Here are 100 books that Tinkers fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!
I really enjoyed this historical mystery novel. It is an early example of a narrative being told from multiple perspectives, some unreliable; beware!
The novel is a classic with beautiful language and sentence construction. I feel there is an elegance and craft given to this narrative rarely found in today’s commercial mystery genre. Sit back and enjoy being seduced by Wilkie Collins.
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'The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.'
One of the earliest works of 'detective' fiction with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious 'Woman in White'…
I’m passionate about the theme of mystery/romance novels because they lend so much to the human condition and hit a soft spot, as I’ve liked them since I was a child. When a story is relatable—such as a genuine real-life situation having the potential to become one’s own, that’s where the intrigue kicks in, and I’m knocked into another world as I feel their emotions so poignantly. It’s the perfect escape. Unlike science fiction where reality must be suspended, a classic mystery story—especially ones with a touch of romance—are the ones that really suck me in and won’t let go until the last page is turned.
A story of someone going missing is always something that affects me viscerally. I was drawn into the intrigue of a woman who is apparently happily married one minute, and then blood stains are found on the floor of the couple’s kitchen the next.
I loved this book because it was a who-dun-it with great descriptive scenes. It was well-written and left me hungry for it when I was forced to put it down to do my chores. A taut, gripping saga about real-life people in real settings is always something I find fascinating.
THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER AND INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE THE BOOK THAT DEFINES PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Who are you? What have we done to each other?
These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on…
Before W. Somerset Maugham became the most popular writer in the world, he spent five years as a doctor in a London hospital. He says it was perfect training to be a novelist: he learned everything about human behavior from his patients. I’ve been a criminal lawyer for more than 33 years, and every day, someone tells me a story I could never dream up. I meet my clients at the point of crisis and work with them through shock, anger, depression, denial, bargaining, and acceptance. It’s the same for my characters, who are as alive to me and my readers as anyone in my life.
The first time I talked to my New York agent, I told her my three favorite novels were The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, the Eye of the Needle, and, of course, the Day of the Jackal. She caught her breath. “I’ve just written an article,” she said, “saying those were the three best thrillers ever.”
Here’s a secret. Old City Hall is not the first book I’ve written. I spent ten years writing a thriller inspired by Jackal. Set in 1988, an assassin is on her way to Toronto to kill the G-7 world leaders meeting there. The manuscript never sold. Then, last year, I pulled out my “book-in-a-drawer” and updated it as a prequel. Now it’s my new novel. I’ve moved in my writing from legal thrillers to historical dramas (my last novel is based on a Nazi massacre in Italy in 1944) and…
The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.
It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General De Gaulle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.
Known only as The Jackal, this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?
Secrets, misunderstandings, and a plethora of family conflicts abound in this historical novel set along the Brazos River in antebellum Washington County, East Texas.
It is a compelling story of two neighboring plantation families and a few of the enslaved people who serve them. These two plantations are a microcosm…
I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!
I enjoyed learning about religion from Dan Brown. I am not a religious person, so presenting so much research in a tightly bound thriller was an excellent way to keep me engaged and reading.
I came away from this book with a deeper psychological understanding of God and the devil.
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.
As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.
Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the…
I am a novelist, a journalist, a humanist celebrant, and coauthor with my husband of the best-selling Nicci French thrillers. Witnessing my father’s dementia and his slow-motion dying radically transformed the way I think about what it is to be human. In 2014, I founded John’s Campaign which seeks to make the care of those who are vulnerable and powerless more compassionate, and which is now a national movement in the UK. In 2016, I won the Orwell Prize for Journalism for ‘exposing Britain’s social evils' in the pieces I wrote exploring the nature of dementia.
Drowse Draaisma is a memory specialist, and this lucid, eloquent and humorous book celebrates the rich and fruitful pleasures of memory in later life (and takes the sting out of the natural forgetfulness that comes as we grow older). It combines science, psychology, anecdotes, advice, and it is above all a work of spirit and optimism.
