Fans pick 100 books like A Lexicon of Terror

In this book, Laura Alcoba recounts memories of her childhood from the tender perspective of a 7-year-old girl whose parents are being targeted by Argentina’s dictatorship. Laura and her family hide out in a small house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where a resistance movement is operating a secret printing press behind the façade of a rabbit farm.

Through snippets of conversations that she isn’t meant to understand (but does) and strict rules of secrecy intended to protect her, wonder and curiosity prevail. I loved seeing this hidden world through Laura’s eyes.

Alicia Partnoy was one of the estimated thirty thousand people captured during Argentina’s dictatorship. An Argentine poet, author, human rights activist, translator, and professor, she was torn from her home—and away from her baby daughter, who was left behind with relatives—in 1977.

This is a literary account of the subsequent months she spent in a clandestine prison in Bahia Blanca called La Escuelita, where she and other prisoners were subject to torture and abuse at the hands of the junta. Translated from Spanish, this is a survivor’s memoir. I loved the poetic and near-spiritual explorations of these harrowing experiences. Alicia has since been reunited with her daughter, providing invaluable inspiration and insight for my book.

This is one of my favorite books about the work of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. In it, Arditti quickly summarizes the historical backdrop of the dictatorship (within fifty pages), then provides a touching, thorough, and informative account of the grandmothers’ work, often using their own words.

She showcases obstacles and milestones—from ‘The Catholic Church’ to ‘The Grandmother's Gift to Science’—in easily digestible sections, capturing decades of tenacious search efforts and the emotional result when found grandchildren are reunited with their biological families.

This book appealed to my love of feminist theory and cultural studies. It explores gender and nationalism in the context of Argentine identity between 1976 and 1983.

Diana Taylor examines military tactics, geography, theatre, campaign propaganda, and the feminization of the enemy—with quite a bit of research on the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo—and examines the way images, myths, and desires shape a collective narrative.

A psychological thriller set on the stunningly beautiful Greek island of Patmos. That was enough to make me want to crack the cover on this book, and what a great read it turned out to be!

Ian, fleeing the emotional and financial fallout of his father’s death, joins Charlie, his best childhood friend, who’s rich and basking in the good island life. Or is it a good island life?

Ian finds himself drawn into a world where mysteries overlap, infidelities, and ambivalent sexuality are rampant, an errant bomb explosion may have missed its intended target, and the conclusion makes the ending to The Silence of the Lambs look like a cakewalk.

Doctor Sarah Linton, the star of an earlier series before this one, is now a medical examiner and her partner is Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. When a group of domestic terrorists and survivalists bomb two hospitals and the office of the Center for Disease Control, Sarah rushes to the scene to help. The group kidnaps her and she’s forced into a male-dominated commune where she has to rely on her wits and her acting skills to survive, while trying to get word out to Will and his colleagues where the group is hiding…hopefully, before they strike again to unleash an environmental disaster that will kill millions of people. 

I can’t find a more deeply philosophical book, among all adult literature, to compare with the works of Madeleine L’Engle.

The protagonists of these stories may be children, but they live in a world of scientific supernature that blurs the lines between measurable, observable reality and mystic philosophy. Even before researching Madeleine L’Engle’s life, I could tell that she was a serious thinker.

Few books have had such a profound impact on the way I approach living in the “real” world of adults. Einstein would have loved this book.

Utilizing appropriation and real testimonies of people who have suffered the forced disappearance of their relatives as a result of cartel violence, Sara Uribe weaves together a lyrical palimpsest by combining the voices and tropes of Greek mythology and the all-too-real suffering of the Mexican present.

Antigona Gonzalez, the main subject in this book, echoes the myth of Antigone as well as the struggles of all those who search for their missing kin in Mexico, those who have gone missing at the hands of narco-violence. This book is a telling use of previously existing texts to describe a crisis of the present accurately.

One fine day, sixteen-year-old Ethan walks down his driveway and then vanishes. This was the short description of the book and I immediately picked it up. Instead of being a thriller, this book deals with the aftermath of Ethan’s disappearance, how his family and friends searched for him with little success. More than that, this was a book without a definitive happy ending.

As I was going through grief, a story that doesn’t wrap everything nicely in a bow was very cathartic for me. This book helped me accept that not everything in life ends in happily ever after. This opened me to the bittersweet nature of life, how loss is very much a part of it, and that not everything has to make sense. Things happen that make no sense at all and that’s the most bitter pill I had to learn to swallow.

What happens when a client turns on a therapist? I hope I never find out.

I picked up Helene Flood's novel out of curiosity. As a writer, I wanted to know how Flood turns two people sitting in a room quietly talking into a plot that will hold readers' attention. I don’t want to give anything away, except to say her book deftly and accurately shows a clinician using her training to solve a terrible crime and save herself.

It was easy for me to identify with both the protagonist and the author. Flood and I are both practicing psychologists specializing in trauma. I’m grateful for a good read and a reminder to screen potential clients carefully.