Here are 91 books that Hell Bent fans have personally recommended if you like
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I became a young man near the end of the sixties, and I have always been enthralled by the era's various idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. For instance, I loved the complex yet pleasant rock music and the freewheeling lifestyle. On the downside, the war in Vietnam cast its pall over the times, and I narrowly escaped being drafted and sent off to Southeast Asia. Overall, it was an era in which good and evil were starkly defined, and many people were attempting to create a better, more peaceful world. There is still much we can learn from this time.
Although this book is ostensibly set in the future, countercultural enthusiasts of the sixties were quick to claim it for their own, with its references to transcendental enlightenment, out-of-body experiences, communal living, and free sex.
It became a best-selling phenomenon as contemporary young people reacted positively to its iconoclastic attitudes. That's what happened to me, too, when I came across the book shortly before the move to the Bay Area that opened my eyes to the reality of the psychedelic sixties.
The original uncut edition of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Hugo Award winner Robert A Heinlein - one of the most beloved, celebrated science-fiction novels of all time. Epic, ambitious and entertaining, STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND caused controversy and uproar when it was first published and is still topical and challenging today.
Twenty-five years ago, the first manned mission to Mars was lost, and all hands presumed dead. But someone survived...
Born on the doomed spaceship and raised by the Martians who saved his life, Valentine Michael Smith has never seen a human being until the day a…
I’ve always been a fan of swords and sorcery, but Urban Fantasy brings those elements into a more relatable field, turning real-world locations into sandboxes filled with magic and monsters. I might love Aragorn as a character, but I can’t fully relate to him. Now, give me an “average” guy with real-world problems, running around a modern metropolis, slinging spells, and fighting monsters in dark alleys, and I’m right there with him. Urban Fantasy opens up the imagination to anything you want. Dragons in New York? Sure. Giants using the Eiffel Tower as a baseball bat? Why the hell not? Nothing is off-limits. It’s just pure, unadulterated fun.
Dean Koontz doesn’t need an introduction, nor does he need a shout-out, but this book stuck out to me in my younger days. While it may not fall into the same classifications as my previous recommendations, it may have been the first book I read about an average, not entirely special, person with a unique ability he doesn’t understand.
I read this book 20 years ago and still think about it often. The concept of seeing death and knowing when someone is about to die is just an intriguing—and terrifying—prospect. How do you deal with that? Especially knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it? And then, what do you do when you start seeing Death everywhere? Do you fight it or run for the hills?
Meet Odd Thomas, the unassuming young hero of Dean Koontz’s dazzling New York Times bestseller, a gallant sentinel at the crossroads of life and death who offers up his heart in these pages and will forever capture yours.
“The dead don’t talk. I don’t know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Sometimes the silent souls who seek out Odd want justice. Occasionally their otherworldly tips help him prevent a crime. But this time it’s different.
A stranger comes to Pico Mundo, accompanied by a horde…
I’ve always loved novels that reinvent and refresh history and legends. They take these building blocks of culture and make them personal and emotional. These novels breathe new life into ancient tales and historical events, so they resonate with relevance. They reveal hidden depths and connections within familiar stories, transforming them into vibrant tales. This genre makes legend and history feel personal by taking me on one character’s unique journey, transforming the exploration of the past into a deeply engaging experience.
I’ve read countless stories about the JFK assassination, but this novel completely refreshed and reframed this part of history for me. By blending the omniscient knowledge of time travel with the perspective of an ordinary person thrown into one of the greatest moments in American history, this novel created a deeply personal journey.
This intimate journey made the time period, the politics, and the culture resonate with life. The vivid portrayal of the late 1950s and early 1960s immersed me in this era, and the novel’s intricate plot, combined with the emotional depth of the main character’s journey, kept me hooked from start to finish. This novel brilliantly refreshes history, offering a thought-provoking exploration of how the past shapes the future.
Now a major TV series from JJ Abrams and Stephen King, starring James Franco (Hulu US, Fox UK and Europe, Stan Australia, SKY New Zealand).
WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11.22.63, the date that Kennedy was shot - unless . . .
King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 - from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of…
The stars aligned to ignite my passion for magic-realism romance after a few things had happened. 1) I got heavily into the idea of the multiverse and alternate realities in high school, having been inspired by my physics teacher. 2) I read and fell in love with The Time Traveler’s Wife (see list!). 3) I binge-watched the incredible sci-fi show Fringe, which deals with parallel universes and time jumps. 4) I decided to write my first multiverse romance, inspired by all the above factors and more besides. Since then, I’ve focused most of my reading on romantic novels, with those that share a magic realism twist being auto-reads—of course!
