Here are 100 books that The City & the City fans have personally recommended if you like
The City & the City.
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I used to love dystopian books, but recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in hopeful narratives. I’ve been a climate activist in a couple of movements, and I care deeply about the world, but with all the challenges and negativity we are facing, it’s easy to fall into despair. That’s why I think stories that show cooperation, community, respect for nature and each other, working for a better world, and making it happen are so important. We need those stories to get inspired to act instead of thinking that we’re all doomed anyway. They are also healing—a refuge for a tormented mind.
The book offers an in-depth exploration of how an anarchist, anti-capitalist society without money or government would work and juxtaposes it against a more familiar, wasteful, capitalist world. It's thought-provoking and can be a great tool for self-exploration because this world isn’t easy to live in and has its own challenges. Even though it took me a long time to get into the story, once I did, I was fascinated by all the details. It's unlike other stories. It offers ideas that don't often get explored in speculative fiction, and it left me with a lot to think about.
One of the very best must-read novels of all time - with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle
'A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again' THE TIMES
'The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin' Roddy Doyle
'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER
The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous…
My first true religion was being a boy alone in the woods and feeling a deep connection to nature in all its aspects. I felt a connection with all life and knew myself to be an animal—and gloried in it. Since then, I've learned how vigorously humans fight our animal nature, estranging us from ourselves and the planet. Each of these books invites us to get over ourselves and connect with all life on Earth.
I knew the film Blade Runner before I read this, the novel upon which it's based, but I was not prepared for the richer complexities of the novel.
My favorite parts of the novel, a bizarre new religion and the extinction of all but human and animal life, barely make it into the film. Even the androids, built to be slaves, are much more nuanced and complex than in the film. I loved the conclusion of the book, which affirms the beauty of life, both natural and mechanical.
As the eagerly-anticipated new film Blade Runner 2049 finally comes to the screen, rediscover the world of Blade Runner . . .
World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life.
Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's world things were…
My science fiction and fantasy writing is concerned with the values I was exposed to growing up. As a lifelong Quaker, I have struggled—often unsuccessfully—to live out Quakerism’s non-conformist, almost utopian commitment to equality, simplicity, peace, and community. Not only have I tried to bear witness to those values in my writing, but those ideals led me to my career as an instructor at a community college, one of America’s great socioeconomic leveling institutions. My background as a speculative fiction writer has also made me into a teacher of science fiction and fantasy literature at my college, where I read and came to love the books I recommend here.
Haunting and beautiful, it gave me a new perspective on what science fiction can accomplish: Ishiguro’s book is subtle, humane, and deeply concerned with the troubles of the real world.
This story of Klara, an “artificial friend” purchased to keep a sick little girl company, takes up questions of eugenics, artificial intelligence, and, ultimately, what it means to be a human being.
Along the way, the book explores the gulf between economic and social classes with as much care and compassion as Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy—Klara and the Sun is some of the most inspiring science fiction I have ever read.
*The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller* *Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021* *A Barack Obama Summer Reading Pick*
'A delicate, haunting story' The Washington Post 'This is a novel for fans of Never Let Me Go . . . tender, touching and true.' The Times
'The Sun always has ways to reach us.'
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges…
Life is taking a bite of the comedy/tragedy sandwich, savoring the mix of flavors, deciding how you feel about the taste, and taking another bite. I love writing that can gather experiences from across the emotional spectrum and incorporate them into a narrative that is absurd and all the more true because of it. These five books do it better than the rest.
Overstuffed and labyrinthine, Eco’s novel dives into a highly academic rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that toss me head over heels like a strong wave in the ocean. It reads a bit like The DaVinci Code written by Thomas Pynchon (who we’ll get to in a minute), the paranoias stemming from historical entities like the Knights Templar and the Rosicrucians.
I’d be hard-pressed to provide an accurate summary of events, but it all makes for a pleasantly bewildering reading experience.
Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel to have some fun. They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth
I am an academic in rebellion. I have interviewed hundreds of urban leaders and professionals in nine divided urban areas throughout the world. I have written much on this subject, replete with footnotes and sophisticated writing. I am weary of writing more about this important topic—how people do or do not get along in urban settings—from an academic distance. I find the scholarly posture sterilized and insufficiently provocative. I entered into the fictional genre in order to reach a broader audience. I think that fictional futurist writing has the unique ability to portray extraordinary new worlds while at the same time addressing fundamental issues that we face now.
What could be more fun than Gods getting involved in city planning? Spy story wrapped inside a grand and mysterious history of once-supreme Gods now dormant (or not). Memorable characters. Don’t mess with the giant grunt Sigrud. Divine power with 6 Gods (light bearer, judge, warrior, seed-sower, trickster, and builder). Imagine holding a committee meeting with this group. Magical portals that enable back-and-forth between current gritty and past majestic city. A thought-provoking conclusion that speaks to worldwide conflict in real life today.
'Robert Jackson Bennett deserves a huge audience' - Brent Weeks, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Prism
In the city of stairs, nothing is as it seems.
You've got to be careful when you're chasing a murderer through Bulikov, for the world is not as it should be in that city. When the gods were destroyed and all worship of them banned by the Polis, reality folded; now stairs lead to nowhere, alleyways have become portals to the past, and criminals disappear into thin air.
The murder of Dr Efrem Pangyui, the Polis diplomat researching the Continent's past,…
I studied forty years of the political misuses of the memory of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement as a sociologist at USC and the daughter of Iranian immigrants who has always been interested in questions of identity and belonging. My interest in civil rights struggles started early, growing up in Virginia, a state that celebrated the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday alongside Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. I wanted to understand how revisionist histories could become the mainstream account of the past and how they mattered for the future of democracy.
