Eight top dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels

Matt Harry's novels include Sorcery for Beginners, which was optioned for television by Boatrocker Media (Palm Royale). He has edited over 25 novels, created two immersive plays, and taught hundreds of students in creative fields. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons, all of whom (thankfully) like to read.

Harry's new novel is Ash Land.

At CrimeReads the author tagged his eight favorite end-of-the-world stories. One title on the list:

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

This is the loveliest, most hopeful novel on the list. Like The Stand, most of humanity dies from a virus. Unlike The Stand, the survivors don’t form marauding gangs or murder each other. They put on plays. The main characters travel the Michigan countryside, performing Shakespeare for small farming villages. Their motto is “Survival Is Insufficient,” which should be a clarion call for all of humanity.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

Station Eleven is among Alice Martin's six thrillers that feature contagions & pandemics, Rebecca Fallon's five top Shakespeare-inspired novels, Lauren Wilson's eight top books featuring cults, Barnaby Martin's seven titles featuring parents & children at the end of the world, Brittany K. Allen's ten books that get the theatre world right, Jeanette Horn's nine twisted novels about theatrical performers, Isabelle McConville's fifteen books for fans of the post-apocalyptic TV-drama Fallout, Joanna Quinn's six best books set in & around the theatrical world, Carolyn Quimby's 38 best dystopian novels, Tara Sonin's seven books for fans of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, Maggie Stiefvater's five fantasy books about artists & the magic of creativity, Mark Skinner's five top literary dystopias, Claudia Gray's five essential books about plagues and pandemics, K Chess's five top fictional books inside of real books, Rebecca Kauffman's ten top musical novels, Nathan Englander’s ten favorite books, M.L. Rio’s five top novels inspired by Shakespeare, Anne Corlett's five top books with different takes on the apocalypse, Christopher Priest’s five top sci-fi books that make use of music, and Anne Charnock's five favorite books with fictitious works of art.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five great family-centered crime titles

Jamie Canaves is a contributing editor at Book Riot. She tagged five great family-centered crime books, including:

Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan

The mystery: Mal’s sister disappeared years ago in high school, which remains an unsolved case. Now Mal’s coworker has disappeared, and she won’t be the last…

The family: Mal is one of four siblings. Her sister Elena disappeared in high school. Her older brother Esteban is now going by “Steve” as he throws himself into political life, and her younger brother is a police officer. Her family has never recovered from what happened to her sister, and her relationship with her mother is especially strained. Add to that Mal’s two daughters, who have never learned who their real father is.

Read about the other titles on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five titles featuring strangers crossing paths in unexpected ways

Ilona Bannister is the author of three novels, When I Ran Away, Little Prisons, and the newly released Five.

[Q&A with Ilona Bannister; The Page 69 Test: When I Ran Away]

At Lit Hub the author tagged five novels that

involve strangers crossing paths in unexpected ways. They are about what happens when people who don’t know each other are suddenly entangled in one another’s lives. But they are also about the chance experiences that connect us to each other and change us, sometimes for a moment. Sometimes forever.

One title on the list:

Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith

The master of stories about chance encounters between strangers was undoubtedly Patricia Highsmith. Her unnerving 1950 classic, which became a Hitchcock film, is about two strangers who meet on a train and decide to exchange murders. Bruno will kill Guy’s wife, if Guy will kill Bruno’s father. It’s the perfect crime, because neither man will have a connection to the other, so the police won’t suspect them.

This dark psychological thriller about guilt, obsession, truth and morality arises out of just a single conversation between strangers who happen to sit next to one another. It will make you think, and look at your next subway ride a little differently.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Strangers on a Train is on Jamie Kornegay's five notable novels with criminals covering their tracks, Jeff Somers's top five list of timeless old-school thrillers, Stella Gonet's six best best books, Lars Iyer's top ten list of literary frenemies, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best railway journeys in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight titles that break the silence around suicide

Rocky Callen is a critically acclaimed author and passionate mental health advocate. Her novel, A Breath Too Late, was born out of her own experiences with depression, domestic violence, and suicidal ideation. She was a co-contributing editor to the Ab(solutely) Normal: Sixteen Stories that Smash Mental Health Stereotypes. She’s a frequent speaker and panelist about art and mental health. She founded The HoldOn2Hope Project, an initiative that unites creatives in suicide prevention.

At People magazine Callen tagged eight "books [that] grapple with mental health, grief, and suicide with honesty." One title on the list:

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

This novel imagines a library between life and death where alternate lives unfold. It gently challenges the allure of “what if,” revealing beauty within limitation and offering hope through the radical idea that an ordinary life can still be meaningful. A philosophical, accessible meditation on regret and possibility.

