10 books like Gone Girl

Chaucer may have invented the short story collection but James Joyce took them to untouched heights with this visceral and poignant work. Never a fan of his novels which I found way too dense, I think his lyrical style works best when tightly focused and restrained as in this book. Includes both "Araby" and "The Dead" - two of the five best short stories ever written (the other three are: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson; A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway; and Murder in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe)

I love reading and teaching this classic of postcolonial literature. Written in spare, accessible style on the eve of Nigerian independence from Britain, Achebe tells the story of British colonization of an Igbo clan in Southeast Nigeria near the end of the 19th century. Even as the novel portrays the appalling damages of European colonialism, it subtly critiques the traditional Igbo exclusion of disabled people. It demonstrates one of the paradoxes of human rights: victims of human rights abuses can also be perpetrators of them. The British missionaries first gain a foothold by welcoming those stigmatized people marginalized by the Umoufians, indicating how Achebe promotes compassion of all people.

I read The Road when I was working three jobs, enrolled in university full-time, and trying to figure out what it meant to be an adult. I felt the gut-punch bleakness of McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic future, and yet despite all the gray, grim privation, I found hope in the Man and the Boy’s march toward…something. While it’s not quite a fantasy, the ashen world rendered in McCarthy’s beautifully austere language changed the way I write, and changed the way I read. There is a sobering warning that I hear echoed in The Odyssey and Gilgamesh; something like an Ozymandian warning: look upon the works of man, ye mortal: all this shall fade. The Road stays with you like a scar, but one you earned, that taught you something.

I wanted to punch the air when I first read this book! Wilkie Collins is massively overlooked compared to Dickens (one of his closest friends), as well as infinitely better at writing believable characters, especially women. Often, his plots are far superior too. Marianne Halcombe, arguably the co-protagonist of The Woman in White (after painter Walter Hartright), and certainly the most memorable character, is no wanton – but she’s compellingly strong-willed, defying convention, social expectation, and strong opposition to protect her half-sister Laura. Marianne knows her mind, and her own worth: she’s smart, self-possessed, and physically daring too, even climbing out on a roof to spy on the villainous Count Fosco. No wonder critic John Sutherland called her "one of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction"!

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” famously begins du Maurier’s novel of a country estate that guards its secrets from the young, unnamed narrator who comes there as the innocent bride of mysterious Maxim de Winter. Out of her depth, she’s terrified by the imposing mansion, the specter of de Winter’s deceased first wife, and the creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who urges her to commit suicide by jumping from a window. Gothic in tone, the unnamed heroine survives revelation after revelation, but the house itself—Manderley—is finally burned to the ground, leaving nothing but ruins. 

As a fan of historical novels, I love when past worlds open up through colourful and evocative descriptions.

Although a work of fiction, not a historical text, reading Perfume helped me think differently about arguably the most ephemeral and complex sense – smell.

Set in the sensorially rich world of eighteenth-century France, the story follows Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man born with a sense of smell so extraordinary he can differentiate between a range of odours far greater than anyone else.

Whilst at times a gift, his ability leads him into the realms of obsession and murder in an attempt to own and recreate particular, yet fleeting, scents.

This novel is a great starting place for opening up the transient world of smell and its emotional impacts on people.

This book is a classic example of exceptional world building and detail. The lone human survivor among a word now ruled by vampires, Robert Neville’s daily existence is expertly documented by Matheson. Each meal and drink he prepares to get through his daily horror feels so real. His isolation feels so real. The descriptions of what it would actually be like to fall asleep at night when an army of vampires is patiently waiting outside your house is beyond gripping. Despite solid efforts from those involved, the film adaptation that was later made doesn’t scratch the surface of the power of this story. 

McEwan is a modern master, one of the few we have. And like most true masters, he’s often flawed. Not every sentence is perfect, his plots sometimes have potholes, and he’s been accused, at times, of borrowing without attribution. But I’ve been reading him for forty years and I think Atonement has a fair claim to be his masterpiece. The novel takes place in three time periods – 1935, the Second World War, and 1999 – and traces the implications of child’s misapprehension in witnessing a sexual encounter. The novel was published in 2001 and I suspect that some ideologically-minded contemporary readers might protest its inclusion on a best of list. But for those who still have a taste for nuance and ambiguity, It’s a devastating story about families, class, and literature. 

This is a beautifully written book, that brings the marshes of North Carolina to life in a way I didn’t think was possible.

Not only will it transport you to this unique wilderness, it places you in Kya’s isolated world in a profound way, too. I was skeptical going in, because of the hype, but honestly—it was breathtaking. It’s also an example of a different type of worldbuilding which is why I wanted to include it here (narrowly beating out Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code, which will whisk you to the now-infamous Bletchley Park amid WWII).

There’s nothing dystopian, fantastical, or magical about this book, and yet Owens has managed to create a world that feels unearthly and transcendent. If you’re not a fan of fantasy or dystopian, but you enjoy escapism and topnotch worldbuilding, read this one! 

Written for young adults, this is a modern classic.

In the book, what used to be North America has become “Panem”, a country where an authoritarian government keeps itself in power by turning regions of the country against each other through “hunger games”, where young people must hunt and kill each other to survive.

I believe the future hope for our country is for people getting back together and learning to care for each other again. Rather than “us against them,” a healthy democracy should be “all of us against oppression.”