Here are 74 books that Build Your House Around My Body fans have personally recommended if you like
Build Your House Around My Body.
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I will die on this hill: a knowledge of human history is essential. If we refuse to examine our past, we are truly doomed to repeat it. What we call “history,” however, is told from only one viewpoint: that of the victor, or whatever party lived to record the tale. Since childhood, I’ve been intrigued by the lives of our forebears even as I longed for proof of the uncanny in the waking world. But I’ve only ever encountered the fantastical—not to mention the historical—in texts like those on this list, where the two can commingle, enriching and refining one another for the enlightenment, and the pleasure, of their readers.
Speaking of authors who combine stylistic daring with profound emotion, I give you George Saunders. Saunders’s strange and funny stories prompted me to try my hand at writing fiction, and his first novel is one of my favorite books.
Inspired by the true story of Abraham Lincoln sneaking, on multiple occasions, into a Washington D.C. crypt to cradle the corpse of his young son, Willie, this book also breathes life into a sizeable cast of ghosts squatting in the “Bardo”—a liminal space between life and death. As the American Civil War rages, President Lincoln and the unwilling ghosts must all come to terms with the inevitability of death. This book is a great American novel, equally hilarious and heart-breaking.
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
A STORY OF LOVE AFTER DEATH
'A masterpiece' Zadie Smith
'Extraordinary' Daily Mail
'Breathtaking' Observer
'A tour de force' The Sunday Times
The extraordinary first novel by the bestselling, Folio Prize-winning, National Book Award-shortlisted George Saunders, about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven year old son, Willie, at the dawn of the Civil War
The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns…
An avid reader, I began a project in 2012 to read one short story a week in supernatural mysteries, ghost stories, and quiet horror genres. I began with the classic authors: Poe, MR James, Lovecraft, Shelley, Stoker, du Maurier, etc. I began a blog, Reading Fiction Blog, and posted these free stories with my reviews (I’m still posting today). Over the years, it turned into a compendium of fiction. Today, I have nearly 400 short stories by over 150 classic and now contemporary authors in the blog Index. I did this because I wanted to learn more about writing dark fiction and who better to learn from than the masters?
Even though this is a period novel, I read this story for its Gothic horror and literary acumen. Repression of memories, feelings, and guilt struck me throughout. Dr. Faraday discovers ghostly mysteries at Hundreds Hall, and his romance with Caroline is spooky enough, but this ghost story is grounded in reality.
Who is the little stranger haunting the premises? I sunk deeply into this story, drinking up the beauty. But the ending! Wow. Brilliantly revealed and aptly placed on the final page. Sarah Waters hides the ghost in plain sight, and yet I was surprised at the conclusion—delightfully so. I’m a sucker for one-liners that grab the reader by the throat, metaphorically speaking, at the last line. I plan to read it again because it’s that good.
After her award-winning trilogy of Victorian novels, Sarah Waters turned to the 1940s and wrote THE NIGHT WATCH, a tender and tragic novel set against the backdrop of wartime Britain. Shortlisted for both the Orange and the Man Booker, it went straight to number one in the bestseller chart. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable…
I teach and have written too many articles on these books as an English professor. There’s a time for tragic or difficult books (James Joyce, anyone?), but also a time for fun, and I believe it’s good for my students to giggle and enjoy reading while they learn. As a Canadian, I’m told my humor is dry but warmer, and accordingly, the books I prefer make me think—and some break my heart—but my favorites also make me laugh. If you want a quality read but aren’t above a fart joke, I hope you will check out my list.
This book has always hit the trifecta for me—interesting, moving, and funny. A story about London immigrant families in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it shows a lesser-known side of society and certainly is the raunchiest book in my list—there’s a lot of sex among its confused screw-ups.
I admit my mind was opened, and my sympathies widened by this book, and after re-reading, I can appreciate it as a masterpiece of comic chaos. I wouldn’t want to be these characters—how many books begin with a failed suicide attempt?—but I’m glad they let me into their lives.
