Fans pick 100 books like I Remember You

Iceland is one of the first off-the-beaten-track places I visited as an aspiring young travel writer and I arrived with the onset of the first Gulf War - the one against Saddam Hussein.

I visited with three other people. We immediately met a man in Reykjavik who introduced us to his diplomat friend, and before it was all said and done we spent most of that trip with the Icelander and the Frenchman in front of a much more rudimentary CNN, watching the war.

While I’ve been back to Iceland a number of times since, that first trip, the instant friendships, and the very odd experience of watching war in the desert from up at the Arctic Circle, sealed the deal for me about visiting the far north, and indirectly led to my own later book.

Halldor Laxness is the greatest of Icelandic authors and Independent People is very nearly… show more.

Ragnar is one the most successful contemporary crime authors hailing from Iceland, also as his series featuring rookie policeman Ari Thór Arnarson is not set in the urban sprawl of the Icelandic capital Reykjavík but instead in the small town of Siglufjörður on the north coast and provides fascinating insight into Icelandic topography, history, and culture of the remote regions of the country. Snowblind is the first of the series, a slow-burning but gripping whodunnit set in a Siglufjörður cut off from the rest of the country by avalanches and snowstorms...  

Even though this is a massive tome with almost 800 pages, the book is the perfect introduction to the rich medieval literature of the sagas that form the foundation of Icelandic literature today. It contains many of the main sagas including the Egil's Saga, the Laxdæla Saga, and the Vinland Sagas as well as background information on saga history, medieval Iceland, and the Icelandic language. A collection full of the battles, witchcraft, poetry, monsters, and heroic journeys that influenced generations of writers from Jules Verne and J.R.R. Tolkien over to A.S. Byatt.  

Poetry remains very important for Icelanders, also as an everyday practise. There are farmers in the country today who compose poetry based on the landscape of their home and the sagas that played here hundreds of years ago, and about 40% of all published books in Iceland each year are poetry collections. Gerður is a highly successful poet and playwright, and her long poem Bloodhoof is an outstanding example of how contemporary Icelandic writing is still firmly rooted in the literary heritage of the country. The poem retells the classic Norse tale of the abduction of beautiful giantess Gerdur by the god Freyr, but from the perspective of the giantess in a distinctly feminist voice.  

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.

Cherie Priest is a very versatile writer, and this horror novel is one of her best. I’ve lent copies of Family Plot to people and never gotten them back. Dahlia, whose father owns a salvage company, takes a team of coworkers to an old mansion to strip all the valuable stuff they can find before it’s torn down. But there are far more things in—and around—the house than they know, and those things have a way of making themselves known during the nights the crew spends at the mansion. Dahlia is a wonderful, tough, no-nonsense main character, and parts of the novel gave me the “Alone in the house late at night” creeps. 

A family tragedy leads a young family to seek an old home in a peaceful seaside village in the UK. There is a reason the house is vacant… it’s haunted. I was chilled reading this book. James Herbert is a master of suspense and does a great job of tying past events to the present. 

I enjoyed how the spirits of the past interacted with the current homeowners. It was scary and believable!

This chronicle of a doomed reality TV show taping feels the most like a modern found-footage movie of any epistolary novel with its addition of instant messages and video footage to diaries and emails. The converging of different media corroboration adds a high level of realism to the story—an impressive trait that’s often lacking in cosmic horror.

Further, I’m impressed by the breadth of subjects Di Louie covered (Hindu mythology, occult mysticism, 1960s/1970s pop-culture references) and the way he expanded the haunted house trope beyond my expectations.

This book captivated me so much that I was more interested in reading it than in sightseeing while on my vacation.

I love that the little girl (actually a little witch) in Ghosts in the House! is confident and capable every step of the way as she deals with her haunted house.

Ghosts are not something to be afraid of – they can be useful! Kazuno Kohara’s linocut illustrations are a perfect pairing to her words – simple and refreshing. 

Imagine a contemporary fantasy, driven by sword-wielding, swashbuckling, mystically empowered, ghostbusting teenagers. Yup. That is the cool twist in Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood & Co. Series.

He’s best known for the Bartimaeus Trilogy, and takes all of his fantasy worldbuilding craft to design a modern world where ghosts are not only real but common and quite deadly to us living folk. You will fall in love with Lockwood and Lucy, sense the tension between them, and yet be relieved to discover that their connection isn’t the predictable stuff of typical teen romance.

The remarkable ghosts are similar to fantasy races. Rather than elves, gnomes, warlocks, etc., you have screamers, wailers, howling maids, and a whole host of specific ghost types that I dare not spoil. If you like fantasy with a touch of creepy, you’ll love Lockwood & Co.