Love Glamorama? Readers share 100 books like Glamorama...

By Bret Easton Ellis,

Here are 100 books that Glamorama fans have personally recommended if you like Glamorama. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Cloud Atlas

Richard Cox Author Of House of the Rising Sun

From my list on thrillers that are also literary novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always looked at the world with a sense of wonder. As a child, I was drawn to the magical and the fantastical, but a budding fascination with the scientific method eventually led me to discover the beauty and wonder of the natural world. I assumed science fiction would scratch that itch, but too many genre novels left me feeling empty, like they were missing something essential—what it feels like to be human. Novels that combine a wonder of the world with an intimate concern for character hit just the right spot for me. Maybe they will for you as well.

Richard's book list on thrillers that are also literary novels

Richard Cox Why did Richard love this book?

I love this book for its Matroyska doll-style structure: The first five sections tell stories in different periods— from the mid-19th century to the 22nd—loosely connected by repeating characters and media, each ending abruptly and without resolution. The sixth section, set in the 24th century, is the spine of the novel, told in its entirety. Then Mitchell revisits the time periods in reverse chronological order, resolving each story, ending where we began in the mid-19th century.

It was a highly satisfying experience that changed my view of how a story could be told. It is widely considered one of the finest novels of the 21st century. It covers ideas I would normally balk at, like reincarnation and the existence of eternal consciousness. Still, the storytelling is so powerful that it all came across as believable to me. I loved the way Mitchell demonstrated how an idea in one time period


By David Mitchell,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked Cloud Atlas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Six lives. One amazing adventure. The audio publication of one of the most highly acclaimed novels of 2004. 'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies...' A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified 'dinery server' on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation - the narrators of CLOUD ATLAS hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great



Book cover of House of Leaves

John R. Gordon Author Of Mother of Serpents

From my list on spooky old houses and the fear of madness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in the seventies in the UK was a fertile time for lovers of the uncanny, with memorable children’s dramas like Children of the Stones, The Changes and Ace of Wands. Like many others, I keenly collected junkshop editions of Herbert Van Thal’s horror anthologies. Occultism was in the air in the troubled, economically stagnating Age of Aquarius, and though too young to see them, we schoolboys all knew of The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen. A friend gave me a Lovecraft biography for my 18th birthday, and though I’d read none of his work, I went on to become fascinated by him and his Weird Tales compadres.

John's book list on spooky old houses and the fear of madness

John R. Gordon Why did John love this book?

A friend complained about being saddled with reading this bible-thick book by a fellow creative writing student on his MA course. Never having heard of it, though I’ve since discovered it’s a major cult favorite, I flicked through it and quickly became intrigued by its faux academic footnotes and citations, quirky layout (pages might contain a single line of text as the narrative accelerates, for instance) and tale of paranormal investigation.

‘Postmodern’, though apt, makes it sound tedious; actually, it’s an intriguing, clever, and in places touching take on the psychic investigator genre, using a myriad of haunted house motifs from the trashy (The Amityville Horror; ‘Found footage’ movies) to the cerebral (cultural theory, references to Umberto Eco). While self-consciously ‘clever’, it delivers sincerely on the uncanniness I want from a haunted house tale.

By Mark Z. Danielewski,

Why should I read it?

26 authors picked House of Leaves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,



Book cover of The Passage

Stephen M. Sanders Author Of Passe-Partout

From my list on dystopian and sci-fantasy novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a sci-fi/fantasy fan ever since my dad introduced me to the original Star Trek (in reruns) and The Lord of the Rings in my youth. I’ve always loved thinking about possibilities—large and small—so my work tends to think big when I write. I also write poetry, which allows me to talk about more than just the everyday or at least to find the excitement within the mundane in life. These works talk about those same “possibilities”—for better or worse, and in reading, I walk in awareness of what could be.

Stephen's book list on dystopian and sci-fantasy novels

Stephen M. Sanders Why did Stephen love this book?

This book scratches my genre itch and is also “literary” at the same time. Cronin’s superb world-building is so subtle that you don’t realize that the book’s world and ours are separate until you are half-way through the book and see that there were clues all along the way.

