The First Stop for Literature Lovers
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Bonnie Garmus may have taken quite a while to publish her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, but it was certainly worth the wait, with even a TV show adaptation being in the making. The novel tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, a scientist who struggled during the 1950s amidst an all-male team at Hastings Research Institute, and in the 1960s became the unlikely star for a cooking show, and perhaps the catalyst to something much greater.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Jim Popkin might have waited a fairly long time to write his first novel, Code Name Blue Wren, but his vast experience as a journalist certainly helped to make it a deserved bestseller. The non-fiction book tells the true story of Ana Montes, who spent 17 years working as an expert on Cuba for the government by day, and transmitting classified information to that very same country by night.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Donna Tartt may not be the most prolific author out there, but her works have always carried profound meaning, and for many, The Secret History served as an introduction to a criminally-underrated writer. The story following Richard Papen, a young man who ends up in a liberal arts college and drawn to an exclusive group of classics students, eventually thrusting him dead-center into a murderous scheme.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Joel Dicker has a real knack for coming up with unusual and enthralling mysteries for modern readers, and he does so once again with The Enigma of Room 622. The slightly metafictional story follows a writer named Joel, who retreats to a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps in hopes of healing and recovering from recent ordeals. Unfortunately for him, an old murder rearing its head all but thwarts his plan to finally get some much-needed peace and quiet.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Gabino Iglesias has recently become a must-read author for many people for his unusual and poignant storytelling abilities. In his most recent novel, The Devil Takes You Home, he tells the tale of Mario, a man forced to become a hit man due the expensive treatments required by his ill daughter. One day, tragedy strikes, and Mario decides to take on one last and lethal job: to hijack a cartel’s money shipment.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Colleen Hoover has the habit of taking her readers along to explore some of the more difficult-yet-meaningful aspects of human existence, as she does once again in Reminders of Him. The story follows Kenna Rowan, a young mother having just served a five-year prison sentence, coming back home in an attempt to reconnect with her four-year-old daughter, despite everyone intent on shutting her out.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Frederick Forsyth has shown himself more knowledgeable than most of his peers when it comes to writing espionage thrillers, as is evidenced by the success of his works, both on paper and on the silver screen. In The ODESSA File, one of his more lauded novels, he tells the story of a German crime reporter who lands on the trail of a Nazi war criminal in Hamburg, leading him on a winding investigation with far-reaching consequences.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Anthony Horowitz came up with one of the more creative literary ideas in recent memory with A Hawthorne and Horowitz Mystery series, inserting himself as a main character in his own novels. In the fourth book, The Twist of a Knife, Anthony Horowitz finds himself falsely accused of murder, forcing him to turn to Detective Hawthorne for help, despite the two being newly-estranged.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
William Peter Blatty has certainly written many novels worthy of our attention, but I think it’s safe to say none of them have stood the test of time like The Exorcist, which also received a timeless silver screen adaptation. It tells the story of Regan MacNeil, a young girl who becomes possessed by a demon, and the two priests who are brought in to fight for her life, facing an evil none have ever seen before.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Michael Crichton will forever be remembered as one of the main pillars helping to bridge a union between literature and cinema, many of his iconic works having been turned into equally-recognized movies. The Andromeda Strain is one of them, a science-fiction novel following four elite biophysicists racing to uncover the cause behind the near-total decimation of a sleepy desert town and to contain a contagion threatening the world at large.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Haruki Murakami is no stranger to exploring the slices of reality which exist somewhere between truth and imagination, to the point where I suspect he came out from one of them. In his recent novel, Killing Commendatore, he tells the story of an unnamed portrait painter who, upon finding a magnificent painting in an attic, embarks on a strange journey of self-discovery, one which blurs the thin line between fiction and reality and shows him a world hidden in plain sight.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Paul Newman is a name requiring no introduction, a veritable Hollywood icon, the kind who endured the test of time and has managed to avoid reputation-ending scandals. In 2022 a project which he concluded almost two decades earlier was published, titled The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man – A Memoir, edited by David Rosenthal. In it, both Newman and many of those who knew him offer their unfiltered views on the man’s history and all the remarkable travails he was forced to endure.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Colleen Hoover has evidently more than enough talent to take forays outside her comfort zone in terms of genre, and her 2018 novel Verity stands as a testament to that. It tells us the story of Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling author who takes on a job to finish three books for another famous writer, now incapacitated following an accident. However, during the course of her work Lowen runs into an autobiography never meant to be read, opening a real Pandora’s Box of terrifying family secrets.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Celeste Ng is an author who uses her voice not only to entertain, but to also lead a personal fight against the discrimination and injustice still suffered by Americans of Asian descent. In her latest novel, Our Missing Hearts, she tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy going out on a quest to find his missing mother, a Chinese-American poet, amidst a country gripped by national fervour and excessive patriotism.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Deanna Raybourn does tend to stick to the historical genre for the most part, but her forays outside of it often bear some remarkable fruits, as is the case with Killers of a Certain Age. The novel tells the story of Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie, four assassins with over forty years of experience behind their backs. In a world where no one values their skills anymore, they find themselves targeted for termination by their own order, but needless to say, it turns out to be a huge mistake.