The First Stop for Literature Lovers
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: 8 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.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Maggie O’Farrell is the kind of author who enjoys taking a deeper dive into history than most of her literary peers, a quality which shines through in her latest novel, The Marriage Portrait. It follows Lucrezia de’ Medici as she is thrust into a marriage with Alfonso II d’Este, barely out of girlhood. Largely alone and unprepared, she must learn to navigate the ruthless world of the Italian court with her very future hanging in the balance, depending on whether or not she can produce a heir for the duke.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Ian McEwan has the valuable talent of pushing his readers to reflect on the more profound topics in life, and in his latest novel, Lessons, it feels as if, in a way, he meditates on his own path through the history of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The novels follows the story of Roland Baines, eleven years of age at the end of WWII, as he marches forward through the tumultuous years ahead, all while trying to search for answers deep in his own family history.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Christopher Moore is one of those uniquely inventive authors whose books can be instantly recognized and are impossible to replicate. In A Dirty Job, one of his more famous works, he tells us the story of Charlie Asher, owner of a second-hand clothing store, whose girlfriend passed away during childbirth, leaving him to care for little Sophie. In addition, he has accidentally stumbled into a world hidden within his own, becoming not exactly Death, but something quite close to it.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Jack Hunt has evidently dedicated a fair bit of his time to thinking about various apocalyptic scenarios which might befall our society, in the second book of the After it Turns Dark series, titled When Humanity Ends, he takes a deeper dive into the social ramifications of a post-EMP America. More precisely, Hunt continues the story of Laura and her son Charlie on their journey out of Florida, and John Sheridan in his attempts to defend his home in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Louise Penny is something of a modern Agatha Christie, and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache her Montreal-based Poirot. In the seventh book of the series, titled A Trick of the Light, we follow Gamache as he heads out to a tiny village in Quebec to investigate the murder of a reviled art critic. Minds from all over the art world are gathered there, guaranteeing only one thing: nothing is as it seems.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Dan Fesperman has gained immense amounts of knowledge from his work as an international reporter, and he has put it to excellent use for his career as a writer, penning one bestselling thriller after the next. In his latest novel, Winter’s Work, he tells the story of two agents on different sides of the Cold War, each tasked with their own dangerous assignment, and the unexpected ways in which their fates intersect.