By Justin Cronin,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Passage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is. THE PASSAGE. Deep in the jungles of eastern Colombia, Professor Jonas Lear has finally found what he's been searching for - and wishes to God he hadn't. In Memphis, Tennessee, a six-year-old girl called Amy is left at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy and wonders why her



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Book cover of Authentically Dead

Authentically Dead by Julie Kusma,

A hair-raising, side-splitting supernatural adventure!

In the idyllic town of Pine Port, Kelsey was on the cusp of realizing her dreams. In weeks, she'd clasp her high school diploma and beauty license. Or so she thought, until her life took a supernatural detour, far removed from the ordinary path she'd


Book cover of Sea of Tranquility

Richard Cox Author Of House of the Rising Sun

From my list on thrillers that are also literary novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always looked at the world with a sense of wonder. As a child, I was drawn to the magical and the fantastical, but a budding fascination with the scientific method eventually led me to discover the beauty and wonder of the natural world. I assumed science fiction would scratch that itch, but too many genre novels left me feeling empty, like they were missing something essential—what it feels like to be human. Novels that combine a wonder of the world with an intimate concern for character hit just the right spot for me. Maybe they will for you as well.

Richard's book list on thrillers that are also literary novels

Richard Cox Why did Richard love this book?

This book is a literary novel set in part on the Moon. That’s not a sentence you’ll read often, which is a big part of why I love this novel—it’s not what I expected, even though there’s a big hint in the title.

Like many readers, my introduction to Emily St. John Mandel was her post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven. In that story, the most interesting characters aren’t concerned with simple survival
if they are going to fight to live, they want a culture worth fighting for. When I picked this book up, I deliberately chose not to read the story summary and was completely caught off guard by how the novel unfolded. Typically, stories questioning time and our perception of reality do so by sending the protagonist on a dangerous quest looking for answers.

Like all my favorite novels, the scope is intimate and vast in this one. The story


By Emily St. John Mandel,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Sea of Tranquility as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‱ The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

“One of [Mandel’s] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet.” —The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old



Book cover of Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth

Michael Stutz Author Of Circuits of the Wind: A Legend of the Net Age

From my list on big, lyrical, and packed with poetic prose.

Why am I passionate about this?

Poetry is language at its most condensed and pure, potent and direct—the closest thing to thought. At its best, this mode and method is cinematic and penetrates like a powerful dream, and bringing it to narrative prose in a legend and key that can be woven together, like a tapestry, has been my lifework. Nothing in this list is ancient or even old, nor is any of it new—I've picked all books from the 20th century, because that was the world and writing that immediately influenced me, it's long enough past to be settled and safely buried, but still new enough to have some currency with the life and language of now.

Michael's book list on big, lyrical, and packed with poetic prose

Michael Stutz Why did Michael love this book?

I was so overwhelmed by the perfection of this American masterwork that I sought out the founder of The Thomas Wolfe Society, the greatest Thomas Wolfe collector who ever lived and who will ever live, and became his very close friend.

This is a huge book, with the music of pitch-perfect prosody from beginning to end, and yet it's only part of a much greater whole—every one of Wolfe's books connect together in some way, forming a massive cadency of music in words. If you examine them, there's only two main branches (Eugene Gant as the protagonist in one, and Monk Webber as the protagonist in the other). But it's really all one big expanding fable. This volume has, in my opinion, the richest writing, from the opening proem to the tiny diamond-sharp moving-picture painting of the final line.

By Thomas Wolfe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Of Time and the River as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The sequel to Thomas Wolfe's remarkable first novel, Look Homeward, Angel, Of Time and the River is one of the great classics of American literature. The book chronicles the maturing of Wolfe's autobiographical character, Eugene Gant, in his desperate search for fulfillment, making his way from small-town North Carolina to the wider world of Harvard University, New York City, and Europe. In a massive, ambitious, and boldly passionate novel, Wolfe examines the passing of time and the nature of the creative process, as Gant slowly but ecstatically embraces the urban life, recognizing it as a necessary ordeal for the birth



Book cover of Home Land

Justin Taylor Author Of Reboot

From my list on second novels by authors I love.

Why am I passionate about this?

