Love Under the Dome? Readers share 87 books like Under the Dome...

By Stephen King,

Here are 87 books that Under the Dome fans have personally recommended if you like Under the Dome. 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 House of Leaves

Simon Avery Author Of PoppyHarp

From my list on fictions within fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

PoppyHarp has at its heart the mystery of a forgotten children’s TV show from the 70s, so I wanted to share books that explore a similar idea–the fiction in fiction–be it an invented book, movie, or TV show that drives the narrative in some way. These five books all feature the enigmatic quality of something lost or some kind of age-old mystery waiting to be unraveled by its protagonists. They are also five books that I absolutely adore.

Simon's book list on fictions within fiction

Simon Avery Why did Simon love this book?

This is a love-it or hate-it novel. Either you find it tiresome, or you give yourself over whole-heartedly to its unique madness. It has at its heart a film, The Navidson Record, a documentary about a photojournalist who moves his family into a pretty house and discovers that the house is bigger on the inside than the outside, and getting bigger.

As he and his friends try to explore the limits of the house, it rearranges itself around them. The film is described in the text by an old man, complete with a mountain of scholarly footnotes by a tattoo artist. But this book is also powered by a genuinely unsettling, often terrifying descent into hell. It’s a deranged funhouse of a novel that you will probably never forget. 

By Mark Z. Danielewski,

Why should I read it?

25 authors picked House of Leaves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations,…


Book cover of The Haunting of Hill House

Mia Dalia Author Of Haven

From my list on renting a haunted house for vacation.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Mia Dalia. I write dark speculative fiction across genres. A lot of it is psychological horror, which I love! My latest novel features a rather unique haunted house and a family who spend their summer vacation there. Hauntings are a theme I have visited before in shorter forms and were very excited to explore in full. My goal here was to deconstruct the myth of an all-American happy family within the frame of a classic may-or-may-not-be-haunted house. Those who have dared to stay in Haven have been profoundly unsettled. It is a hungry house, always looking for more visitors. I hope you’ll come for a stay!

Mia's book list on renting a haunted house for vacation

Mia Dalia Why did Mia love this book?

It is impossible to talk about haunted house books and not mention the foremother of them all, The House of the Haunted Hill. I love everything about it from its brilliant use of setting as a character to its tone of creeping unease to the way the readers are slowly drawn into its madness.

This book is a UR-text in the genre and quite revolutionary for its time in many ways: being authored by a female writer, featuring a queer icon of Theodora, etc. But most of all, it’s just a really great read and a true classic. Granted, the characters in it are not exactly on vacation, but all the same, in the end they probably wish they had spent their summer in a different house.

By Shirley Jackson,

Why should I read it?

38 authors picked The Haunting of Hill House as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by Academy Award-winning director of The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro

Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story "Sardonicus," considered by Stephen King to be "perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written," to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and stories…


Book cover of Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Dawn Keetley Author Of Plant Horror: Approaches to the Monstrous Vegetal in Fiction and Film

From my list on the terrifying world of plants.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by horror since childhood–when Scooby-Doo: Where Are You! and Doctor Who were my favorite TV shows. I specifically remember watching the Doctor Who serial, The Seeds of Doom, and the 1962 film Day of the Triffids–both about killer plants! As I finished graduate school and then took jobs in higher education, I gravitated back to horror and the gothic, which I am now fortunate enough to teach and research. I’ve written academically about all kinds of horror (most recently folk horror)–and in 2015, myself and two others founded a website, Horror Homeroom, where I write about horror for more popular audiences.

Dawn's book list on the terrifying world of plants

Dawn Keetley Why did Dawn love this book?

I came to Finney’s novel after watching both of the excellent (and, for the most part, faithful) film adaptations (1956 and 1978). Finney’s novel is worth a read for its own sake, not least because an incredibly interesting chapter (13) explicitly weaves race into the narrative that’s absent from both films. Finney’s book represents (rather literally) how we tend to see plant life–when we think about it at all–as alien.

Cue alien seed pods that end up on Earth and begin to proliferate wildly–another deep-seated fear we have about vegetation–that they’ll spread and take over. The seed pods colonize humans, rendering them indifferent and emotionless–exactly the view we’ve always had of plant life, symbol par excellence of encroaching impersonality.

