Here are 86 books that Charlie P fans have personally recommended if you like
Charlie P.
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I was six years old, and already a lover of Hallowe’en, when the special joy of stories took hold of my mind. It has never left. By the time I was an adult, I had come to value finely crafted fiction, the beautiful nuances of thought and expression possible in the hands of the greatest writers. At the same time, I never lost my youthful enthusiasm for the ghost, the deep forest just at twilight, the unused room at the back of the house where no one goes. To my delight, I have found there is an entire tradition of such work—gothic shapes rendered by the highest quality writers.
I am a huge fan of the very-brief gothic. It’s so hard to do well; trivial jump-scares are easy, but to produce a meaningful effect in only a few pages takes real precision. Shirley Jackson holds the crown with "The Lottery," but my second favorite instance of a surprisingly quick read that produces a real gasp is Angela Carter’s mini-treasure, "The Werewolf."
It manages to be a fairy tale, feminist critique, a witch, and a werewolf story all at once—and, like the beast in the title, it may not be what it appears. Also wonderful to me are "The Company of Wolves," "The Snow Child,"and the eponymous "The Bloody Chamber," that one a revisioning of "Bluebeard"—essentially, Carter updates all kinds of dark fairy tales, bringing out their subversive shadows for a savvy reader. Still so fresh to this day.
With an introduction by Helen Simpson. From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.
I’m a novelist and admire writing that pushes against the conventions of mainstream fiction, that goes around and beyond the formulaic, commercial concept of plot. In the Western world, we’re especially stuck on what film director Raul Ruiz calls “conflict theory”—the masculinist idea that only conflict can create narrative. Of course conflict is part of life, but hello—there’s more. Conventional plot’s well-worn heroes, helpers, villians, saviours, and conflict-based climax, so closely tied to Hollywood USA, are predictable and unfulfilling. Many people seek something more innovative, like the literary versions of Philip Glass or Fernando Botero.
I revere writing that doesn't cling to the ridiculously sacrosanct principle that conflict is essential to stories—especially conflict between good and evil. If any writer’s work completely sidesteps the convention of plot, it’s Lutz, who also publishes under the name Garielle Lutz. These voice-driven stories—of nameless folk seeking small comforts where they can find them—are nearly undescribable. Stomach-dropping little language surprises abound, and Lutz has a penchant for preserving American English heirloom words and phrases such as “Car-coat,” “shoehorn,” and “frankfurter shack". Many of the stories describe transient, uneasy relationships, yet laugh-out-loud humor is present, too. Some of the stories seem less to move forward narratively than to rock to and fro. Those interested in pure language-forward narratives by a master of sentences should read Lutz.
Even as a chapbook, it was one of Time Out New York’s Ten Best Books of 2007, and now we're proud to publish an expanded paperback edition of Partial List of People to Bleach, with six previously uncollected pieces, including the provocative and now-classic essay “The Sentence Is a Lonely Place,” and a foreword by Gordon Lish.
"Partial List of People to Bleach is at once cruelly honest, precisely painful, and beautifully rendered." —Brian Evenson
"Gary Lutz is a master—living proof that, even in our cliché-ridden, denial-drenched, hype-driven age, true originality is still an American possibility." —George Saunders
I live by the Atlantic Ocean, so the thoughts of floods are never far away, especially as the seas are warming through human-caused climate change. I wrote about storms and floods in my novel Float and, more recently, in my new novel listed below. I did a lot of research on flooding for both, and I am constantly amazed by the power of the natural world, particularly one out of balance as it is now. My passion and purpose is to bring the dangers of this imbalance to my readers. Even if you have never been in a flood before, fiction allows you to know what it feels like.
This is one of my all-time favorite books. It is so darkly funny and strange that I laugh and shiver right through it every time. It begins in the middle of a flood in a small English town, where ducks are swimming and quacking in the drawing room, and I am also a big duck fan. Strange deaths follow. You can’t beat that.
“Comyns’ novel is deranged in ways that shouldn’t be disclosed.” —Ben Marcus
This is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch. Then the miller drowns himself . . . then the butcher slits his throat . . . and a series of gruesome deaths plagues…
I’m a novelist and admire writing that pushes against the conventions of mainstream fiction, that goes around and beyond the formulaic, commercial concept of plot. In the Western world, we’re especially stuck on what film director Raul Ruiz calls “conflict theory”—the masculinist idea that only conflict can create narrative. Of course conflict is part of life, but hello—there’s more. Conventional plot’s well-worn heroes, helpers, villians, saviours, and conflict-based climax, so closely tied to Hollywood USA, are predictable and unfulfilling. Many people seek something more innovative, like the literary versions of Philip Glass or Fernando Botero.