While not perhaps a “romance” novel in the established-formula sense, this book is achingly romantic. This epic story truly focuses on the gradual development of the two protagonists’ relationship and how time travel both created and challenged their love. This book ignited my passion for magic-realism romantic novels and remains one of my top books of all time.
I adore the contrast of romantic love between two seemingly destined souls and the brutality of some events caused by Henry’s uncontrolled time travel. There’s also the tricky angle of the age gap (only sometimes, depending on where Henry and Clare are in their lives, but it is occasionally extreme), which the author doesn’t shy away from. And I confess this is probably the book that made me sob the most!
Now a series on HBO starring Rose Leslie and Theo James!
The iconic time travel love story and mega-bestselling first novel from Audrey Niffenegger is "a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time" (Chicago Tribune).
Henry DeTamble is a dashing, adventurous librarian who is at the mercy of his random time time-traveling abilities. Clare Abshire is an artist whose life moves through a natural sequential course. This is the celebrated and timeless tale of their love. Henry and Clare's passionate affair is built and endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap…
I’m Jill Santopolo, a novelist, editor, and mom who was born in New York and currently lives in Washington, DC. I’ve written Everything After, More Than Words, and The Light We Lost, which was the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick in February 2018. My books have been named to The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Apple, and Indiebound bestseller lists, and have been translated into more than 35 languages. I love Instagram and rarely ever use Twitter (but you can find me there, too)--and music makes my heart sing. When I was growing up I learned to play the piano, flute, and piccolo, and I loved singing and dancing.
Renee Carlino’s book about being in love—and loving music—when you’re in your early 20s is the kind of story that feels like time travel. She captures life and love and grief and confusion so perfectly. And for anyone who has ever found guitar players sexy, well, I bet Will will win your heart.
Mia Kelly thinks she has it all figured out. She's an Ivy League graduate, a classically trained pianist, and the beloved daughter of a sensible mother and offbeat father. Yet Mia has been stalling since graduation, torn between putting her business degree to use and exploring music, her true love.
When her father unexpectedly dies, she decides to pick up the threads of his life while she figures out her own. Uprooting herself from Ann Arbor to New York City, Mia takes over her father's cafe, a treasured neighbourhood institution that plays host to undiscovered musicians and artists. She's denied…
Growing up with a severe disability and being an advocate from a very young age has taught me a lot of hard lessons. I struggled and endured a tremendous amount of bullying and discrimination, so I tend to pick books that I can relate to such as the Dresden Files where the character also struggles with difficulties in his life. I also pick books that make me laugh or are truly magical that help lift my spirits.
Tonya is a very talented young adult writer who has written two trilogies and currently working on her third series now. She weaves a magical tale that will leave you wanting more as you turn the pages, they are gripping and fun to read! These books have had a special place in my heart since I designed her book covers.
Gracyn Pierce is starting over. She has a new home, a new boyfriend, and a new horse. Everything is perfect, or so it seems. Because Gracyn left a secret behind. In her quest to erase the memory of that stormy night, she forces herself to study hard, her sights set on an Ivy League college. But her attempts to stay focused are derailed when the neighbor suspected of murdering his sister returns to town. As if that isn’t enough, her senses begin to change in ways that aren’t physically possible. As hard as she tries to find an explanation, there…
I’m a historian at the University of Pennsylvania and an op-ed writer for numerous publications. I’m also a former Peace Corps volunteer and high school teacher. I’ve spent my adult life studying the ways that human beings imagine education, across space and time. Schools make citizens, but citizens also make schools. And we’re all different, so we disagree—inevitably and often profoundly—about the meaning and purpose of “school” itself. In a diverse nation, what should kids learn? And who should decide that? There are no single “right” answers, of course. I’m eager to hear yours.
In this day of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” it’s easy to forget how our elite universities marginalized or simply excluded Black faculty and students. Stefan Bradley tells their stories for the first time, showing not just how African-Americans changed these institutions but also how their Ivy League experiences altered their own perceptions of America. We have a lot to learn from these “old heads”—about race, education, and much else—if we will simply stop for a moment, and listen.
