Here are 62 books that The Hired Man fans have personally recommended if you like
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I grew up dreaming of other worlds, both real and imagined. I’ve since had the great fortune of living in Angola, Bangladesh, Gambia, Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Tanzania—each country as fascinating to me as the next. Yet there’s so much more of the world I want to experience! This is why I love novels that immerse me in the history and culture of foreign lands. By entering the hearts and minds of characters with different life experiences than myself, I feel a sense of connection that expands my own worldview. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
This heartwarming, multigenerational drama about the Korean community in Japan swept me into another time and place. Born and raised in a poor fishing village in Japanese-occupied Korea, Sunja makes an impulsive decision in the pursuit of love that transforms the trajectory of her life.
Thoughtful, resilient, and fiercely independent, Sunja was a relatable character whom I desperately wanted to see thrive. I felt her heartache when she left her beloved Korea and shared her indignation at the discrimination she and her family experienced in Japan. Expertly crafted and keenly observed, Pachinko shows us how history and politics shape the lives of ordinary people, often for generations to come.
* The million-copy bestseller* * National Book Award finalist * * One of the New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2017 * * Selected for Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club *
'This is a captivating book... Min Jin Lee's novel takes us through four generations and each character's search for identity and success. It's a powerful story about resilience and compassion' BARACK OBAMA.
Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja…
I grew up dreaming of other worlds, both real and imagined. I’ve since had the great fortune of living in Angola, Bangladesh, Gambia, Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Tanzania—each country as fascinating to me as the next. Yet there’s so much more of the world I want to experience! This is why I love novels that immerse me in the history and culture of foreign lands. By entering the hearts and minds of characters with different life experiences than myself, I feel a sense of connection that expands my own worldview. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
Exquisitely written and profoundly wise, this is one of my all-time favorite novels. Ifemulu and Obinze meet in high school, forming a deep attachment that continues into university. When political turmoil in Nigeria forces them to emigrate to separate countries, their love story comes to an unexpected halt.
As I read this book, I was moved by Ifemulu’s struggle to recapture her sense of self and stirred by the grief she felt, both for her broken relationship and for her country. Alternating between Nigeria and the USA, the novel transported me into Ifemulu’s world, making me reflect anew on questions of race, identity, and belonging.
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.
How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria. Self-assured Ifemelu heads for America. But quiet, thoughtful Obinze finds post-9/11 America closed to him, and plunges into a dangerous undocumented life in London.
Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria,…
I grew up dreaming of other worlds, both real and imagined. I’ve since had the great fortune of living in Angola, Bangladesh, Gambia, Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Tanzania—each country as fascinating to me as the next. Yet there’s so much more of the world I want to experience! This is why I love novels that immerse me in the history and culture of foreign lands. By entering the hearts and minds of characters with different life experiences than myself, I feel a sense of connection that expands my own worldview. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
Set in Baghdad in 2002, this book introduced me to a part of the world that I knew little about. The novel is written as a braided narrative of three interconnected women—Huda, Rania, and Ally—each harboring their own secrets and lies as they navigate life under Sadaam Hussein’s authoritarian regime.
I found myself holding my breath as the three women’s lives became increasingly entangled and endangered. This compelling and suspenseful novel asks how much we are willing to compromise our values in order to protect the people we love. I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot about Iraq in the process.
“Breathtaking…Riveting and profound! I adored this book!” —Ellen Marie Wiseman, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Collector
“A deeply involving and important novel by a master storyteller.” —Susan Wiggs, # 1 New York Times bestselling author
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
In this moving, suspenseful debut novel, three courageous women confront the complexities of trust, friendship, motherhood, and betrayal under the rule of a ruthless dictator and his brutal secret police. Former foreign correspondent Gina Wilkinson draws on her own experiences to take readers inside a haunting story of Iraq at the turn of the millennium and the impossible choices faced…
I grew up dreaming of other worlds, both real and imagined. I’ve since had the great fortune of living in Angola, Bangladesh, Gambia, Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Tanzania—each country as fascinating to me as the next. Yet there’s so much more of the world I want to experience! This is why I love novels that immerse me in the history and culture of foreign lands. By entering the hearts and minds of characters with different life experiences than myself, I feel a sense of connection that expands my own worldview. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!
I found this novel about a young, widowed mother living through Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War both eye-opening and deeply touching. Having recently moved to Bangladesh myself, I welcomed the chance to learn more about my host country’s history while at the same time being transported into the fictional lives of Rehana and her two adolescent children, Maya and Sohail.