A mysterious, melancholy narrative translated from French is rendered in stripped-down sentences, following a novelist, Mia, after a death in the family. The subsequent plot of subterfuge and corporate crime is so full and busy with knotty, overly complex occurrences that it begins to seem a deliberate distortion and exaggeration of the convention of plot itself. Through the character of Mia, the gifted Redonnet reports tragic and powerful occurrences in flat, clear prose that packs emotion just under the surface of the affectless sentences. The word “Candy” recurs hauntingly through the novel: as a song title, as the name of a character in a show, and as the name that Mia’s lovers call her. This slight novel leaves searing traces of emotional impact long after you read it.
Candy Story recounts a turbulent year in the life of Mia, a young woman whose apparent calm is perpetually threatened by inner doubts and outer catastrophe. Her modest dreams of happiness are dashed by the deaths of her mother, old friends, and her lover. Mia is a talented writer, the author of an autobiographical novel. Now, assailed by calamity and misfortune, she struggles with writer's block, confounded-at least for the moment-by the senseless world around her. Candy Story is the fourth novel by Marie Redonnet. Translations of the first three-Hotel Splendid, Forever Valley, and Rose Mellie Rose-are also available from…
I’m Steve Sheppard and I’m arguably the best person in the UK to create this list as I am myself the archetypal funny author whom nobody has heard of, having written three comedy spy thrillers, two out (A Very Important Teapot and Bored to Death in the Baltics) and one on the way (Poor Table Manners), all published by a genuine indie publisher, Claret Press. I would have loved to include a funny thriller in my list, but sadly, they are not to be found–not without resorting to farce and slapstick anyway.
This is another fictional diary but different again. To say I enjoyed it is an understatement. This is a witty, engaging, satirical romp of a journal with laugh-out-loud moments, an empathetic everyman protagonist, a full cast of colourful supporting characters, and a rich background, mainly in Amsterdam.
I whipped through the book in a couple of days and was left hoping that we might find out what happens to Gerard "next year." All in all, thoroughly entertaining.
I am a comic book writer from Scotland now living in Japan. I have had more than 40 books published with a variety of US, UK, and Japanese publishers. I am the only professional manga writer from Britain who lives in Japan. In 2016 my book The Faceless Ghost was nominated for the prestigious Eisner Book Awards, and received a medal in the 2016 'Independent Publisher Book Awards'. In 2017, my book Secrets of the Ninja won an International Manga Award from the Japanese government – I was the first British person to receive this. In 2020 I received the ‘Scottish Samurai Award’ from an association linking Japan and Scotland.
This book is a classic 1960s/1970s style gekiga book, which means more sophisticated literary manga. These are wonderful moving and funny stories from the street, about everyday people dealing with the pain and disappointment that we all must face throughout life. If you have never read any comic books beyond superhero ones this book will open your eyes to how subtle and intelligent comic books can be. I was lucky enough to meet and work with Tatsumi before he died.
Abandon the Old in Tokyo continues to delve into the urban underbelly of 1960s Tokyo, exposing not only the seedy dealings of the Japanese everyman but Yoshihiro Tatsumi's maturation as a storyteller. Many of the stories deal with the economic hardships of the time and the strained relationships between men and women, but do so by means of dark allegorical twists and turns. A young sewer cleaner's girlfriend has a miscarriage and leaves him when he proves incapable of finding higher-paying work. When a factory worker loses his hand on the job, the parallels between him and his pet monkey…
I’ve been an avid psychological suspense reader since I was at school, but have only recently begun to write in the genre myself. I’m not sure why it took me so long. If it was my most favourite genre to read, then why not write in it? When I came up with the idea for The Weekend Alone, I knew I had to write it, and I finally discovered what other suspense authors already knew: that playing with a reader’s perception can be the most amazing fun! My next psychological suspense book will be out with HQ Digital in summer 2023. Here’s hoping my own thrillers will keep readers gripped long past lights out!