Winner, 2019 Anna Julia Cooper and C.L.R. James Award, given by the National Council for Black Studies
Finalist, 2019 Pauli Murray Book Prize in Black Intellectual History, given by the African American Intellectual History Society
Winner, 2019 Outstanding Book Award, given by the History of Education Society
The inspiring story of the black students, faculty, and administrators who forever changed America's leading educational institutions and paved the way for social justice and racial progress
The eight elite institutions that comprise the Ivy League, sometimes known as the Ancient Eight-Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell-are American stalwarts that…
I’m an award-winning author of two novels, the most recent of which, The Nine, is set on a fictional New England boarding school campus. Although a secret society’s antics and a scandal on campus keeps readers turning the page, at the heart of the novel is the evolution of a mother-son relationship. Even before my three children began considering boarding schools, I was a fan of the campus novel. Think classics like A Separate Peace or Catcher in the Rye. My fascination surrounding these little microcosms—their ideals, how they self-govern, who holds power—only increased after experiencing their weird and wily ways as a mother.
Speaking of outsiders, Around Harvard Square follows a superstar student-athlete from small-town USA who assumes he’s made it big when he’s admitted to Harvard University. However, as a young, Black man, Tosh Livingston soon discovers the ways in which he does not belong and finds that admissions committees aren’t the only gatekeepers. This novel really digs deep into issues of race and class, insiders and outsiders. And while the topics feel timely, they are also timeless—not only in the world at large but also in that microcosm, the campus. There have always been those who are kept out and always those with special access, such as legacies and athletes. The protagonist in this novel also comes up against a secret society, an underground facet of campus life and the epitome of exclusivity, which really set my own creative juices in motion. Funny and fast-paced, this novel epitomizes a protagonist’s struggle…
Race, class, and hormones combine and combust when a Harvard freshman and his two friends attempt to join the staff of the Harpoon, the school's iconic humor magazine.
Around Harvard Square is the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Youth/Teens)!
Around Harvard Square has been named a 2020 Honor Book by the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People
"A smart, satirical novel about surviving the racial and cultural tensions ratcheted up in the elite Harvard hothouse. Farley has created a marvelously engaging and diverse set of characters, at the center of which is a nerdy…
I’m a writer and a lifelong baseball fan with a weakness for baseball-ish fiction. For a lot of folks, this means reading the usual suspects: Kinsella, Malamud, Coover, Roth, DeLillo... But I especially enjoy stumbling across under-the-radar novels that can’t help but surprise in their own ways. I enjoy this so much, in fact, I went out and wrote one of my own – inspired by the life and career of an all-but-forgotten ballplayer from the 1880s named Fred “Sure Shot” Dunlap, one of the greats of the game in his time. In the stuff of his life there was the stuff of meaning and moment… of the sort you’ll find in the books I’m recommending here.
I loved this book the moment I saw the title. And the cover! I loved it even more when I noticed it shared a publication date with my own baseball novel back in 2016, so it feels to me like we’re related. The title and cover alone should earn this one a spot on your shelf, but there’s tasty goodness inside. Duchovny’s love of the game is apparent – but so too is his Ivy League education. He writes like a lifelong reader, with a keen eye for baseball and its denizens and an ear for poetry. He’s funny af, too.
Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American novel, and spends the waning malaise filled days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent. When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father…
I am passionate about talent development and college access. I started my journey as a researcher when I learned that high school valedictorians’ adult success depends in large part on their race, social class, and gender. This work led me to life-long questions. How do we recognize talent and give young people opportunities without requiring their total assimilation into the dominant culture? How do we change our schools and colleges to welcome everyone and to benefit from the viewpoints and voices of all of our students? Answering these questions is imperative for our collective well-being in our changing society and world.
This book opened my eyes to how higher education actually works to advance social mobility for a few while primarily reproducing social inequality. I was amazed to learn that the way that today’s elite universities select among applicants started as a solution for limiting the enrollment of “outsiders.”
Top universities feared that having too many of these outsiders would lower the status of the institution and make it less attractive to the ruling class. Beginning with Jewish students, continuing with Black students, and now emerging with Asian and low-income students, this pattern continues and affects our entire society.
A landmark, revelatory history of admissions from 1900 to today—and how it shaped a nation
The competition for a spot in the Ivy League—widely considered the ticket to success—is fierce and getting fiercer. But the admissions policies of elite universities have long been both tightly controlled and shrouded in secrecy. In The Chosen, the Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel lifts the veil on a century of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. How did the policies of our elite schools evolve? Whom have they let in and why? And what do those policies say about America?
