Here are 100 books that The Wizard of the Kremlin fans have personally recommended if you like
The Wizard of the Kremlin.
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I am passionate about words and reading, and I love books that examine and record the chaos and mayhem of human existence. When I think about why I don’t want to die, it’s mainly because I can't bear the thought of missing out on what happens next. I feel privileged to be alive during this strange, fraught time of epochal change and to be able to use my skills as a writer to record not just the facts of what happens but how it feels to witness it all, the sensibility of our time, the recording of which is, I believe, the essence of great literature.
This is a book about the real-life effects of the work of the character in the first book I recommended.
I loved it because, as a journalist confronting for the first time in my career, large-scale distrust in agreed upon reality (“fake news”), the stories of societal crackup in post-Soviet, disinformation-addled Russia form the ultimate cautionary tale.
In the new Russia, even dictatorship is a reality show. Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, suicidal supermodels, Hell's Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors, and oligarch revolutionaries: welcome to the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, home to a form of dictatorship--far subtler than twentieth-century strains--that is rapidly rising to challenge the West. When British producer Peter Pomerantsev plunges into the booming Russian TV industry, he gains access to every nook…
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 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 first read Orwell’s dystopian nightmare as a teenager and have gone back to it several times since.
Apparently, it is such a brilliant description of life under totalitarianism that, during the communist era, some Eastern Europeans refused to believe that an inhabitant of a democratic country could have written such a book.
Even today, I find the book very relevant, as Orwell develops themes of truth, propaganda, doublethink, and the misuse of language that you can find in Homage to Catalonia, written a decade earlier. And the ubiquitous and intrusive telescreen has a parallel in our age of surveillance capitalism and the way the Chinese authorities are using information technology to cement their rule.
63
authors picked
1984
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
9,
10,
11, and
12.
What is this book about?
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU . . .
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three superstates. In Oceania, the Party's power is absolute. Every action, word, gesture and thought is monitored under the watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police. In the Ministry of Truth, the Party's department for propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine and live independently takes hold of him and he embarks on a secret and forbidden love affair. As he writes the words 'DOWN WITH BIG…
If one of the main reasons we marry is to raise a family, what happens to the couple once the children grow up and no longer need daily care?
A few years ago, I completed an MSc in Psychology, and my dissertation explored exactly this question. After interviewing many couples, it became clear that unless parents are emotionally prepared for life after children, the sense of loss can be overwhelming. That research raised deeper questions about why we commit—and what keeps us committed.
Reading this book made me blush, gasp and giggle—a lot!
Difficult to describe without spoilers—a literal and metaphorical road trip with surprises at every stop. The moving, shocking and very funny story follows 45-year-old Los Angeles–based multimedia artist, navigating midlife, parenting and a marriage that had lost its narrative under the weight of routine and thwarted expectations.
The New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious and surprising novel about a woman upending her life
“A frank novel about a midlife awakening, which is funnier and more boldly human than you ever quite expect….the bravery of All Fours is nothing short of riveting.”—Vogue
“A novel that presses into that tender bruise about the anxiety of aging, of what it means to have a female body that is aging, and wanting the freedom to live a fuller life…Deeply funny and achingly true.” —LA Times
Mia Lark is running out of options. There is only one way to change the score: the fantasy planet Revivium.
Armed with the powerful magic in the helm and the friendly AI, Hex that goes with it, Mia throws caution out the window. It’s time to find the main guildhall…
I am passionate about words and reading, and I love books that examine and record the chaos and mayhem of human existence. When I think about why I don’t want to die, it’s mainly because I can't bear the thought of missing out on what happens next. I feel privileged to be alive during this strange, fraught time of epochal change and to be able to use my skills as a writer to record not just the facts of what happens but how it feels to witness it all, the sensibility of our time, the recording of which is, I believe, the essence of great literature.
This is a tightly focused memoir of a turbulent time in American history experienced by a 20-something fledgling writer trying to understand and relate to an older man haunted by guilt and memories of what he witnessed in Vietnam.
This is another book that examines the effect of historic events and public dystopia on the inner lives of human beings living through those times.
“In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the ’60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.”—Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she…
With my degree in journalism, you’d think I would be firmly rooted in real-world dramas, but all my time in news did was push me deeper toward my love of fantasy and romance stories. A natural optimist and a bit of a dreamer, I have always been a voracious reader of the fantasy romance genre. I love a story that can take you away from the real world for a time with amazing heroes, end-of-world stakes, and of course, thick romantic tension. I have a special fondness for series’ where I can watch the characters grow in depth or where each story covers a different character's perspective or experience.
I absolutely love the high-intensity emotion and forbidden love in this story. Tanya Bird did an incredible job of pulling me into the tension between two characters, and I love how each book is about a different love story between characters within the same world!
A bit different from my usual fantasy picks, this series has a more dystopian and historical fantasy vibe, but it’s such a well-crafted dark world and the romantic tension is so good that I almost forget there are no real magical type elements.
Blake Suttone has a stomach full of grief and no food. A decade of famine has taken its toll on the splintered kingdom, but it is the merchants who suffer most. A wall stands between the hungry and the food, and the kingdom’s defenders stand guard atop it. Desperate times lead to desperate acts, and Blake will do whatever is necessary to ensure her family survives. But a growing attachment to a certain commander was never part of the plan. Now the man protecting the walls seems determined to guard her too.
I came to genderqueer histories searching for a reflection of myself that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment (the rural American South). Early on, I thought I’d found it—historical figures, both real and fictional, who shared my gender identity. But as I’ve continued to research, I’ve realized that the reflections of history are less a mirror image, more a reflection in water—fluid and distorting. Genderqueer people throughout history use different language for their identities, navigate different social and family systems, and express their gender in different ways. In the space created by this difference, I’ve begun to understand my gender as a thing that changes, too, across space and time.
