Love The Picture of Dorian Gray? Readers share 100 books like The Picture of Dorian Gray...

By Oscar Wilde,

Here are 100 books that The Picture of Dorian Gray fans have personally recommended if you like The Picture of Dorian Gray. 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 Life After Life

Sam Taylor Author Of The Two Loves of Sophie Strom

From my list on making the impossible feel real.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve always loved stories that rearrange reality in some simple, allusive way, including movies like Groundhog Day or The Truman Show. They remind me of a quote about Italo Calvino that I first read when I was a teenager and have loved ever since: ā€˜He holds a mirror up to life, then writes about the mirror.ā€™ I tend not to be attracted to stories that simply depict reality and even less so to stories that completely abandon reality for an invented fantasy world. All my favorite fictions take place somewhere in between, in the blending of the real and the impossible. 

Sam's book list on making the impossible feel real

Sam Taylor Why did Sam love this book?

It always seemed unfair to me that not only do we get just one life, but we only get to live it once. So I fell in love with this novel from the moment I read its premise: Ursula Todd is born and dies and is born againā€¦ and againā€¦ and again.

I love that she doesnā€™t remember her previous lives except as vague intuitions that help her avoid making the same mistakes twiceā€“and I also love that avoiding those mistakes often means she makes other (often fatal) mistakes. I found this book funny, moving, and thought-provoking, but what I love most about it is the way its down-to-earth, realistic style allowed me to fully inhabit the impossible conceit at its heart. 

By Kate Atkinson,

Why should I read it?

17 authors picked Life After Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite numberā€¦


Book cover of Crime and Punishment

Shobana Mahadevan Author Of A Marriage Knot: A Tangled Love Story

From my list on classical books that teach you about psychology.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started reading classical books at a very young age. Granted, I did not understand a lot of things then. Rereading the same books again after years made me realize that more than what the author was trying to convey, my maturity made a world of difference when reading a book. It was the same text but with entirely different contexts and perspectives. I love old books. Books that take me back a century or more. It gives me an insight into how people lived, thought, and felt back then. It helps me connect with people across centuries.

Shobana's book list on classical books that teach you about psychology

Shobana Mahadevan Why did Shobana love this book?

The perfect crime? Actually not! It was so imperfect that it turned into the perfect crime by just pure luck. No clues were left behind. In fact, there was nothing to trace the murder back to the murderer except his own guilt. 

His guilt turned out to be his biggest punishment. When he finally surrenders, he feels at peaceā€“the long-eluded peace. 

By Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear (translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Crime and Punishment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hailed by Washington Post Book World as ā€œthe best [translation] currently available" when it was first published, this second edition has been updated in honor of the 200th anniversary of Dostoevskyā€™s birth.

With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's astounding pyschological thriller, newly revised for his bicentenniel. 

When Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that isā€¦


Book cover of A Game of Thrones

Sophie Haeder Author Of Dohva - The Land Within: A Tale of Elemental Sorcery and Ancient Mysteries

From my list on fantasy that keeps you wondering what comes next.

Why am I passionate about this?

Fantasy, mystery, magic, and otherworldly realmsā€”these have fascinated me since childhood. Growing up in Landshut, a town straight out of a fairytale, with misty hills and an ancient castle, Iā€™ve always felt surrounded by magic. It makes you wonder what secrets lie in the woods or castle grounds. I crave fast-paced, suspenseful, fantastical books with a dash of romance and just enough weirdness to keep things exciting. If youā€™re like me and love stories that keep you guessing, check out my list of the best fantasy books that do just that. Plus, my debut Epic Fantasy novel is coming out this year, and it fits right into that category!

Sophie's book list on fantasy that keeps you wondering what comes next

Sophie Haeder Why did Sophie love this book?

This is a fantasy novel about noble families competing for control of the Iron Throne in a world filled with political intrigue, betrayal, and war. As alliances shift and conflicts arise, a supernatural threat from the north begins to emerge, adding to the chaos. 

If you love Epic Fantasy, this is a must-read. The story offers complex characters and unexpected twists. Fun fact: I'm an ENFJ personality type, the same as Daenerys Targaryen.

By George R. R. Martin,

Why should I read it?

26 authors picked A Game of Thrones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

HBO's hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin's internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A GAME OF THRONES is the first volume in the series.