After watching (more than once) the famous 1956 film adaptation, I started Finney’s novel primed to think about the conflict between communism and American individualism. But the novel is actually very…

By Jack Finney,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Invasion of the Body Snatchers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Celebrate one of the earliest science fiction novels by rediscovering Jack Finney’s internationally acclaimed Invasion of the Body Snatchers—which Stephen King calls a story “to be read and savored for its own satisfactions,” now repackaged with a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author, Dean Koontz.

On a quiet fall evening in the peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovers an insidious, horrifying plot. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms are taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, friends, family, the woman he loves, and the entire world as he knows it.

First published in…


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Book cover of Dead Lake

Dead Lake by Miranda Kate,

An eviction. A stolen gemstone. a hidden network. Will retrieving her precious obsidian get Tricky killed?

When Tricky has her obsidian stolen while being evicted from her home, she doesn’t take it lying down. To get it back she comes up against the head of the district, Carter, and his…

Book cover of The Damned

Louis Arata Author Of Dead Hungry

From my list on horror where the world becomes askew.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up watching the old Universal horror movies, which led me to read Frankenstein, Dracula, and other horror classics. It wasn’t until I read Stephen King’s Danse Macabre that I started asking myself what it is that I find truly frightening. Not so much monsters but rather what is unsettling – A recognizable world that suddenly turns askew. Dead Hungry grew out of that: What if there were people who simply had to eat the dead?

Louis' book list on horror where the world becomes askew

Louis Arata Why did Louis love this book?

Another haunted house story, with a similar emphasis on atmosphere. A sister and brother visit a friend whose house is infected with competing ghostly forces. A constant sense of dread permeates the atmosphere. Blackwood keeps the reader on edge, waiting for the shoe to drop. And that’s it. It may pale by today’s standards of horror, but the novel excels at how ghostly presences vie for dominance.

By Algernon Blackwood,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

How is this book unique?
Font adjustments & biography included
Unabridged (100% Original content)
Illustrated

About The Damned by Algernon Blackwood
The Damned by Algernon Blackwood is a great haunted house story along the lines of Turn of the Screw and the Haunting of Hill House. A brother and sister spend some time with a recently widowed friend. Her deceased husband was a strict fire and brimstone preacher who damned everyone who didn't believe like him to hell. His less strong-willed wife fell under his spell, but now the house seems to be haunted by...a shadow? Goblins? Ghostly pagans? Or…


Book cover of The Ancient City

Greg Woolf Author Of The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History

From my list on ancient cities.

Why am I passionate about this?

I learned to dig as a teenager in the school holidays and studied the ancient world at Oxford and Cambridge before beginning my career as a university teacher. I have been lucky enough to travel all over the world for my work, and have spent time living in some amazing cities including Paris, London, Madrid, and Rome. I love exploring new urban landscapes from Moscow to Lusaka, Såo Paulo to Toronto and I am looking forward this summer to moving to another great metropolis, Los Angeles.

Greg's book list on ancient cities

Greg Woolf Why did Greg love this book?

Historians of Greece and Rome have been arguing about how to describe ancient cities on and off since the eighteenth century and some of their debates have got stuck deep in the mud. This little book offers the best way out of these impasses. It is super clear, really up to date and incorporates the very latest research. Especially good on economy and society.

By Arjan Zuiderhoek,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Greece and Rome were quintessentially urban societies. Ancient culture, politics and society arose and developed in the context of the polis and the civitas. In modern scholarship, the ancient city has been the subject of intense debates due to the strong association in Western thought between urbanism, capitalism and modernity. In this book, Arjan Zuiderhoek provides a survey of the main issues at stake in these debates, as well as a sketch of the chief characteristics of Greek and Roman cities. He argues that the ancient Greco-Roman city was indeed a highly specific form of urbanism, but that this does…


Book cover of Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic

Sarah Fayen Scarlett Author Of Company Suburbs: Architecture, Power, and the Transformation of Michigan's Mining Frontier

From my list on architecture and social identity in industrial America.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was a kid I would cut out graph paper to design my ideal house. When I was in college, I walked into a class called American Material Life and had my eureka moment: “This is how I want to learn about people in the past!” I realized. I’ve been doing that ever since, first as a museum curator and now as a history professor. Houses, furnishings, and the way people interact with the built environment can reveal the complexity, diversity, and beauty of human lives.