An Unkindness of Ghosts opens with the dedication, “To my mother and her mother all the way back to Eve.” While the other four books on this list emphasize the queer and genderqueer people we might choose to recognize as ancestors, this book focuses on Aster’s relationship with her mother, revealing the way that biological family can, in certain instances, support and affirm genderqueer identity.
"Harrowing and beautiful, this is SF at its best: showing the possible future but warning of the danger of bringing old prejudices and cruelties to that new world. While a story about enslaved people in space could be a one-note polemic, the fully rounded characters bring nuance and genuine pathos to this amazing debut." --Library Journal, Starred Review
"Solomon debuts with a raw distillation of slavery, feudalism, prison, and religion that kicks like rotgut moonshine...Stunning." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Infused with the spirit of Octavia Butler and loaded with meaning for the present day, An Unkindness of Ghosts will appeal…
Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…
I’m an artist who likes to write, but I’ve never been interested in classic superhero or pulp graphic novels. Early in my career, the word “comics” felt like an insult—it's not “real art,” right? Too childish! While that instinct was definitely wrong, I found a (small) world of experimental, abstract, genre-breaking graphic novels that combine art and writing in a wholly unique way. This is a list of some of my recent favorites that have inspired my drawing and writing practice, and will hopefully inspire you.
Press Enter to Continue is incredible on every level. The art is beautiful, with a technicolor palette and skillful drawing that belies the corporate horror in the narratives. We see humiliating job interviews, vampiric computer viruses, and cosmic labor camps that feel a little too close for comfort in our online world. It’s a collection of short stories told with a deadpan minimalism that makes the reader think, sweat, and maybe put their phone away for a while.
Spanish cartoonist Ana Galvañ charts an often-psychedelic and existential course for modernity in her English language debut, utilizing swaths of electric and florescent colors to create a series of short stories that intertwine and explore the dehumanizing effects of contemporary society. Like a candycolored collection of Black Mirror episodes, Galvañ’s world, set in the very near-future, is familiar and cautionary at once. Galvañ’s unwitting and addictive characters navigate a world of iridescent pastels and geometric energy like puppets. Departments of inhumane resources dehumanize the people it is purported to protect; information is determinedly mined like the gold of the 21st…
As a scientist, I love hard science fiction, especially when the story makes me think about the true nature of reality or takes me on an adventure to places unknown. We’ve all read the classics from Clarke, Heinlein, Bear, or Asimov. But books written decades ago are becoming increasingly dated as society progresses into a new century. (Will people of the future really chain smoke? And why are all the characters men?) Never fear, modern hard sci-fi is alive and well. Here are five recent books that tell an intriguing, uplifting, or awe-inspiring story. Even better than the classics, it’s hard sci-fi for the 21st century!
I normally avoid dystopian, but this story doesn’t dwell in misery like so many apocalyptic stories do.
Last Man Standing is more like Andy Weir’s book, The Martian, because it’s about one man’s survival under extreme conditions. A scientist is stranded on a space station after an attack that has killed everyone else onboard. What happened, and why? He doesn’t know, but he’ll do anything to stay alive and find a way to get back to Earth despite a thousand obstacles in his path and little knowledge of spaceflight.
This story can be intense, but the character stays positive and has a lot of heart.
I am a young adult fantasy author and paranoid survivalist. I have spent years curating items for my end-of-days go-bag, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than hanging out in universes that are about to go bang!
Do not read this series if you have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
Coral is on vacation when her world lights up. It starts with a fire so intense that the ash entirely blocks out the sun, not for a season, but for years. The sky is perpetually grey, and her world goes seriously cold. She must survive the elements, but the real threat comes from the desperation of those left alive and fighting for their lives. This is a brutal world.
As a paranoid survivalist, this book had me taking notes. Some books you read and forget, others teach you something. Most authors push a moral agenda, but this book teaches real-life skills, like how it’s a good idea to burrow into snow when it’s REALLY cold, or why hanging out in caves isn’t just for Neanderthals, and my personal favourite, how to spot a cannibal.
A dense black cloud boiled up in the southeastern sky. It rose high and fast, like a time-lapse movie of the birth of a thunderhead. But it was no rain cloud. Wholly black, it reached up and up until it loomed over her, blocking out the sun. Somehow, she knew, it was Death coming for her.Pre-med student Coral is on vacation in Idaho when something terrible happens. The black cloud is followed by a wildfire and searing heat that lasts for days. She survives deep in a cave but emerges days later to find the world transformed, with blackened trees,…
Ramon Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures, mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are a desire for a life well-lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically…
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.
When I think of the ultimate, inescapable trap, I think of Harlan Ellison’s I Have No MouthandI Must Scream.
To me, the terror is not only unbearable, it’s unchangeable. Of all these worlds, this may be the one most devoid of hope. With no possibility of relief and no chance of escape. There is, in fact, no place to escape to.
And like every book on this list, I don’t have to reread I have No Mouth and I Must Scream, because it’s always with me. In the best and most terrifying way.
A Harrowing dystopian short story by Harlan Ellison, I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream, is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a sentient supercomputer, AM, has destroyed humanity except for five people it keeps alive to torture for the rest of their lives. As AM manipulates the characters' deepest fears and desires, they are held captive in an underground complex and subjected to interminable psychological and physical torture. The narrative is told by one of the captives, Ted, and deals with themes of despair, dehumanization, and the terrifying effects of technological power going unchecked. The story by Ellison…