With a storyteller's gift and a scientist's insights, Draaisma celebrates the unique pleasures of the aging memory
You cannot call to mind the name of a man you have known for 30 years. You walk into a room and forget what you came for. What is the name of that famous film you've watched so many times? These are common experiences, and as we grow older we tend to worry about these lapses. Is our memory failing? Is it dementia? Douwe Draaisma, a renowned memory specialist, here focuses on memory in later life. Writing with eloquence and humor, he explains…
Children’s stories about memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and dementia resonate with me because I know firsthand how difficult it is to care for someone with this disease. My Aunt Luella had Alzheimer’s, and I cared for her in my home. When my aunt no longer remembered me, my heart ached. I felt hopeless, afraid. I can only imagine how difficult it is for a child to watch as a beloved grandparent forgets them. I found these five books to be helpful and inspiring. They offer hope. They embrace the love that still exists.
Ice Cream with Grandpa is about the love between a child and his Grandpa.
The child tells the story beginning with the first time his Grandpa gave him ice cream. Their love of ice cream bonds them, but they also enjoy gardening, and walks in the park. When Grandpa moves to an apartment, it took some adjustment. What helped was the ice cream parlor nearby. Grandpa eventually goes into a memory care home.
The child fears Grandpa won’t remember him. His mom explains that Grandpa is still Grandpa. They can still enjoy spending time together. On Grandpa’s last day in hospice, they eat ice cream. Grandpa passes, but the child continues to remember their love each time he eats ice cream.
This story moved me so much that I cried. I love that this book includes a Guide for Parents and Caregivers: Tips for Talking with Children about Dementia, Hospice,…
After his beloved grandpa's health declines and he receives a diagnosis of dementia, a grandson must navigate the changes in their relationship. Through it all, he learns that Grandpa is still Grandpa, and their bond deepens and sweetens through a shared love of ice cream.
Ice Cream with Grandpa is a loving, tender picture book that gently explores the topics of dementia, aging, and loss. Written from a child's point of view, it chronicles the changes in their relationship as his grandpa moves to assisted living, then memory care, and eventually hospice.
In May 1941, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, hums with talk of spring flowers, fishing derbies, and the growing war in Europe. And for the residents of a quiet neighborhood boarding house, the winds of change are blowing.
Self-proclaimed spinster, Bessie Blackwell, is the reluctant owner of a new pair of glasses. The…
I was first a clinical social worker and then a social work professor with research focus on older adults. Over the past few years, as I have been writing my own memoir about caring for my parents, I’ve been drawn to memoirs and first-person stories of aging, illness, and death. The best memoirs on these topics describe the emotional transformation in the writer as they process their loss of control, loss of their own or a loved one’s health, and their fear, pain, and suffering. In sharing these stories, we help others empathize with what we’ve gone through and help others be better prepared for similar events in their own lives.
This book attracted me because, as a gerontologist/social worker, I’m interested in the subject of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and dementia. This book, rather than describing the long, sad decline of a loved one, tells Bloom’s story of trying to help her spouse with AD to end his life.
Bloom is a clinical social worker who writes with a deep understanding of human behavior and motivation, most notably her own, which makes her a fine memoirist. She writes candidly about her emotions, unafraid to reveal less flattering details.
Her story is a sad one, with many ups and downs, but the overwhelming sense I got was of her powerful love for her husband and desire to give him what he needed in the face of his dementia diagnosis.
A poignant love letter to Bloom's husband and a passionate outpouring of grief, In Love reaffirms the power and value of human relationships.
In January 2020, Amy Bloom travelled with her husband Brian to Switzerland, where he was helped by Dignitas to end his life while Amy sat with him and held his hand. Brian was terminally ill and for the last year of his life Amy had struggled to find a way to support his wish to take control of his death, to not submerge 'into the darkness of an expiring existence'.
