Fans pick 100 books like Poe-Land

As a mystery reader and writer, I idolize Agatha Christie, the bestselling fiction writer of all time. In her 60+ detective novels, the mystery is always solved, but she left behind an unsolved mystery about herself. In 1926, after Archie Christie asked for a divorce to marry his lover, Agatha vanished for eleven days. Found after a massive manhunt, she never revealed why or how she disappeared. The Christie Affair solves that mystery in an inventive way, narrated by Archie’s mistress, a character I didn’t expect to like but grew to understand. I love the novel’s intertwining of history and mystery. It explores the effect of war on the hearts and minds of the characters and includes a murder solution worthy of Dame Agatha.

This novel explores the mysteries of the heart, much as Jane Austen did. The book’s chapters correspond with Austen’s six novels and the six meetings of the book club focused on her. As five women of various ages and one man discuss each Austen novel, their witty sparring reveals the complexity of their own searches for love and meaning. By studying Austen’s novels, the book club members, all of them at a crossroads, understand themselves better and forge a path forward. Having read and re-read Austen for decades, I love this book for showing how Jane Austen speaks to us two centuries after she died.

This novella is inspired by the iconic character, Sherlock Holmes. Its title recalls “The Final Problem,” the story in which Arthur Conan Doyle left his fictional detective for dead and then had to resurrect him after a public outcry. Chabon’s title also echoes the Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust. The story is set during World War II in an English village, where a mute Jewish boy, his talking parrot, and a famous detective in advanced old age come together. When a stranger is murdered and the parrot goes missing, the retired detective, nameless though clearly Holmes, agrees to find the boy’s bird, a task that incidentally leads to the murderer. I love Chabon’s elegant writing as he explores the solvable and unsolvable mysteries of unspeakable crimes.

This novel is two books for the price of one. It contains the unfinished manuscript of The Mystery of Edwin Drood that Dickens was writing when he died. Chapters from the Dickens book alternate with scenes from a conference in Rome devoted to unfinished works. The conference attendees who resemble fictional sleuths, including Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, and Hercule Poirot, look for clues in the Dickens text to deduce how he would have finished the story. The book also offers insights into the life and death of Charles Dickens and a stunning ending. I love the book for its unique combination of a mystery and a novel by a literary giant.  

Peter set out during the Vietnam War era to walk all the way across the United States with only a camera, a backpack, and a dog. His books, which I read as a teenager, brought fascinating strangers into my world and taught me how much those strangers can change our lives. Thanks to Peter's writing, I've always felt safe talking to strangers, and I seek them out to find out who they are and what their lives are like. 

This account of a backpacker’s quest for hedonistic excess made me want to pack my bags and set off into the unknown. A kaleidoscopic rollercoaster of an adventure story moving from India to Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia… the whole odyssey, like so many of my favorite reads, starts from a simple sliding door moment.

With all its gripping twists and turns, this was vicarious living at its best. Such an adrenaline hit. And it’s all true!

It’s the account of 2 young Swiss men who in 1953 decide to drive from Geneva to the Khyber Pass in a beat-up and tiny Fiat Topolino with very little money but with big plans. He shared the journey with his good friend Thierry Vernet, an artist whose powerful graphic drawings illustrate the text.

Bouvier begins the story with some wise words about the nature of travel: "Travelling outgrows its motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making the trip, but soon it is making you- or unmaking you."

They had an arduous journey with all kinds of mishaps and automobile problems but they are both such likable characters and so hopeful in adversity. 

Is there a madder moment of madness in all of literature than that of The Driver’s Seat’s protagonist Lise?

A firecracker of a novel (most editions come in under one hundred pages of breakneck-speed story), and yet a whole firework display of literary techniques (most startlingly a third chapter opening prolepsis – flashforward – to the suicidally-invited murder of Lise). It’s the technique itself that is the star. Is this satire, parody, comedy? Can comedy be so dark?

Spark noted both that this book was an existential ‘whydunnit?’ without feeling the need to provide us with anything so simplistic as a ‘why’, and also that it was her favourite of all her novels. There is no reason on Earth why it shouldn’t also be one of your favourites.

This is classic literature in the realm of American travel.

I had no idea that “blue highways” existed, and even though Heat-Moon went cross-country back in the 1970s in his van equipped with his igloo cooler and makeshift bed (not like the $100k fancy campers you find today), the type of people you meet and experiences you have in this amazing country are still relevant today.

In Blue Highways Revisited, I was shocked to read how long it took for this book to get published and the stacks of printed-out drafts he had of it (I think it was like four feet high). If there are any travel writing classes taught as part of a creative writing program, then Blue Highways better be on the list. 

When I was recommended this book, I was in the midst of my own journey of self-discovery, like the author was in writing it. I was just starting to embrace who I wanted to be: someone who could open people’s imaginations to the magic that is already all around us. Faery Tale is the story that prompted me to book that trip to Ireland and Scotland and experience the mysticism of the lands for myself. I’m not a memoir enthusiast normally, but Pike’s (at first) skeptical POV,  detailed research into Celtic folklore, and real-life magical encounters inspired much of my debut novel.