One of the most talked about fictional debuts of recent years, "White Teeth" is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.
I’ve always loved “big books,” novels that are described as sagas and chronicles yet whose primary focus is on singular, nuanced characters. I like seeing the ways that lives intersect and reflect each other across decades, and I enjoy being immersed in one world and then dropped, with the turn of a page, into another equally engrossing one. I am the author of the novel Rebellion as well as numerous short stories and essays. Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, I spent several years living in China and a year as the Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. I now live in Wisconsin, where I write and teach creative writing.
Some time-jumping novels take you all over the globe. Others unearth the history of a single place. Rebecca Makkai’s novel takes the latter approach and pushes it to the extreme: its setting is a house in a suburb of Chicago, which, as a Midwesterner, I am bound to be excited about. Moving backward through time, the book is a masterpiece in terms of construction, but Makkai’s touch is so light she makes it feel easy. I stayed up late several nights in a row rereading this book recently, and given that I’ve got three kids under the age of five, that should tell you everything you need to know.
From the acclaimed author of The Great Believers, an original, mordantly witty novel about the secrets of an old-money family and their turn-of-the-century estate, Laurelfield.
Meet the Devohrs: Zee, a Marxist literary scholar who detests her parents' wealth but nevertheless finds herself living in their carriage house; Gracie, her mother, who claims she can tell your lot in life by looking at your teeth; and Bruce, her step-father, stockpiling supplies for the Y2K apocalypse and perpetually late for his tee time. Then there's Violet Devohr, Zee's great-grandmother, who they say took her own life somewhere in the vast house, and…
I’ve always loved “big books,” novels that are described as sagas and chronicles yet whose primary focus is on singular, nuanced characters. I like seeing the ways that lives intersect and reflect each other across decades, and I enjoy being immersed in one world and then dropped, with the turn of a page, into another equally engrossing one. I am the author of the novel Rebellion as well as numerous short stories and essays. Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, I spent several years living in China and a year as the Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. I now live in Wisconsin, where I write and teach creative writing.
I first read Maxine Hong Kingston in college, but I can’t remember if I was assigned China Men or The Woman Warrior (the more famous counterpoint to China Men).All I know is that whichever one I read, I loved it so much that I immediately sought out the companion piece, which I also loved. In China Men, Kingston weaves together fiction and nonfiction, history and myth, story and memory. Is it a novel? A tapestry? I’m not quite sure what to call it, and that’s part of what I love about the book. Brief interludes of two or three pages present a single scene; longer stories narrate entire sagas. I love that this volume covers so much literal ground but ultimately feels incredibly personal.
The author chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese men in America, woven from memory, myth and fact. Here's a storyteller's tale of what they endured in a strange new land.
I’ve always loved “big books,” novels that are described as sagas and chronicles yet whose primary focus is on singular, nuanced characters. I like seeing the ways that lives intersect and reflect each other across decades, and I enjoy being immersed in one world and then dropped, with the turn of a page, into another equally engrossing one. I am the author of the novel Rebellion as well as numerous short stories and essays. Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, I spent several years living in China and a year as the Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. I now live in Wisconsin, where I write and teach creative writing.
I can never decide which of Erdrich’s books is my favorite, but The Plague of Doves is definitely a major contender. Erdrich’s novelistic style is more like a chorus than a solo: she presents various stories involving different characters in different times, but the stories are in orbit around the central conflict, in this case, a pair of horrific crimes committed long ago. Yet even when the content is dark, her writing is so beautiful that my primary feeling reading it is joy. For me, the title of this book perfectly captures that contradictory experience.
A beautiful, compelling, utterly original new novel from one of the most important American writers of our time, and winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, 2012
Pluto, North Dakota, is a town on the verge of extinction. Here, everybody is connected - by love or friendship, by blood, and, most importantly, by the burden of a shared history.