Throughout my life I found the trick to getting through rough patches meant isolating dark thoughts. I got them out by creating something (artworks, poems, stories), and looked forward to new horizons, though these works could easily be misinterpreted by those around me. When I was fifteen, after my father died and we were forced off the farm, I created a series of disturbing drawings that won the school's art prize and were displayed at graduation. A friend of my mother saw the exhibit and said, “Oh Dorothy, I’m so sorry.” It gave us a laugh later when Mother realized this method of cleansing beat finding a psychiatrist, and the cost couldn’t be beat.
As a kid, I loved this funny and frightening book about the terrible things that happen to bratty children (the same could be inferred for bratty octogenarians).
I’m sure my parents hoped these tales would encourage more reasonable behavior. Instead, these tales set me on a path to writing dark stories. In this case, the contrast of humor and the horrifying is addictive, and characters in any kind of book that combine these traits are always compelling.
The illustrations in the version published by John C. Winston Company are particularly quirky, increasing the impact of each story. This book probably had more influence on my book than I realized during the writing.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been…
As an old age psychiatrist, I was naturally interested in dementia. But I’m also trained to doctoral level in philosophy. I’ve been both an honorary professor of philosophy of ageing (at Newcastle) and a professor of old age psychiatry (at Bristol). Whilst training in psychiatry at Oxford, I came across the work of Tom Kitwood. Subsequently, I’ve become great friends with Steve Sabat. His work and Kitwood’s brought home to me the complexity of personhood and its relevance to how we care for and think about people living with dementia. And the more you consider it, the more the notion of personhood broadens out to include citizenship and human rights.
To be honest, I might have overlooked this book had I not had the good fortune to meet Mark, one of its editors, at various very enjoyable academic events in Europe – made exciting by Mark’s incisive contributions. The book exemplifies the movement I have previously gestured at. The broadening effect here is achieved by situating dementia as a cultural phenomenon. How is dementia represented in popular culture: in fiction, in art, film, the media, and so forth? More importantly, how are we to understand and what sort of critiques can be applied to the narratives that emerge from these cultural representations and expressions? There is much to be gained from approaching dementia from an aesthetic viewpoint. The variety of topics in this book and their treatment is refreshing and incredibly stimulating.
How are individual and social ideas of late-onset dementia shaped and negotiated in film, literature, the arts, and the media? And how can the symbolic forms provided by popular culture be adopted and transformed by those affected in order to express their own perspectives? This international and interdisciplinary volume summarizes central current research trends and opens new theoretical and empirical perspectives on dementia in popular culture. It includes contributions by internationally renowned scholars from the humanities, social and cultural gerontology, age(ing) studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and bioethics. Contributions by Lucy Burke, Marlene Goldman, Annette Leibing and others.
A fast-paced literary thriller with a strong sci-fi element and loaded with existential questions. Beyond the entertainment value, this book takes a hard look at the perilous world of publishing, which is on a crash course to meet the nascent, no-holds-barred world of AI. Could these worlds co-exist, or will…
Kimberly Belle is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of seven novels of domestic suspense, including her forthcoming My Darling Husband and The Marriage Lie, a Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist for Best Mystery & Thriller. Her books have been published in more than a dozen languages and have been optioned for film and television. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Belle divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.
When Stephen announces he’s getting remarried, his adult daughters aren’t happy with the news. His fiancé is too young, she’s a gold digger, and let’s not forget the fact he's still legally married to their mother, his first wife, now in a care facility for dementia. But Stephen doesn’t see it as a problem; he’s already initiated the divorce. Sally Hepworth is a genius at developing compelling, well-rounded characters, ones with real secrets and problems you root for them to solve. And marriages don’t get much more messed up than this one.
'Another knockout - unputdownable and completely thrilling' TAYLOR JENKINS REID, bestselling author of Malibu Rising and Daisy Jones and the Six
'Smart, suspenseful, brimming with secrets. This is Sally Hepworth at her unputdownable best' KATE MORTON
'This beauty I read in a morning... Expect a lot of secrets and revelations' BELFAST TELEGRAPH
The moment she laid eyes on Heather Wisher, Tully knew this woman was going to destroy their lives.
Tully and Rachel Aston are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even the most shocking part. Stephen…