'Completely immersive' Guardian

'When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground'

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

From the fertile south, where heat breeds conspiracy, to the vast and savage eastern lands, all the way to the frozenā€¦


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Book cover of The Colour Out of Space

The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft,

What would you do if a meteorite landed in your own front yard? And not just any meteorite, but one that turns out to be some kind of mysterious force that will drain the life out of you and your surroundings?

Illustrator Sara Barkat lends her vision to H.P. Lovecraftā€™sā€¦

Book cover of The Great Gatsby

Gary Van Haas Author Of E.B.E.: Extraterrestrial Biological Entity

From my list on that will take you into an extraordinary world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have picked these books because I have a passion for good reading material. All the books I have chosen have become reading classics in their own way. They are well written and have plots that go well beyond normal literature in a sense that they unveil the 'human condition' into the realm of the protagonist being up against all odds, where in the end, truth reveals all!       

Gary's book list on that will take you into an extraordinary world

Gary Van Haas Why did Gary love this book?

Everybody loves this book because it, of course, has become an international classic of literature and one of the best works F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, which takes the reader on a time-traveling secretive world of the upper-class set in New England life in the 1920s.

In F. Scott's work, we are casually and comfortably introduced to an America where new money met old money, and the tender tightrope one had to walk in order to vie for position, marriage, and peer acceptance in a world founded on wealth and prestige.    

By F. Scott Fitzgerald,

Why should I read it?

25 authors picked The Great Gatsby as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As the summer unfolds, Nick is drawn into Gatsby's world of luxury cars, speedboats and extravagant parties. But the more he hears about Gatsby - even from what Gatsby himself tells him - the less he seems to believe. Did he really go to Oxford University? Was Gatsby a hero in the war? Did he once kill a man? Nick recalls how he comes to know Gatsby and how he also enters the world of his cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom. Does their money make them any happier? Do the stories all connect? Shall we come to knowā€¦


Book cover of Rebecca

Helen Cooper Author Of My Darling Boy

From my list on thrillers set in close-knit communities.

Why am I passionate about this?

The first books I loved were Gothic classics like Jane Eyre and Rebecca, because of their isolated settings and secretive characters. When I first started writing, it was always stories about communitiesā€“the first novel I wrote featured a retirement village and a circus. Maybe thatā€™s because I love observing communities in everyday life, like local pubs in which everybody has their place. When domestic suspense novels really took off, I started devouring crime books with close-knit settings and soon was writing them, too. I love the claustrophobia, the backstories, the landscape, the web of relationships. It can be done in so many different and brilliant ways.

Helen's book list on thrillers set in close-knit communities

Helen Cooper Why did Helen love this book?

Continuing with the Gothic theme, I have to mention one of my all-time favorite books. The estate of Manderley is almost another character in this novel, looming large over the story along with the legacy of its dead mistress. And the community poses an immediate threat to the bookā€™s unnamed narrator, the new wife of the estateā€™s owner, when she comes in as an outsider and gets the cold shoulder from Manderleyā€™s staff. Her desperate attempts to win everybody over lead to some gloriously nail-biting moments.

But what I adore about this novel is how it slowly reveals that the communityā€™s loyalties are not what they seem. Even the significance of rooms and objects in the houseā€“like Rebeccaā€™s writing desk or the sound of the sea from a particular windowā€“changes as the story unfolds.

By Daphne du Maurier,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

* 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY
* 'One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century' SARAH WATERS
* 'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .'

Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the south of France, she meets a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memoryā€¦


Book cover of Lolita

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was little, I would draw for hours, captivated by the female experience. Art, film, and literature focused on womenā€™s lives have always felt the most compelling to me. Whether itā€™s gazing at a woman painted centuries ago, watching a film about a woman navigating her time, or reading a book that delves into her inner world, Iā€™m drawn to their stories. Their complexities and imperfections are often what I love most. This lifelong fascination has shaped my career. Whether illustrating fashion, designing book covers, or authoring my own books, the emotions and experiences of female characters inspire me, fuel my creativity, and remind me of the power and importance of their stories.

Samantha's book list on classic fiction featuring female heroines: stories that transport you into their hearts, minds, and the eras they inhabit

Samantha Hahn Why did Samantha love this book?

Dolores Haze is an oft-misrepresented character. I dislike the way Lolita is usually portrayed in a coquettish manner. I find Lolita to be one of the most tragic heroines in classic literature. This child is a manipulated and abused victim of a perverted narrator. Her mother is deeply complicated, too.

I love the complexity of all the characters and how their story arc evolves as the power dynamic shifts. Itā€™s entertaining but also brings up disgust and concern for the heroine. I find myself rooting for her and hating the slimy narrator while at the same time appreciating Nabakovā€™s ability to build such fleshed-out characters and give us such a window into their minds.

By Vladimir Nabokov,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.'

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants.

Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he allā€¦


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Book cover of Wilde Wagers

Wilde Wagers by Elizabeth Caulfield Felt,

In this historical farce, Oscar Wilde wagers that actress Olivia Snow can fool a group of country bumpkins into believing she is Genevieve Lamb, the wealthy beauty of the recent Season. The weekend will prove a challenge for the old-fashioned actress and Genevieve's handsome and old-fashioned brother Philip who vowsā€¦

Book cover of The Maul and the Pear Tree

Geri Schear Author Of A Biased Judgement: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries 1897

From my list on mystery and malevolence in 19th century England.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I lived in 1950ā€™s London. Despite the ravages of WWII, the city retained many of its Victorian buildings and its foggy atmosphere. I found it enchanting. Reading books sent in England around the 19th century connected me to the city long after my family moved to Ireland. If I felt homesick for the Angel or Camden Town, a book would take me back. Thanks to The Hound, I became captivated by Gothic tales and by what my mum called ā€˜A juicy mystery.ā€™ This apple didnā€™t fall far from that tree. Itā€™s a good thing I became a writer, or who knows how I would have ended up!

Geri's book list on mystery and malevolence in 19th century England

Geri Schear Why did Geri love this book?

As a writer of Victorian mysteries, I love books that depict how the role of police evolved from peacekeepers to investigators. The case, the Radcliff Highway Murders of 1811, was a catalyst for that change. Truthfully, I often shouted at this book and turned the air into a dark ultramarine cloud around me. But then, I love a book that rouses my emotions.

I love PD Jamesā€™s mystery novels, and although this is nonfiction, it boasts her analytic style and her skill in crafting an atmosphere. Did she and Mr Critchley identify the real killer? Weā€™ll never know, but I will be wondering for many years to come. 

By P. D. James, T.A. Critchley,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In 1811 John Williams was buried with a stake in his heart. Was he the notorious East End killer or his eighth victim in the bizarre and shocking Ratcliffe Highway Murders? In this vivid and gripping reconstruction P. D. James and police historian T. A. Critchley draw on forensics, public records, newspaper clippings and hitherto unpublished sources, expertly sifting the evidence to shed new light on this infamous Wapping mystery.

This true crime novel begins amid the horror of a dark, wintry London in the year 1811. Using elegant historical detection P.D. James and police historian T.A. Critchley piece togetherā€¦


Book cover of The Left Hand of Darkness

Scott F. Kiesling Author Of Language, Gender, and Sexuality: An Introduction

From my list on challenge myths about gender and sex.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve been studying language and gender since I started graduate school in 1990. Iā€™m an odd gender scholar in some ways in that I am a white cisgendered heterosexual masculine person. I think Iā€™m interested in the topic because conversation and ā€˜being a manā€™ has always seemed hard and like a lot of work to me. So, I started studying these things in the 1990s with a project on language use in a college fraternity in the US. Since then I've published many articles on language and masculinities, including a 2004 article on the word dude, which is still popular in introductory linguistics courses today.

Scott's book list on challenge myths about gender and sex

Scott F. Kiesling Why did Scott love this book?

Le Guin is my favorite author, and all of her power is on display in this science fiction novel about an emissary who visits a planet (Gethen) where, most of the time, the people have no sex differentiation. Sex traits only become apparent in the two days per month of ā€œkemmer,ā€ and Gethenians may kemmer as male or female (and which is not completely predictable).

Because of Le Guinā€™s skill as a novelist, the implications of this arrangement are explored in subtle but powerful ways, more as the warp and weft of the cultural background than the main feature of the plot (although it is definitely significant). The book shows how deeply gender and sex infuse our own culture through the contrast with Gethen. The bonus is that this is a masterpiece of a novel, one often mentioned on lists of the best science fiction novels of all time. Leā€¦

By Ursula K. Le Guin,

Why should I read it?

22 authors picked The Left Hand of Darkness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION-WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

Ursula K. Le Guin's groundbreaking work of science fiction-winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants' gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on anā€¦


Book cover of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective

Geri Schear Author Of A Biased Judgement: The Sherlock Holmes Diaries 1897

From my list on mystery and malevolence in 19th century England.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I lived in 1950ā€™s London. Despite the ravages of WWII, the city retained many of its Victorian buildings and its foggy atmosphere. I found it enchanting. Reading books sent in England around the 19th century connected me to the city long after my family moved to Ireland. If I felt homesick for the Angel or Camden Town, a book would take me back. Thanks to The Hound, I became captivated by Gothic tales and by what my mum called ā€˜A juicy mystery.ā€™ This apple didnā€™t fall far from that tree. Itā€™s a good thing I became a writer, or who knows how I would have ended up!

Geri's book list on mystery and malevolence in 19th century England

Geri Schear Why did Geri love this book?

There are few joys to match happening upon a fabulous book by accident. This was the case in Kate Summerscale's work. I knew nothing about it when I picked it up, but I liked the premise. I started to read it on the bus going home and finished it in two days.

This real 1860 murder inspired many writers, from Dickens to Conan Doyle, and I can see why. It contains all those elements so dear to the hearts of mystery lovers like me: a corpse, a detective, and a closed circle of suspects in a country manor. This is a book I will reread, probably more than once. 

By Kate Summerscale,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

_______________ WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK _______________ 'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times 'A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le Carre 'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian _______________ On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery; their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the unenviable task of identifying the killer - when the grieving family are theā€¦


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Book cover of God on a Budget: and other stories in dialogue

God on a Budget by J.M. Unrue,

Nine Stories Told Completely in Dialogue is a unique collection of narratives, each unfolding entirely through conversations between its characters. The book opens with "God on a Budget," a tale of a man's surreal nighttime visitation that offers a blend of the mundane and the mystical. In "Doctor in theā€¦

Book cover of Frankenstein

Michael Sappol Author Of Queer Anatomies

From my list on novels in which anatomy plays a key role.

Why am I passionate about this?

In the 1970s and '80s, I lived in New York, made noise in downtown bands, wrote incomprehensible texts. And obsessed about dinosaurs, ancient civilizations, Weimar, and medieval cults. The past became my drug (as I tapered off actual drugs). I couldnā€™t cope with the present, so I swallowed the red pill and became a historian. Took refuge in archives, libraries and museums (my safe spaces), and the history of anatomy. Because it was about sex, death, and the Body and seemed obscure and irrelevant. Pure escapism. But escape is impossible. Anatomy seems a fact of nature, what we are. But its pastā€”and presentā€”are tangled up in politics, aesthetics, the market, gender, class, race and desire.

Michael's book list on novels in which anatomy plays a key role

Michael Sappol Why did Michael love this book?

You know the movies, but maybe not Mary Shelleyā€™s novel. Published in 1818 and revised in 1821, itā€™s a disquieting story of things going very wrong between a negligent parent (Victor von Frankenstein) and his sensitive child (the monster he created).

I identify with both sides of the equation. I also take Shelley's Frankenstein as a rich historical document of Romantic fascination with anatomy and the illicit grave robbery that supplied bodies to the dissecting tables. And ā€œgalvanism,ā€ which Giovanni Aldini publicly demonstrated in 1803 by placing electrodes on the corpse of an executed criminal, causing his legs and arms to twitch spasmodically, seemingly making the dead man come alive.

Combine that with ambivalent meditations on the wilds of human and non-human Nature. And monsters and murder. And wow! The novel that invented gothic horror. (Donā€™t worry about the florid old-fashioned prose. Once youā€™re in the flow, this book isā€¦

By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times

Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake Geneva. The story of Victor Frankenstein who, obsessed with creating life itself, plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, but whose botched creature sets out to destroy his maker, would become the world's most famous work of horror fiction, and remains a devastating exploration of the limits of human creativity. Based on the thirdā€¦


Book cover of Life After Life
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Book cover of A Game of Thrones

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