Growing up on the reservation is Evelina Harp, witty and ambitious, and prone to falling hopelessly in love. Listening to her grandfather's tales, she learns of a horrific crime that has marked both Ojibwe and whites. Nobody understands it better…
The uncanny slips into the gaps between the objective world and the
world of human experience with all its dreams, apprehensions, and
intuitions. This intermediate space is the habitat of ghosts and also
the zone where my mind does its wanderings. It's where my books come, and
explorations of that space in other peoples' books draw me in, deeply
and inescapably.
The title isn’t kidding. This story—of a psychic thronged by the ghosts of the loathsome men who abused her in childhood—is one of the darkest books I’ve ever read.
I also found it incredibly funny, though the humor is black as ink. I love how, in its perverse way, is also becomes a story about recovering hope after profound trauma: one of the major themes in my own books.
I was in fifth grade when I brought home my first paranormal thriller from the library. It was love at first read. Since then, I’ve broadened my reading horizons to many fiction genres, but fast-paced stories grounded in our world with a dash of magic continue to be my favorite. The same can be said of my viewing habits—give me shows like Severance or Black Mirror, and I’ll be glued to the screen all day long. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone that it is my favorite entertainment genre and writing genre. Many of the books on this list have served as inspiration—I hope you love them too!
This book is utterly unique. While not a traditional paranormal thriller per se, Suma weaves together two distinct stories that come together in a jaw-dropping conclusion.
I’m a sucker for books with dancers as main characters, so the dance-infused narrative was all the more satisfying. Add in beautiful prose, a spooky prison, and a little competition between ballerina friends, and you’ve got a winner. No wonder I’ve read this book three times.
As a young working mom, I occasionally longed to follow the example of columnist Erma Bombeck and hide from my family in the car. Instead, I channeled the mayhem of family life into a humor column called “The Mother Load,” which detailed the day-to-day challenges of running a business while caring for two daughters, one husband, two guinea pigs, and a dancing rabbit. When I decided to pursue my life-long dream to write fiction, my debut novel was a humorous story about a mother-daughter-grandmother road trip/chase from Boston to Memphis. Although my writing doesn’t shy away from serious issues, I choose to see the world through a humorous and ultimately hopeful lens.
While on a beach vacation, the forty-year-old mother/protagonist of this book, Delia Grinstead, walks away from her distant husband and three surly children – seemingly on a whim – to try out a new life.
Anne Tyler’s characters are unfailingly quirky, and Delia can be both frustrating and charming, but the book engagingly details the mid-life crisis of a woman eager to learn who she is.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons
"BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION."
The headlines are all the same: Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To the best of her family's knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn't disappear. She ran.
Exhausted with her routine and everyone else's plans for her, Delia needed an out, a chance to make a new life for herself and to…
Since my stepfather disappeared in 1982, disappearance has been my obsession. In writing Disequilibria, I read everything I could on missing persons. By now, I might be the chief authority on Missingness! – that is, on disappearance as a theoretical construct. I’m especially interested in how, across different sensibilities (in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, but also law, social science, journalism, philosophy, history, and media studies), we can compose a shared language and create shared understanding. My larger goal is to discover creative and redemptive ways of responding to loss, grief, and trauma; to find how disappearance in all its forms creates a framework for understanding what it means to be human.
Aimee Baker’s Doe is a diptych: poems in the first section focus on missing women, while those in the second section reimagine the lives of unidentified women.
Baker creates recurrent, multiple patterns of imagery that celebrate the beauty and dignity of each woman – in argument, essentially, with the ways true crime sometimes exploits and objectifies victims’ lives. At the same time, Doe is about North America as a captivating space of the imagination: the poet creates a geography by turns intimate and vast, familiar and strange, beautiful and terrible.
The finely-crafted textures of the poems in Doe, as well as the apparent dedication to investigation and research in the work overall, make for a rare combination.
Winner of the 2018 Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize
Doe began as author Aimée Baker's attempt to understand and process the news coverage of a single unidentified woman whose body was thrown from a car leaving Phoenix, Arizona. It soon grew into a seven-year-long project with the goal to document, mourn, and witness the stories of missing and unidentified women in the United States.