Second novels rarely get the love that they deserve. People come to them with all kinds of presumptions and expectations, mostly based on whatever they liked (or didn’t like!) about your first novel, and all writers live in fear of the dreaded “sophomore slump.” I spent a decade trying to write my second novel and was plagued by these very fears. To ward off the bad vibes, I want to celebrate some of my favorite second novels by some of my favorite writers. Some were bona fide hits from the get-go, while others were sadly overlooked or wrongly panned, but they’re all brilliant, beautiful, and full of heart.

Justin's book list on second novels by authors I love

Justin Taylor Why did Justin love this book?

Sam Lipsyte’s sentences are demented and perfect. He’s one of the funniest writers I have ever read.

The story behind this book is one of publishing legend. Here's the way I've always heard it told: Lipsyte’s first book, The Subject Steve, was a brutal satire of contemporary American life that had the deep misfortune of being published on September 11, 2001. (Yes, I know, it wasn’t the worst thing that happened on 9/11, but still.)

He followed it with Home Land, a vitriolic, sleazy, hilarious novel in the form of epic pissy dispatches to a high school alumni newsletter. As narrators go, Lewis Miner is as unimprovable as he is unredeemable. This book was passed around to every publishing house in New York City, read and cherished by dozens of editors who were scared to put their colophon where their heart was.

It’s hard to remember now, but


By Sam Lipsyte,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Home Land as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Welcome to the most twisted high-school reunion imaginable, from a rising star of American satire. 'Sam Lipsyte is a gifted stylist, precise, original, devious, and very funny.' Jeffrey Eugenides, author of 'Middlesex' 'It's confession time, fellow alumni. Ever since Principal Fontana found me and commenced to bless my mail slot, monthly, with the Eastern Valley High School Alumni Newsletter, I've been meaning to pen my update. Sad to say, vanity slowed my hand. Let a fever for the truth speed it now. Let me stand on the rooftop of my reckoning and shout naught but the indisputable: I did not



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Book cover of The Gates of Polished Horn

The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner,

What happens when you’re face-to-face with a truth that shakes you? Do you accept it, or pretend it was never there?

Award-winning author Mark A. Rayner smudges the lines between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative in this collection of stories that examines this question—what Homer called passing through The


Book cover of Norwood

Paul Wilborn Author Of Florida Hustle

From my list on funny novels that won’t embarrass you.

Why am I passionate about this?

During my 25-year journalism career and now, in my books, I’ve specialized in telling powerful, human stories that are often humorous and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. To me, humor is an essential part of life. Real stories might make us cry, but just as often, they make us laugh. That’s the balance I try to achieve with all my writing.

Paul's book list on funny novels that won’t embarrass you

Paul Wilborn Why did Paul love this book?

From the start, you know Norwood is not the brightest bulb in the lamp, but I fell in love with him as he sets out on a hilarious road trip to retrieve $75 he’s owed by an ex-army buddy.

Portis wrote another of my favorite books, True Grit. All his books combine great writing, humor, and quirky characters—a trifecta I strive for in my writing. 

By Charles Portis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Norwood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sent on a mission to New York he gets involved in a wild journey that takes him in and out of stolen cars, freight trains, and buses. By the time he returns home to Texas, Norwood has met his true love, Rita Lee, on a bus; befriended the second shortest midget in show business and "the world's smallest perfect fat man"; and helped Joann "the chicken with a college education," realize her true potential in life. As with all Portis' fiction, the tone is cool, sympathetic, and funny.


Book cover of My Name Is Asher Lev

Linda Seger Author Of Unpacking

From my list on finding one’s individual identity.

Why am I passionate about this?

Figuring out who we are, figuring out our identity and where we fit in the scheme of things is one of the great themes in our lives, and in literature. In my life, I’ve gone through many identity crises, some recounted in my memoirs. These are five books that had a profound effect on me—sometimes emotionally, sometimes psychologically, and sometimes led me to think differently about my own life. In all of these books, characters have to make decisions, face struggles, and figure out who they are and how to find themselves and their authentic identity. 

Linda's book list on finding one’s individual identity

Linda Seger Why did Linda love this book?

In this book, a young Hasidic Jew and artist faces the conflict between his orthodoxy and his desire to explore what lies outside his orthodoxy, such as the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He is pulled in two directions—by his parents' idea of his identity and by searching for the truth about the human condition through his art.