As soon as I read the premise for this book, I knew I wanted to read it, not to mention wishing I’d thought of it myself! Sitting opposite a flustered young woman on a train, Ellen helps her out by holding her baby. A few moments later, she is stunned to see the woman getting off at the next station, apparently having abandoned her child. Trust Me, this twisty-turny thriller will have you staying up late to find out what happens!
The intensely gripping Sunday Times bestseller, from the author of Richard & Judy pick and NETFLIX drama The Holiday
'Thriller of the year? This is the thriller of the decade' My Weekly
'Everything you want from a thriller, and more' Lesley Kara ____________________________________________
TWO STRANGERS. A CHILD. AND A SPLIT SECOND CHOICE THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING.
The chance encounter
Ellen was just trying to help a stranger. Giving a few minutes respite to a flustered young mother sitting opposite her on the train. A few minutes holding her baby while the woman makes an urgent call.
Ever since reading Heir to the Empire (Timothy Zahn), I’ve been fascinated by science fiction stories with amazing characters and intriguing concepts. I love finding a new story, especially one that isn’t being talked about, and falling into that world. I still get lost in the worlds of the Deathgate Cycle and Rose of the Prophets because they introduced me to concepts and places I’d never imagined or thought to imagine before reading them. I crafted a world and characters both familiar and alien because of these influences and I’m still drawn to them when I start a new book no one is talking about, like those on this list.
From the moment I first began listening to the audiobook, I fell in love with this story. I was all in the moment Ryland Grace stumbled through answering the question “What is 2 plus 2?” The layering of the story, the threat to Earth concept, the educational presentation of very high-level scientific concepts to an audience of all ages, and the way Andy Weir made this reader feel so many emotions over a rock just keep drawing me back to it.
I literally just finished another listen less than a month ago and already want to go back to a story. I still don’t see many people talking about it. And the ending? Every story has its own perfect dismount landing, and this one nailed it.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
I’ve always firmly believed that, being an all-encompassing genre, speculative fiction represents nearly everything I love about writing and storytelling. I’m therefore very proud to have established myself in that world over the past several years and hope to positively impact others in the way I’ve been positively impacted by the sorts of works I’ve mentioned here.
My second true love where speculative fiction universes are concerned is undoubtedly the Apprentice Adept series. The way it so deftly blends fantasy and science fiction, the iconic, unforgettable characters and concepts, and the, frankly, epic way the story evolves and eventually resolves absolutely blew my mind as a kid, and I’ve found revisiting it as an adult just as satisfying and enjoyable.
On the technological, decadent world of Proton, someone was trying to destroy Stile, serf and master Gamesman. His only escape lay through a mysterious “curtain” revealed by a loving robot.
Beyond the curtain lay Phaze—a world totally ruled by magic. There, his first encounter was with an amulet that turned into a demon determined to choke him to death. And there, he soon learned, his alternate self had already been murdered by sorcery, and he was due to be the next victim.
“Know thyself!” the infallible Oracle told him. But first he must save himself as he shuttled between worlds.…
In my opinion, a good adventure story does two things at once: it compels you to turn pages, while, paradoxically, also enticing you to get off the couch and go out into the beautiful, magical world, pregnant with unlimited possibilities, right outside your door, just waiting for you to notice it. I’ve hitchhiked, I’ve been lost in the jungle, I’ve sailed, I’ve run whitewater rivers, and I’ve written and drawn New Yorker cartoons and picture books. I hope these books are as hard for you to put down as they were for me, and when you do put ‘em down, it’s only to throw on your rucksack and head out in search of adventure!
Almost all the Tintin books are a delight, but this one has always been my favorite. It gets the mixture of suspense and humor just exactly right. In this one, Tintin stumbles into a mystery, which starts small and grows into a terrific hunt for a lost pirate treasure. The everyman who’s pulled into adventure by coincidence or mistaken identity is something that appeals to me because it reminds me that even if we’re not private eyes or secret agents we’re constantly adventure-adjacent! The Secret of the Unicorn reminds me that adventure is largely a matter of attitude: Tintin ends up at the center of adventures because he’s always curious and game – are you?!
The classic graphic novel. Tintin stumbles across a model ship at the Old Street Market. Only it isn't just any model ship-it's the Unicorn, carved by one of Haddock's ancestors, and it holds a clue to finding pirate treasure!