Sarah's book list on architecture and social identity in industrial America

Sarah Fayen Scarlett Why did Sarah love this book?

No one writes more compellingly about the multi-sensory experiences of living in America’s past environments than Dell Upton. His book Another City deals with the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century city—a century before the time period in my book—but he weaves together narratives of urban experience from America’s first decades as a republic to offer surprisingly contemporary commentary on city politics today. His chapter called “Smell of Danger,” to offer just one example, demonstrates that America’s urban elite mobilized their belief that disease was caused by “miasmas” rising up from foul-smelling waste to justify segregation along with class and racial lines. In the era of yellow fever and cholera, Upton argues that “the physical geography of disease became a human geography of fear.” 

By Dell Upton,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An exploration of the beliefs, perceptions, and theories that shaped the architecture and organization of America's earliest cities

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, burgeoning American cities like New Orleans and Philadelphia seemed increasingly chaotic. Noise, odors, and a feverish level of activity on the streets threatened to overwhelm the senses. Growing populations placed new demands on every aspect of the urban landscape-streets, parks, schools, asylums, cemeteries, markets, waterfronts, and more. In this unique exploration of the early history of urban architecture and design, leading architectural historian Dell Upton reveals the fascinating confluence of sociological, cultural, and psychological…


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Book cover of Friends Like These

Friends Like These by James Irving,

Joth Proctor is an under-employed, criminal defense lawyer based in Arlington, Virginia, where a mix of southern charm, shady business dealings, and Washington, D.C. intrigue pervade the story. Upon the suspicious death of the wife of a close friend, Proctor enters a tangled web of drug and alcohol abuse, real…

Book cover of The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History

Conrad Kickert Author Of Dream City: Creation, Destruction, and Reinvention in Downtown Detroit

From my list on the exciting life of cities.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in a Dutch city, I vividly remember witnessing the excitement of urban life through the windows of a streetcar, on foot, or by bike. Soon, I began to recreate this excitement by drawing maps of imaginary cities of my own. My small towns turned into entire regions, their streets coming to life as I closed my eyes. I essentially turned my childhood fascination into my job, as I now study, design, and teach students how to improve cities. Our best cities are places where citizens can interact with one another, overcoming social, economic, and environmental evolutions and revolutions. I never cease to be fascinated with the key to these everlasting cities.

Conrad's book list on the exciting life of cities

Conrad Kickert Why did Conrad love this book?

We can understand cities not only through their societies, their experience, and their history, but also by studying their physical form. Spiro Kostof describes how cities across the world have distinct yet still interrelated patterns of streets, blocks, plots, and buildings. Rather than taking a chronological approach, Kostof illustrates the form of cities through time and space through four main types of urban form, from organic shapes and grids to diagrams and grand interventions. If you look at your own city, you will likely find a combination of all of the above! This is one of the first books on cities I bought as a teenager, and it really inspired me to study and improve the form of our urban environments.

By Spiro Kostof,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Spanning the ages and the globe, Spiro Kostof explores the city as a "repository of cultural meaning" and an embodiment of the community it shelters. Widely used by both architects and students of architecture, The City Shaped won the AIA's prestigious book award in Architecture and Urbanism. With hundreds of photographs and drawings that illustrate Professor Kostof's innovative ideas, this has become one of the most important works on urbanization.


Book cover of Thrilling Cities

Anistatia R. Miller Author Of Spirituous Journey: A History of Drink, Book Two

From my list on folklore and fact on spirits & cocktail history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been researching and writing with my co-author husband Jared Brown about spirits and mixed drinks for three decades. After writing more than three dozen books plus hundreds of articles about the history and origins of alcoholic beverages, you could say I am addicted to the topic in a big way. While we’ve travelled and tasted drinks around the world we’ve also amassed a few thousand books on the subject. It’s served as a launch point of our secondary careers as drinks consultants and master distillers for global spirits brands. I'm currently finishing my doctoral thesis on early-modern English brewing at the University of Bristol to put a feather on the cap of my long career.

Anistatia's book list on folklore and fact on spirits & cocktail history

Anistatia R. Miller Why did Anistatia love this book?