I read this many years ago, in my 30s, and was heartbroken by how the main character has so much integrity to keep searching and finding in spite of so many forces trying to label him and forbid him from certain explorations. I, too, was searching for my place in those years of creating a career, and it deepened the authenticity of my search. 

By Chaim Potok,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked My Name Is Asher Lev as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ‱ In this modern classic from the National Book Award–nominated author of The Chosen, a young religious artist is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels, even when it leads him to blasphemy. 

“A novel of finely articulated tragic power .... Little short of a work of genius.”—The New York Times Book Review

Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. He grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual



Book cover of Bright Lights, Big City

Richard Vetere Author Of Champagne and Cocaine: A Novel

From my list on the darkly insane world of NYC in the 1980s.

Why am I passionate about this?

Richard Vetere’s screenplay Caravaggio won The Golden Palm for the Best Screenplay at the 2021 Beverly Hills Film Festival. He co-wrote The Third Miracle screenplay adaptation of his own novel. The movie was produced by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Ed Harris and Anne Heche and directed by Agnieszka Holland released by Sony Pictures Classics. His teleplay adaptation of his stage play The Marriage Fool starring Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett is the most viewed CBS movie ever and is currently running on Amazon. He also wrote the cult classic film Vigilante called by BAM as one of the “best indies of the 1980s.”

Richard's book list on the darkly insane world of NYC in the 1980s

Richard Vetere Why did Richard love this book?

Bright Lights, Big City published in 1984 written by Jay McInerney captures 80s NYC from an outsider who experiences it head-on. I was drawn to the novel because I lived the same world and went to the club Heartbreaks but as an insider. McInerney’s lead character is a copy editor for a reputable publishing house and he is madly in love with his wife who is now a hot model and no longer has any interest in him. On top of that his mother just died of cancer and his younger brother comes to NYC hoping he will be strong for him. But he has no strength at all turning to cocaine for solace. Good read that captures a time and place as I tried to do in my own novel. Unfortunately, the movie adaptation with Michael J. Fox is a disappointment.

By Jay McInerney,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Bright Lights, Big City as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It is six am, the party is over and reality is threatening to intervene in the power-fuelled existence of a young man who should have everything but who might just end up with nothing at all. His wife has left him, his job is in jeopardy, and his social life is about to end.


Book cover of Gutterboys

Ryszard I. Merey Author Of A + E 4Ever

From my list on queer, poisonous relationships with angst.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in a mostly pre-Internet time, I was hungry for androgynous and queer characters and didn’t know why. Books offered an escape hatch into the heads of the people I wanted to be. As I got older, writing was how I processed this disconnect, but for a long time, my lack of clarity negatively affected many of my relationships. It was through words (mine and others’) that I learned who I am. Amongst other things, a fragile and flawed and wildly imperfect person. It’s been great to see all the wholesome, positive LGBT rep that’s come out in literature over the last years, but my heart and stories will always belong to the bad-angel queers struggling to get a foot into Heaven. 

Ryszard's book list on queer, poisonous relationships with angst

Ryszard I. Merey Why did Ryszard love this book?

Oh man, this book! It’s everything I want: Sweet, simple, cute, nostalgic, at times, just awful. Gutterboys taught me that a book with a soul and a soundtrack and a firm jab in the gut is the type of book I want to make. Set in the 80s, Jeremy is a naïve suburban Jewish teen who falls crazy-stupid in love with a gorgeous older hustler. Colin won’t date Jeremy, but he does take him on a New York adventure that will only unhinge innocent Jeremy more and more. If you like that intoxicatingly toxic unrequited gay love, give it a go!

By Alvin Orloff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gutterboys as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


A twisted gay tale of unrequited love in Lower Manhattan in the early 1980s filled with scenes of humorous debauchery. Jeremy, a shy 19-year-old, falls madly in love with Colin, a disturbed yet well-read older hustler. Though Colin rejects Jeremy as a lover, he takes him on as a protégé, introducing him to the hilariously depraved world of new wave nightclubs and gay bars in the days before AIDS and the war on drugs. Innocent Jeremy, protected by the guardian spirits of his beloved dead grandmothers - one a fiery Jewish socialist, the other a proper British matron - becomes



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