83 books like The Restraint of Beasts

This was one of the hardest books to "get into," but a friend of mine told me to stick with it because the rewards of getting through the first quarter would be so great. I'm glad I did. It is an astounding piece of work, quite different from anything I've ever read before or since, and remains one of my top five books.

The tangents the book takes, and the blasé attributes of the leading character are superbly crafted. It was suggested it was "unfilmable," and there's one scene in particular I thought they'd never get away with, but if you look at the movie version carefully, it's in there. 

High Life is pitch black Hollywood noir. It’s one of those rare books that starts out dark and just keeps getting darker and more disturbing. Stokoe outdoes himself on nearly every page. This book was shocking and eye-opening, even for me. I’ve read a lot of extreme horror and I think this might outdo nearly all of them. Stokoe manages to fully flesh out the characters, rendering them terrifying, absurd, and profoundly sad, and does so with a style that is compulsively readable.

This is a seriocomic novel about a female eighth-grade teacher who sexually lures her male students. Extremely graphic and thought-provoking, Tampa also manages to be an incredibly entertaining dark comedy. Like a lot of sensationalistic books, this approaches a serious topic and turns it into a nearly absurd piece of entertainment. It’s also extremely well written. I loved it.

When I worked for a daily newspaper, I covered the trial of serial killer Richard Biegenwald. Unlike a lot of serial killers, who tend to be loners, Biegenwald was married. He seemed fairly normal, except for his habit of occasionally killing people and burying them in his mother’s backyard. Serial killers, people who don’t kill in self-defense, or to protect someone from harm, but just because they like killing, have always fascinated me. Sitting in court, twenty feet from a real, live serial killer, was intensely interesting and not a little creepy.

Having covered the trial of a serial killer, I was intrigued by what would make someone do that. The serial killer in Child of God is a loner who’s lost his home and who constantly tries, and fails, to connect with other people. His struggles are as poignant as his deeds are gruesome. 

This is my only non-fiction pick, but it reads a little like a gripping work of fiction except that I had to keep pinching myself to remember it really happened. The author is writing about her experience as a professional violinist in a "fake" orchestra. It is a wonderfully nuanced look at the gray area between "fake" and "real", which is devastatingly pertinent to our times. It challenges us to consider if we can actually always tell the difference and if the difference is really clear-cut at all. The reason I'm including it in the list is that the main protagonist, the author, is a strong woman who is determined to make her own way. And there is one section I found particularly satisfying, in which (and I don't think this will give too much away) she refuses to include any romance in the book. She declines to write of… show more.

I’ll caveat that The Third Policeman isn’t going to delight everyone—it’s a wacky, somewhat bewildering book to wander through.

But it’s also masterfully written, and one of the most creative and exalted ways I know of bicycles appearing in literature.

Probably better known for his novel At Swim-Two-Birds, O’Brien brings the bicycle to life in this murky murder mystery that doubles as a philosophical exploration on humanness and reality.

It’s as if Samuel Beckett wrote a play that prominently features bicycles, directed by the Coen Brothers.

Detective CW Sughrue was working the topless bar scene well before Jack Reacher wandered across the literary landscape. But unlike Reacher, Sughrue carries the sins of mankind on his own shoulders, just as likely to solve a crime as to curl up in a cheap motel with a bottle of whisky. 

He begins the book looking for a trouble author (is there any other kind?), but once he finds him, things get really messy…

The first time I saw a Coen Brothers’ movie I felt like I was already familiar with their style. It’s probably because I had already read Crumley’s novels with their existential sadness and brutal violence just-barely-buoyed by clever plotting and pitch-black humor.

As one of Norway’s top recruitment specialists, Roger Brown views himself as a ‘headhunter’ extraordinaire. The fact that he moonlights as an art thief, is simply a way of dealing with his own inadequacies and his reckless spending habits. Unfortunately, his next heist goes horribly wrong. The story unfolds evenly and cleverly, with blunt bursts of murder and mayhem around every corner.

What makes this such a fun read, is the duplicitous nature of the protagonist. The absurdity of his circumstances is directly caused by his inability to refrain from committing other criminal acts. This internal struggle is brilliantly depicted throughout and creates a palpable tension for readers.

I'd never read a book before which had such spectacular and horrifying opening chapters.

I found the fact that it was describing the cruel acts of a child resonated with me at the time, as everything I'd read before then – which was mainly The Famous Five books, and other books of that ilk, were pretty tame and this book was anything but that. 

Maxim Jakubowski is a staple in the crime, thriller, and writing world. Also known as an editor. But this book was a wonderful revelation. A female assassin–which I’m very partial to–and a somewhat perverse love story.

What I like about the main protagonist, Cornelia, is how different she is from anyone portrayed as ‘normal’ in the book. It does buy into my view that someone who is a killer can’t be wired the same way as someone who isn’t. There’s a bleak message in this book, which I’m not going to lie about and I love it. Dark, dark, and more dark. Brilliant!