My husband and I have spent three decades travelling the world in search of great drinks and great drink stories. You could say this one volume ignited a wanderlust in us both when we first kicked off our drinks writing career. Written between 1959 and 1960, some of the places mentioned don’t exist any longer but brought back fond memories for me. The Musket & Henrickson pharmacy in Chicago which had a late-night café frequented by Playboy Club entertainers and mafiosi is just one example. What Fleming offered in his portrayals of Hong Kong, Macau, Tokyo, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Naples, and Monte Carlo undoubtedly inspired Anthony Bourdain’s portrayals of places in his fabulous TV series.

By Ian Fleming,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

On November 2nd armed with a sheaf of visas...one suitcase...and my typewriter, I left humdrum London for the thrilling cities of the world...

In 1959, Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was commissioned by the Sunday Times to explore fourteen of the world's most exotic cities. Fleming saw it all with a thriller writer's eye. From Hong Kong to Honolulu, New York to Naples, he left the bright main streets for the back alleys, abandoning tourist sites in favour of underground haunts, and mingling with celebrities, gangsters and geishas. The result is a series of vivid snapshots of a…


Book cover of Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention

Conrad Kickert Author Of Dream City: Creation, Destruction, and Reinvention in Downtown Detroit

From my list on the exciting life of cities.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in a Dutch city, I vividly remember witnessing the excitement of urban life through the windows of a streetcar, on foot, or by bike. Soon, I began to recreate this excitement by drawing maps of imaginary cities of my own. My small towns turned into entire regions, their streets coming to life as I closed my eyes. I essentially turned my childhood fascination into my job, as I now study, design, and teach students how to improve cities. Our best cities are places where citizens can interact with one another, overcoming social, economic, and environmental evolutions and revolutions. I never cease to be fascinated with the key to these everlasting cities.

Conrad's book list on the exciting life of cities

Conrad Kickert Why did Conrad love this book?

To understand cities today, you also have to understand why and how they were built to begin with. After all, our environment contains the materialization of previous decisions – we should know why those were made! Through the story of over a dozen global cities, historian Ben Wilson demonstrates how cities are concentrations of hopes, dreams, power, and conflict. While many great historians like Lewis Mumford and Stephen Hall have preceded him with excellently detailed urban history books of their own, this book stands out in its readability, attention to detail, and especially its coverage of global cities. After all, the urban future of most of the world lies beyond the Global North, and this broad survey shows the vast differences in urbanism between cultures.

By Ben Wilson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From the Sunday Times bestselling author, a dazzling, globe-spanning history of humankind's greatest invention: the city.

'Brilliant...enchanting' Evening Standard 'Exhilarating' New York Times

The story of the city is the story of civilisation. From Uruk and Babylon to Baghdad and Venice, and on to London, New York, Shanghai and Lagos, Ben Wilson takes us through millennia on a thrilling global tour of the key urban centres of history.

Rich with individual characters, scenes and snapshots of daily life, Metropolis is at once the story of these extraordinary places and of the vital role they have played in making us who…


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Book cover of Victoria Unveiled

Victoria Unveiled by Shane Joseph,

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…

Book cover of Cities in Civilization

John Rennie Short Author Of The Unequal City

From my list on cities and their power to change lives and attitudes.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a small village in a very rural part of Scotland. It was perhaps inevitable, then, that I would have an interest in the urban. Cities, especially big cities, seemed wonderfully exciting when I was growing up, full of mystery and promise, intoxicating, transgressive, with a hint of danger and a whiff of excitement. That fascination has stayed with me throughout my academic career as I have explored different facets of the urban experience. I am aware of the growing inequality but remain optimistic about the progressive possibilities and redemptive power of the urban experience to change lives and attitudes.

John's book list on cities and their power to change lives and attitudes

John Rennie Short Why did John love this book?

A magisterial review of the role of cities in economic and social change. Superbly written it is packed with information on cities at significant periods in social and economic transformation. The writer’s love of cities and their role in innovative change are crystal clear. He is so optimism about our urban futures that he gives me hope 

By Peter Hall,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Ranging over 2,500 years, Cities in Civilization is a tribute to the city as the birthplace of Western civilization. Drawing on the contributions of economists and geographers, of cultural, technological, and social historians, Sir Peter Hall examines twenty-one cities at their greatest moments. