Of course, she drags her butler Clifford and Gladstone the bulldog along to every party too.
But when she witnesses the charming doorman of her…