Read about the other titles on the list.

The Midnight Library is among Tobias Madden's seven books that take you places, Mark Skinner's twenty-five best time travel books and twelve great novels set in a bookshop or library, and Clare Mackintosh's top ten books with “What if?” moments.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve titles about losing perspective in Los Angeles

Luke Goebel is an American novelist, screenwriter, producer, and publisher.

He is the author of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, winner of the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, and the novel Kill Dick.

He co-wrote the films Causeway and Eileen, starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway; for Causeway, Brian Tyree Henry received an Academy Award nomination.

At Electric Lit Goebel tagged twelve books about losing perspective in Los Angeles. One title on the list:

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

Real violence, the kind that Your House WIll Pay is concerned with-–specifically the shooting of a Black teenager in the early 1990s (echoing the real-world killing of Latasha Harlins)—is different from the fictive unrest and ultraviolence essential to the LA novel. Different from the fun and games of Pynchon or the riot-as-trope of LA literature that stretches back even before the riots we all know off the top of our heads. YHWP is about how the past resurfaces as fever pitch. Underneath are years of violence that never leave, never go anywhere. This LA doesn’t disappear, it gets glossed over by soundbytes. Steph Cha understands the way people look at each other beyond what they say. There’s less performance here, and no escape hatch. This novel isn’t about LA erasing you through illusion or ambition, it’s about how LA uses sleight of hand in POV when it comes to race and inequality.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Your House Will Pay is among Addison Rizer's eight top revenge thrillers, the thirteen most essential Los Angeles books of mystery or crime, Jordan Harper's three top novels in the new L.A. crime canon, Erin E. Adams's seven titles that use mystery to examine race, María Amparo Escandón's eight books about living in Los Angeles, Alyssa Cole's five top crime novels that explore social issues, Sara Sligar's seven California crime novels with a nuanced take on race, class, gender & community, and Karen Dietrich's eight top red herrings in contemporary crime fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five historical romance books set in France

At Book Riot Julia Rittenberg tagged five historical romance titles set in France, including:

A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera

Luz Alana is the heiress of a rum business from the Dominican Republic, looking to expand into France. She arrives in Paris in 1889 during the Exposition Universelle (famously when the Eiffel Tower went up). She meets and quickly begins verbally sparring with James Evanston Sinclair, a Scottish whiskey brand owner. They’re both looking to start over, and are somehow stuck together.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thrillers that sit with discomfort and ethical ambiguities

A confirmed Francophile, Michael Cowan taught writing at UCLA School of Law, sang professionally, argued and won a case before the California Supreme Court, had two songs published, co-owned a dairy manufacturing business, and became the general counsel of two major corporations. Born and raised in Buffalo, NY, Cowan attended Amherst High School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan Law School. Father of three and grandfather of four, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their eccentric rescue dog Percie.

Cowan's new novel is John B. Peoples.

At CrimeReads he tagged six favorite thrillers that sit with discomfort and ethical ambiguities. One title on the list:

John Grisham, A Time To Kill

This novel is next on my list because, as in [Robert Traver's] Anatomy Of A Murder, it includes a temporary insanity defense. To be clear, I am not saying that John Grisham was thinking about or even borrowing from Anatomy of a Murder when he wrote A Time To Kill. Even if he was, there is no copyright on a novel including a temporary insanity defense. A Time To Kill might even be in part an homage to the earlier novel. After all, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

A Time To Kill has a “happy ending” in the sense that the black man who killed the two white men who had raped his ten-year-old daughter is eventually exonerated by the white jury. However, after reading the book, one is left horrified by the level of racial hate and violence that is portrayed in the book and that persists to this day.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten love stories for the romance reluctant

Andrew Forrester is a writer and former English teacher whose work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and Parents magazine. He holds a PhD in nineteenth-century British literature and lives in Austin, Texas with his family.

How The Story Goes is his first novel.

At The Nerd Daily Forrester tagged "ten love stories that may or may not be capital-R romances, but which have a little something extra going on, too." One title on the list:

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

This is a love story, and I won’t hear any argument against it. Nadia and Saeed meet as students in a city experiencing strange unrest—which, it turns out, has to do with unexplained (magical?) doors that are opening up all over the world. Walking through these portals takes someone from one point to another, usually across the globe. Together, Nadia and Saeed escape their city and explore Greece, London, and California, falling in love, yes, but also growing into themselves in beautiful, unexpected ways. Told in lyrical, moving prose… it’s just a perfect book.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Exit West is among Forbes's thirty greatest dystopian books of all time, Ore Agbaje-Williams's seven top books featuring very complicated friendships, Gian Sardar's eight of the best novels about war-torn love, C Pam Zhang's top ten novels about moving and Helen Phillips's six notable novels involving alternate realities.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books about actually-old women

Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of six novels. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Publishers Weekly, People Magazine, Lit Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald, and other publications. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and been optioned for film and TV. A former college professor, she now writes full-time in Seattle, Washington where she lives with her family and makes good soup.

