100 books like A Small Death in Lisbon

It’s possible that you have heard of Preston & Child—in fact, you should have. Their Agent Pendergast thriller series is incredible. And, although this is a stand-alone book that isn’t part of the Pendergast series, it has all the signature elements of the dynamic duo: great writing, fascinating science, and unforgettable characters.

Throw in just a hint of sci-fi and an exotic location into the mix, and you have the perfect thriller. And I bet you will love it.

I only read this book after watching The American, the movie (starring George Clooney) that was based on this book. And although I loved the movie, the book was even better. I love to travel, especially to Italy, and reading the book is the next best thing to going there.

The prose is elegant, bordering on poetic, and there is an underlying psychological tension that kept my stomach acid bubbling. And being a genre-bending kind of writer, I love to read books that bend genres. This is a thriller, yes, but it also reads like a memoir or literary fiction. Try it.

Even though it was almost fifty years ago, I still remember where I was and what I was doing when I read this book. (I was on Cape Cod on a family vacation in the eighth grade.) The book is that good.

MacLean basically invented the thriller, although Edgar Allen Poe might beg to differ. If you are looking for characters that will stay with you for a long time—over forty years in my case—give it a read. MacLean’s dry humor and a twisty plot are added bonuses, but it’s the characters you will remember.

I love the senses in my books. I want to know what the setting smells like, what it sounds like, and how much indigestion I am going to get from the local fare. If you do as well, Joesph Kanon is your guy, and this is your book.

I found this book before I traveled to Istanbul, and honestly, I liked it better than the city, which was chaotic and dirty. But Istanbul Passage is anything but chaotic and dirty; you’re going to love it.

I really like Jack Higgins, a world-renowned author of mysteries and historical novels. As a history buff, I particularly liked this one because it is a thriller set during WW2, and I couldn’t put it down. WW2 was an amazing time filled with heroism, danger, and the constant threat of death, and Higgins makes me feel like I was there in the midst of it all.  

Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet—original, counter, spare, strange—is not like anyone’s book, truly, in its mix of prose poetry, reflections, impressions, descriptions of psychic states and the city of Lisbon. I’d say read it to remind you of how hauntingly elliptical and daring a book can be.

I love it for its mysterious quality—how it evokes, invokes moods—how it stays ahead of you—always inviting you to come back to it. It taught me to welcome the unfinished and fragmentary, the evasive and the atmospheric, the creation of new identities in a book, that enigma and precise description can exist side by side, the alchemical mix of disbelief and mystique, the sense of something getting ready to be uttered, the sheer beauty of its expressiveness.

It taught me to overcome the sense that a book must be linear or systematic, or even accessible and lucid: it revels its embryonic obscurities… show more.

Zimler is an award-winning American writer who has lived in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, since 1990. I admire Zimler’s historical fiction for its fact-based accuracy, and The Last Kabbalist is a beauty for that reason. His acclaimed novel details the Portuguese inquisition and the massacre of its Jews in 1506. Via his incisive research and great storytelling, Zimler sheds light on this period of history unknown to many Portuguese; as a result, there is now a Jewish Memorial Plaque in Rossio Square in Lisbon’s city center, honouring the two to five thousand Jews who were massacred. 

I first read this book nearly twenty years ago and have been thinking about it ever since. It’s a relatively simple story, about a bored proofreader who literally rewrites the history of his hometown. But in the hands of a master storyteller like Saramago, the topic takes on a raft of existential questions about history, place, and our relationship to the past.

I am often asked for recommendations on where to go and what to see for visitors to Portugal, and I always recommend Rick Steve’s book. He doesn’t just cover the major attractions, he takes you into the small towns and villages, the remote beaches, and the local restaurants and cafés that will introduce you to the ‘real’ Portugal. Top tips, must-see destinations and clever itineraries will help you to pick out the best spots and the most memorable locations of this beautiful place I am proud to call home.

Part spy novel, part historical fiction, this book tells the tale of a young Jewish boy who’s been deposited by his parents at the Hotel Palacio in Estoril for safekeeping during WWII, when the hotel was home to exiled European nobles and royalty, British and German spies. We meet the Polish pianist, Yan Paderewski; Ian Fleming, the British spy novelist and creator of James Bond; French writer and flyer Antoine de St. Exupery; the ex-king of Romania, Carol II, and his mistress Elena Lupescu, the woman for whom he renounced the crown. We’re privy to the goings-on at the Hotel via the lives of this cast of colourful characters in a way that’s reminiscent of the quirky movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel.