59 books like The Dead Zone

By Stephen King,

Here are 59 books that The Dead Zone fans have personally recommended if you like The Dead Zone. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Black Stallion

Laura Hesse Author Of One Frosty Christmas

From my list on middle-grade horse stories for horse-crazy fans.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been passionate about horses and adventure since I was a little girl. I’ve owned many horses over the years, and they all forever live on in the pages of my books. I wrote my book in 2001 while recovering from major surgery. The story was inspired by a young lady I met while volunteering with Nanaimo Therapeutic Riding and a frostbitten Mustang that arrived at Thunderbird Show Park en route from Wyoming to northern British Columbia. I lost my father to cancer a year before the book’s release. In many ways, Hannah Storey’s learning to cope with loss is based on my own. Life is like that, though, isn’t it?

Laura's book list on middle-grade horse stories for horse-crazy fans

Laura Hesse Why did Laura love this book?

I don’t know how many times I stayed up late, unable to put down a book, but The Black Stallion was my first ‘stay-up-all-night’ read. Alec’s journey of survival and winning over the Black Stallion exploded in my mind. I drew, I wrote, I joined a swim club and started riding lessons.

I learned to never give up on my dreams, no matter how impossible they might seem. It also drew me into the world of natural horsemanship as well as to choose an interesting career: forestry. I wanted to live the adventure and did!  For me, this is where it started.

By Walter Farley,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Black Stallion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

First published in 1941, Walter Farley's best-selling novel for young readers is the triumphant tale of a boy and a wild horse. From Alec Ramsay and the Black's first meeting on an ill-fated ship to their adventures on a desert island and their eventual rescue, this beloved story will hold the rapt attention of readers new and old.

This book has been selected as a Common Core State Standards Text Exemplar (Grades 4-5, Stories) in Appendix B.


Book cover of The World According to Garp

Lee Goldberg Author Of Calico

From my list on humor that makes us human.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been writing crime stories since I was a child. They entertained me and helped me cope with a lot of family strife. My first novel was published in college and sold to the movies, which got me into screenwriting, leading to writing hundreds of hours of TV and fifty novels to date. The one thing all of my stories share is humor because I believe it’s an essential part of life–and of memorable story-telling. Humor makes characters come alive, revealing shades of personality and depths of emotion you wouldn’t otherwise see. Here are five books that taught me that it’s true and that continue to influence me as a writer. 

Lee's book list on humor that makes us human

Lee Goldberg Why did Lee love this book?

If you have a lot of things you want to say about war, sexism, rape, homosexuality, feminism, bears, hookers, literature, marriage, Vienna, politics and wrestling…or anything else in your fiction, you’d better do it with humor.

Irving had a LOT he wanted to say, but he made it entertaining and unforgettable with his shrewd humor. I was so busy laughing and crying that I didn’t realize how much I was absorbing thematically and politically from the wonderful, epic story…or how memorable it would be for me, even decades after I read it.

This was brilliant alchemy I could use myself…if I could figure out out how it worked. Irving taught me that if I wanted to communicate ideas and get someone to sit through a book that weighs ten pounds, then humor is the way to do it because the message gets through even deeper, perhaps even insidiously.

By John Irving,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The World According to Garp as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A masterpiece from one of the great contemporary American writers.

'A wonderful novel, full of energy and art, at once funny and heartbreaking...terrific' WASHINGTON POST

Anniversary edition with a new afterword from the author.

A worldwide bestseller since its publication, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, struggling writer and illegitimate son of Jenny Fields - an unlikely feminist heroine ahead of her time.

Beautifully written, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP is a powerfully compelling and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers…


Book cover of Blindsight

Matt Ruff Author Of The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country

From my list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.

Matt's book list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare

Matt Ruff Why did Matt love this book?

I also love books that combine thrilling adventure stories with the thoughtful exploration of ideas.

The protagonists of this haunting sci-fi/existential horror novel make contact with an alien species that, while highly intelligent, appears to lack any sense of self-awareness. This leads to the scary question: Are the aliens the weird ones in this scenario, or is human consciousness a unique mutation in a universe filled with zombies?

By Peter Watts,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Blindsight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two months have past since a myriad of alien objects clenched about the Earth, screaming as they burned. The heavens have been silent since until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us.Who should we send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet?Send a linguist with multiple - personality disorder and a biologist so spliced with machinery that he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his…


Curiosity and the Cat

By Martin Treanor,

Book cover of Curiosity and the Cat

Martin Treanor Author Of The Logos Prophecy

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Illustrator Reader Jester Quantum physics buff

Martin's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

Curiosity is certain she saw fairies at the bottom of the garden. Little does she know . . . they saw her first.

Emotionally abandoned by her mother and infatuated by a figurine of a fairy ballerina she discovers in an old toy shop, eight-year-old Curiosity Portland steals the figurine, unleashing strange and frightening happenings around her home, which, in turn, reveals a disturbing family history. 

An ominous tale of faerie folk.

Curiosity and the Cat

By Martin Treanor,

What is this book about?

Curiosity is certain she saw fairies at the bottom of the garden. Little does she know . . . they saw her first.

Emotionally abandoned by her mother and infatuated by a figurine of a fairy ballerina she discovers in an old toy shop, eight-year-old Curiosity Portland steals the figurine, unleashing strange and frightening happenings around her home, which, in turn, reveals a disturbing family history.

An ominous tale of faerie folk.



Book cover of The Naked and the Dead

J.M. Unrue Author Of The Festival of Sin: and other tales of fantasy

From my list on showing that somebody has it worse than you do.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an old guy. I say this with a bit of cheek and a certain amount of incongruity. All the books on my list are old. That’s one area of continuity. Another, and I’ll probably stop at two, is that they all deal with ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances—those curveballs of life we flail at with an unfamiliar bat; the getting stuck on the Interstate behind a semi and some geezer in a golf cap hogging the passing lane in a Buick Le Sabre. No one makes it through this life unscathed. How we cope does more to define us than a thousand smiles when things are rosy. Thus endeth the lesson.

J.M.'s book list on showing that somebody has it worse than you do

J.M. Unrue Why did J.M. love this book?

A masterful debut novel, post-WWII, and dealing with characters in the heat of battle, internally and externally.

I was forced to read it in eleventh grade Honors English (what they called AP pre-AP. Like I said, I’m old). I reread it for edification as a young writer and was awed by the craftsmanship. The writing is dense and requires patience. War is never pretty.

By Norman Mailer,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Naked and the Dead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since enjoyed a long and well-deserved tenure in the American canon. This fiftieth anniversary edition features a new introduction created especially for the occasion by Norman Mailer.

Written in gritty, journalistic detail, the story follows a platoon of Marines who are stationed on the Japanese-held island of Anopopei. Composed in 1948 with the wisdom of a man twice Mailer's age and the raw courage of the young man he was, The…


Book cover of The Sundial

Matt Ruff Author Of The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country

From my list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.

Matt's book list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare

Matt Ruff Why did Matt love this book?

I love books that refuse to fit neatly into genre categories. This underappreciated novel by the author of "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House reads like a Seinfeld episode set on the eve of the apocalypse.

The Sundial’s combination of social satire and horror got lackluster reviews when it was published in 1958, but that’s just because it was way ahead of its time.

By Shirley Jackson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Sundial as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial

When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when the somewhat peculiar Aunt Fanny wanders off into the secret garden. But then she returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher…


Book cover of The Night Ocean

Matt Ruff Author Of The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country

From my list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.

Matt's book list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare

Matt Ruff Why did Matt love this book?

This book borrows its title from a short story coauthored by H.P. Lovecraft, and it starts out like a classic Lovecraft tale, with an escaped psychiatric patient sending his wife a message from beyond the grave.

But just when you think you know what kind of book you’re reading, author La Farge throws in a twist—and then he does it again and again. It’s a unique and amazing novel that defies categorization.

By Paul La Farge,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Night Ocean as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the award-winning author and New Yorker contributor, a riveting novel about secrets and scandals,  psychiatry and pulp fiction, inspired by the lives of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle.

Marina Willett, M.D., has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends--or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's…


Book cover of Watchers

Peggy Webb Author Of Black Crow Cabin

From my list on books about crime that transcend the genre.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on a small farm in Mississippi and discovered the wide world through a movable feast of books provided by the Bookmobile. The hayloft was my favorite reading spot. I could look across the lake to imagine myself in WWII Paris, the frozen tundras of Alaska, or anywhere beyond the pastures where Daddy’s cattle grazed. I fell in love with words when I was eight years old, a dreamer spinning stories inspired by the ones I read between the covers of my beloved books. I still love words and hear their music as they flow onto the pages of the thrillers I currently write.

Peggy's book list on books about crime that transcend the genre

Peggy Webb Why did Peggy love this book?

I confess: I love the book because of the dog, Einstein. But I also love it because Koontz shines a spotlight on the downside and potential harm of technology and spins a classic tale of good versus evil.

I have never forgotten this book, and I read it on publication in 1987. The story is fascinating and different. But it stayed with me because of the quality of the writing and the unexpected use of magical realism. A dog who understands language? Wonderful. And he was a major character, another surprising bonus for me.

I’m a fan of Dean Koontz because his suspense novels always deliver a great story and always rise above the genre. 

By Dean Koontz,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Watchers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The No.1 bestselling classic from Dean Koontz, the master of chilling suspense, that will thrill fans of Stephen King and the Odd Thomas series.

They escape from a secret government project: two mutant creatures, both changed utterly from the animals they once were. And no one who encounters them will ever be the same again.

A lonely widower, a ruthless assassin, a beautiful woman, a government agent.

Drawn together in a deadly hunt, all four are inexorably propelled towards a confrontation with an evil beyond human imagining.


Book cover of Freedomland

Matt Ruff Author Of The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country

From my list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an award-winning and bestselling novelist known for writing in a wide variety of genres. My most popular work to date is Lovecraft Country, a supernatural horror novel that served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO series of the same name.

Matt's book list on horror books that offer more than just a good scare

Matt Ruff Why did Matt love this book?

The author, Richard Price, is a street reporter trapped in the body of a novelist. He takes firsthand observation and research on life in urban America and spins it into incredibly realistic and moving works of fiction.

Freedomland, my favorite of his novels, was inspired by the case of Susan Smith, who blamed the disappearance of her two sons on a fictitious black carjacker.

Though billed as a crime novel, it is also absolutely a horror story—and it’s fantastic.

By Richard Price,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Freedomland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An injured woman stumbles into an inner-city hospital with a horrifying story: she has just been carjacked by a man who was apparently unaware that her son was asleep on the back seat. As a search ensues, a shrewd detective and an ambitious young reporter smell a hoax and begin to suspect that the woman is holding back a terrible truth: could she have murdered her own child?


Book cover of The Whispering Hollows

Cat Gilbert Author Of Brain Storm

From my list on thrillers and mysteries with psychic twists.

Why am I passionate about this?

My grandmother had what we in the South call the sight. I have it as well—that sense of foreboding. Of knowing what will happen next. Some call it a premonition, others Deja vu. Whatever you call it, I think it’s something we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives. Empathy, telepathy, telekinesis…the list is endless. There’s no proof that psychic abilities exist, but there’s no proof that they don’t, either. I find the concept fascinating, so when I started writing, it was a natural fit for me to combine my love for thrillers and mysteries with the added twist of psychic ability. I hope you love it too.

Cat's book list on thrillers and mysteries with psychic twists

Cat Gilbert Why did Cat love this book?

Eloise Montgomery is my kind of protagonist. She survives a tragedy, suffers a great loss, and, waking up from a coma, finds herself with a new and frightening psychic ability. One that she puts to good use.

I like her grit and determination, along with her moments of doubt and despair. She’s human. A normal, everyday woman is thrust into a life she didn’t expect and is making the best of it—a situation I can identify with. Except for her psychic ability. That I don’t have, but how cool would that be?

By Lisa Unger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Whispering Hollows as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger delivers a spellbinding novella, told in three parts, featuring reluctant psychic Eloise Montgomery. This in-depth exploration of Eloise is a perfect way for newcomers to be introduced to The Hollows, and experience the sense of place Unger is building that "rivals Stephen King's Castle Rock for continuity and creepiness." (The News & Observer - Raleigh)  It is also a treasure trove of insight and greater understanding of connections for those already drawn deep into The Hollows.  
Includes an author introduction to The Hollows, and an excerpt from the bestseller Ink and Bone--a chilling…


Book cover of Paula: A Memoir

Joanne Greene Author Of By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go

From my list on by and about wise, vulnerable, badass women.

Why am I passionate about this?

When called a badass, I say thank you. Though I was raised to say and do the right thing, I’ve spent a lifetime speaking my truth, on radio and now on podcasts, being both reverent and irreverent. It took losing three immediate family members and getting hit by a car as a pedestrian for me to learn that I don’t have to be in perpetual motion. I went from being the baby of my family to being the matriarch in a heartbeat and am honored to share what I’ve learned about resilience and authenticity in my first book, By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go.  

Joanne's book list on by and about wise, vulnerable, badass women

Joanne Greene Why did Joanne love this book?

I cannot imagine sitting at the bedside of one of my children in a coma.

Isabel Allende not only did that, but used her grief, fear, pain, hope, optimism, memory, and humor to write an extraordinarily compelling book. We come to know not only Paula, Isabel’s gravely ill daughter, but a colorful cast of characters from the family’s past.

We learn about Chilean history and somehow find ourselves laughing and crying in the same chapter. At least I did. Allende is a master with words – and English is not her first language. Do yourself a favor and read this gem.

By Isabel Allende,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Paula as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Beautiful and heartrending. . . . Memoir, autobiography, epicedium, perhaps even some fiction: they are all here, and they are all quite wonderful."-Los Angeles Times

In this literary classic, New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende recalls the story of her beloved daughter and her remarkable family's past.

When her daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, Isabel Allende began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. Bizarre ancestors are introduced; delightful and bitter childhood memories are shared; amazing anecdotes of youthful years are relived, and the most intimate secrets are quietly passed…


Book cover of The Black Stallion
Book cover of The World According to Garp
Book cover of Blindsight

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