I am, to put it lightly, obsessed with the way Octavia Butler revolutionizes the timescape and invites us to speculate about worlds that could be. In this and so many of her books, her vision of Afrofuturism is one that reminds us that our ancestral pasts and our imagined futures are always connected.
I thought a lot about the future when I wrote my book, and I share Butler’s conviction that there is collective healing and liberation in revisiting and reimagining the past.
I also love that my neighborhood library in Pasadena is the one Octavia Butler used to frequent!
From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner
The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon…
My new thriller centers around a small, mysterious cult and their shocking demise. For years, I’ve read true crime books on the subject, and I wanted to infuse the reality and truth of real-life events into my fictional novel. In a similar vein, these books represent a range of thrillers inspired by true events, ranging from cults to serial killers to teenage criminals. I hope you find these books as gripping and haunting as I do.
I’m fascinated by the in-depth character development and details in this book. The film is a classic, but I think the book is even better. Many people think of Hannibal Lecter as the obvious villain of Silence of the Lambs, forgetting that Clarice and the FBI were seeking his guidance to find “Buffalo Bill,” a fictional serial killer attacking women.
Buffalo Bill is an amalgamation of real serial killers, including Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, and Gary Heidnik. By cherry-picking the methods and traits of real killers, I think Harris created a truly terrifying villain. I find the characters, and especially the villain, to be rooted in reality, making them stick in your mind long after the last page.
As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.
That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.
As a crime author and screenwriter, I’m fascinated by the consequences of crime and how it impacts feasible characters. I try to illustrate this obsession by creating realistic stress situations for my characters, then showcasing how it affects their decision-making process. In writing the protagonist for Jack Hanger, I consulted two different psychologists to research the protagonist and to capture the severity of his circumstances in detail. For King of Sorrow, I created an unconventional antagonist, with the aim of showing readers how ambition and greed can corrupt the most rational mind. I believe it is my job to challenge conventions and entertain readers from the opening page.
After a lonely barman, Bob, rescues an abused puppy from a trashcan, his mundane world is turned upside down. He befriends an emotionally scarred woman, which puts him at odds with her ex, and unknowingly gets drawn into a con against the Chechen Mafia that uses the bar for money drops.
Lehane is masterful at creating flawed characters that pins readers to the text. As a short novel, The Drop is loaded with punchy dialogue, rapid characterisation, and off-beat humour. However, it’s barman Bob’s stoic presence that makes this such a fascinating read. He fades sublimely into the gloomy Boston crime scene in a profound way, which makes him one of the most unconventional protagonists caught on paper.
New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane's The Drop is a crime story, a love story, and ultimately a journey of faith, set in Boston's underworld.
"[A] gritty gem...a stark and moving short novel." - Publishers Weekly
Two days after Christmas, Bob Saginowski, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live, rescues an abused and abandoned pit bull puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman named Nadia Dunn looking for something to believe in.
As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia, who have taken over his cousin Marv's bar and use it…
My name is Alister Dray Penborn. I am a lifelong mystery lover, all the way back to my favorite childhood cartoon, Scooby-Doo, and my favorite anime, Detective Conan, or Case Closed as it was called in the US at the time of airing. It's a passion that grew over the years as I was exposed to even more great mysteries. One of the most appealing aspects is the investigation process, where a character sees the inconsistencies of crime scenes, analyzes and makes sense of events, and collects and relies on the slightest clues to act as puzzle pieces to the full picture.
Admittedly, I had to re-read this novel a few times to comprehend the mystery, but it was well worth it. While the supernatural element was hard to grasp, the plot clicked right into place once I figured it out.
The main character’s confusion added to their story more than subtracted, which alone is a success to me as characters running around confused for half the book can be frustrating. But the scenario was essentially an isolated murder mystery done in a rather clever and unique way.
With a mystery that was so complex, I was worried the ending would be too convoluted for my liking. Yet, it concluded with the clues explained and were relevant to the final reveal, much to my satisfaction.
"Pop your favorite Agatha Christie whodunnit into a blender with a scoop of Downton Abbey, a dash of Quantum Leap, and a liberal sprinkling of Groundhog Day and you'll get this unique murder mystery." ―Harper's Bazaar
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.
Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again,…
When I look at the challenges our world faces, I find myself imagining how things could be better. For years, I've been captivated by the solutions that could bring about a better future. Through science fiction, especially in the books on this list, I seek out visions of better societies and ideas that could help shape a more hopeful world.
I found this book to be a masterful blend of murder mystery and science fiction, taking us on a journey through a future world where robots are beginning to take over jobs. The ethical and social questions raised by the integration of robots into everyday life are more relevant today than they were when the book was first published in 1953.
I liked Asimov's insights into the effects of robotics, offering a reflection into our own world as the AI revolution unfolds. Asimov's writing style is engaging, balancing technical detail with compelling storytelling.
I enjoyed this book immensely, not just for its intriguing plot but also for its thought-provoking exploration of a future that in many ways feels increasingly plausible.
Isaac Asimov's Robot series - from the iconic collection I, Robot to four classic novels - contains some of the most influential works in the history of science fiction. Establishing and testing the Three Laws of Robotics, they continue to shape the understanding and design of artificial intelligence to this day.
In the vast, domed cities of Earth, artificial intelligence is strictly controlled; in the distant Outer Worlds, colonists and robots live side by side.
A Spacer ambassador is found dead and detective Elijah Baley is assigned to find the killer. But with relations between the two cultures in the…