Tahmima Anam’s expert storytelling and razor-sharp observation made me feel as if I were right there with the characters, facing the same impossible choices but also experiencing the same unexpected moments of passion and beauty.
Spring, 1971, East Pakistan. Rehana Haque is throwing a party for her beloved children, Sohail and Maya. Her young family is growing up fast, and Rehana wants to remember this day forever. But out on the hot city streets, something violent is brewing. As the civil war develops, a war which will eventually see the birth of Bangladesh, Rehana struggles to keep her children safe and finds herself facing a heartbreaking dilemma.
I’m not sure why the dark side of humanity has always fascinated me, as it does so many others. I’ve read mystery and horror stories ever since I was a young boy, gravitating to ever darker books as I aged. I’m a pantser—that means that I don’t totally know where a story is going when I start, so I discover it right along with the characters. I think evoking emotion is key to writing a riveting tale, so I try to imagine what my character is feeling as I chronicle their experience. Part of being able to do this well is reading other writers who can, such as the authors on this list.
USA Today Best-Selling Author Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal Winner National Indie Excellence Award Winner Kidnapped, pregnant teen plots a calculating escape and merciless revenge Imagine a helpless, pregnant 16-year-old who's just been yanked from the serenity of her home and shoved into a dirty van. Kidnapped . . . Alone . . . Terrified. Now forget her . . . Picture instead a pregnant, 16-year-old, manipulative prodigy. She is shoved into a dirty van and, from the first moment of her kidnapping, feels a calm desire for two things: to save her unborn child and to exact merciless revenge. She…
Like many readers, I am drawn to stories of vengeance. Stories of someone seeking revenge have a built-in tension and narrative drive. But as the saying goes, when you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. Yes, these tales seldom go smoothly. The consequences of this and the violence that ensues are what I wanted to explore in my latest novel, but several books on my shelf make fascinating stories out of this desire for revenge.
None of Guthrie’s characters are anyone you want to get on the wrong side of. Pearce, an ex-con and Edinburgh hard man, may be his most dangerous creation. Guthrie’s black humor is fully displayed in this novel of a man out for blood and bound to get it in ever more inventive ways.
The Scottish writer Guthrie is in danger of falling into obscurity, but several of his other evangelists and I are intent on not letting that happen. This book is a good place to start with his work; if you like it, you will have a world of dark pleasures waiting in his other books.
Has Pearce finally found his match? A time-served Edinburgh hard man, Pearce is still recovering from the recent loss of his mother in a stabbing incident in a post office robbery. He's invited by the dysfunctional Baxter family to protect their pregnant 16-year-old daughter from Wallace, her 26-year-old husband, a man with a penchant for killing family pets. Having found out that the baby's not his, Wallace has sworn vengeance. Pearce declines the job: he's no babysitter. But when Wallace kills Pearce's dog, he goes too far. Now it's personal. It's time to find out who the real hard man…
I’ve been reading romance novels since I was way too young to be reading romances and I love the romance genre. I’m a fan of many tropes, but second-chance romance is one of my favorites and it is the main trope in my debut novel, Just a Fling. When I read romance, I want to read stories that make my heart break and then stitch it back together. Second-chance romances do that because they capture the essence of hope and forgiveness. They give readers the opportunity to experience the beauty and power of forgiveness and to believe in the transformative power of love.
Again the Magic, by historical queen Lisa Kleypas, is a gorgeous historical romance that'll transport you to another time and place while tearing your heart out.
Aline Marsden and John McKenna are childhood friends who reconnect after years apart and realize they've been in love all along. There's tons of drama, including societal pressure and family expectations, but their chemistry is off the charts.
It has Kleypas' gorgeous writing, swoon-worthy romance, and plenty of tension.
Lady Aline Marsden was brought up to marry a man of her own class, but from the moment she meets John McKenna, she risks everything to be with him.
He gave her his heart
Although their love is forbidden, McKenna's passion for the beautiful Aline is too compelling to deny.
When their secret is discovered, their world is shattered. McKenna is forced to leave forever, unaware that the only reason Aline has given him up is to save him.
Now McKenna has returned, a powerful man determined to take revenge against the…
I have a close girlfriend who was once involved with a man she wanted to marry. The trouble was, the guy was always hanging out with this other woman who he’d known since childhood. Just friends, he said. Nothing going on. Ha! The shenanigans they got up to were unbelievable, and extremely upsetting to my girlfriend, who eventually broke up with the cad. Her unlucky experience got me interested in the psychology of the love triangle, and why some people remain mired in these dead-end relationships. My reading jam is anything twisty and suspenseful, and what’s more fraught than a three-way competition for someone’s affections.
Beware the replacement wife! Those folks we envy because they appear to have it all (flawless family/home/career, etc…) are often frantically treading water, desperate to keep that facade of perfection afloat. I know because I’ve been there, in a seemingly idyllic marriage where underneath the trappings of material success was, well, crap.
In this novel, the second wife thinks she’s got it goin’ on with the first wife’s ex, but things are not as they seem (are they ever in domestic thrillers, or real life??) I got a vicarious kick out of the two wives’ scheming and revenge-lust, and the dry humor laced throughout the story had me snickering with snarky delight!
There is no limit to the lies, suspicion, and secrets that can poison the perfect marriage in this twisting novel of suspense by USA Today bestselling author Kaira Rouda.
Kate Nelson had it all. A flourishing company founded with her husband, John; a happy marriage; and a daughter, Ashlyn. The picture-perfect family. Until John left for another woman. Tish is half his age. Ambitious. She's cultivated a friendship with Ashlyn. Tish believes she's won.
She's wrong.
Tish Nelson has it all. Youth, influence, a life of luxury, and a new husband. But the truth is, there's…
Within the caste into which I was born, daughter of a daughter of a daughter, I was ‘nobody’—no dowry, an awkward brain, and unfashionable looks—dark hourglass, not blonde beanpole. Unless I married the right kind of man, of course–an eldest son with a big house. This was the 70s, and you probably don’t believe me, but many girls still went the full Jane Austen. So I’m perfectly qualified to tell you about the best books that centre on a big house as metaphor, a major character or a massive plot point in a novel. And, reader, I swerved marrying a man for his house too.
I’ve loved this book since I was a teenager, but I always feel frustrated and angry at Miss Havisham’s entrapment of Estella and Pip. Central to the story is Satis House, a metaphor for getting stuck in life—its name is very close to Stasis.
The original end of the novel works much better for me. Pip and Estella meet by chance in the street and part for the last time. The ‘new’ ending has them go off together against a backdrop of burned-down Satis House, thus removing the irony of the book’s title. Although there is the heavy-handed metaphor of the death of the house freeing them, I prefer that it retains its static power and condemns their expectations forever.
'His novels will endure as long as the language itself' Peter Ackroyd
Dickens's haunting late novel depicts the education and development of a young man, Pip, as his life is changed by a series of events - a terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - and he discovers the true nature of his 'great expectations'. This definitive edition includes appendices on Dickens's original ending, giving an illuminating glimpse into a…
As an investigative journalist, I’ve spent my career interviewing and trying to understand the worst of humanity: murderers, child molesters and rapists. They are all predators, but rape is personal for me. I was a young journalist starting my career when a serial rapist assaulted my neighbor. He entered many things uninvited—homes, bedrooms, and my mind. For twenty years, I was obsessed—learning everything I could about him and sexual assault. I read these books to understand why the justice system and society sometimes fail survivors. Yet these remarkable survivors still manage to heal their trauma–at least, that’s what I found in each of these books.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve often fantasized about revenge. I think anyone who suffers some sort of trauma thinks about righting the wrong. In cases of rape, the punishment often does not fit the crime. And many women never get justice at all—if the rapist is not caught.
But in this book, that’s not the case. It could be argued that justice comes in the form of revenge when three women strike back at their abusers. Elizabeth Flock’s intimate narrative stems from her own experience as a young woman who was drugged and raped while in Europe in her twenties.
This beautifully investigated book forces you to contemplate the true meaning of justice.
'An arresting, deeply reported new book' Washington Post
'This gripping, inflaming book, itself an act of fury, shows how revenge can transmute into politics or be crushed by it' Larissa MacFarquhar
'Flock has a novelist's knack for creating suspense . . . This one will stick with readers' Publishers Weekly
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In this profoundly moving book, Emmy-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock explores the stories of three women living in deeply patriarchal places with destructive cultures of honour, places in which institutions - government, police, courts - failed to protect women from violence, leaving them no option but to stand up and…