[Coffee with a Canine: Laurie Frankel and Calli; The Page 69 Test: The Atlas of Love; My Book, The Movie: Goodbye for Now; The Page 69 Test: Goodbye for Now; My Book, The Movie: This Is How It Always Is; The Page 69 Test: This Is How It Always Is; Writers Read: Laurie Frankel (February 2017); The Page 69 Test: One Two Three; Q&A with Laurie Frankel; The Page 69 Test: Enormous Wings]

Frankel's new novel is Enormous Wings.

At Lit Hub the author tagged seven great books about "actually-old women behaving as actually old." One title on Frankel's list:

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

In the first Olive book, Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitteridge, we see Olive struggling with retirement, her adult son and his family, her sick husband, the death of old friends. She’s cantankerous certainly, but we sense this has been true of Olive since childhood and has little to do with aging. But the sequel, Olive, Again, takes Olive well into genuinely old age. In this one, by the end of which Olive is in her mid-eighties, we get widowhood, elderly romance, disappointing grandchildren, incontinence, round-the-clock nursing, and an assisted-living facility. The writing is beautiful and elegant, in contrast with Olive herself who is stark, raw, unapologetic, angry, and, usually, absolutely right.

Read about the other titles on Frankel's list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six novels set in the 1970s

At Book Riot Julia Rittenberg tagged six novels set in the 1970s, including:

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

In the summer of 1976, there was a record-breakingly terrible heatwave in London. Gretta, an Irish matriarch, is suffering extra during the horrible weather event because her husband has recently left without a trace. Her three grown-up children, Michael, Monica, and Aoife, return to help her and figure out what happened. When the group returns to Ireland, even more family secrets come to light, and they all have to deal with old wounds.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight quintessentially Québécois novels

Jake Pitre is a writer and scholar based in Montreal. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, JSTOR Daily, Fast Company, and elsewhere.

At Electric Lit he tagged eight novels that "capture the diversity and cultural wealth of Québec’s storied metropolis." One title on the list:

Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, an actress, turned to literature with her debut, Dandelion Daughter, a coming-of-age story about the prejudices of rural Québec and a protagonist who realizes they were assigned the wrong gender at birth. It is a story of transgender discovery told with radical honesty and a deep understanding of character—nothing about the self is ever simple. As the protagonist moves to Québec City and then Montreal, the book excavates poetry from deep emotional wounds and demonstrates what it means to own your identity.

Read about the other novels on the list at Electric Lit.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six thrillers set in the suburbs

Nicole Blades is a novelist and journalist with nearly two decades of experience in the media industry. Her cover stories and features have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Runner’s World, Women's Health, and more. An active member of the International Thriller Writers organization, her novels often focus on the facade and filters people put on to face the world. Her latest novel is Would I Lie to You?. The domestic thriller joins Blade’s previous novels, Have You Met Nora?, The Thunder Beneath Us, and Earth's Waters. A proud Caribbean Canadian, Blades currently lives in New England with her husband and their son.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "must-read thrillers set in seemingly idyllic environs crowded with the sinful secrets and base behaviors of the wealthy that tickle the nosiest parts of our brains." One title on the list:

Liv Constantine, The Last Mrs. Parrish

In this psychological thriller, Amber Patterson insinuates herself into the gilded marriage of Daphne and Jackson Parrish. Coveting the wife’s life, Amber plots to take her place. But shocking twists and turns unveil deeper deceptions, buried secrets and danger at every corner.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

The Last Mrs. Parrish is among Susan Moore's seven top domestic psychological thrillers, Trisha Sakhlecha's eleven thrillers that feature the mega-rich, Jaime Lynn Hendricks's seven best unlikeable characters in thrillers, Eliza Jane Brazier's nine books that pit the Have against the Have-Nots, Seraphina Nova Glass's seven top obsession thrillers, Allison Dickson's top ten thrillers featuring a dance of girlfriends and deception, Kristyn Kusek Lewis's eight shocking thrillers featuring scandals, Margot Hunt's top nine thrillers featuring duplicitous spouses, and Jennifer Hillier's eight crime novels of women starting over.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Mrs. Parrish.

--Marshal Zeringue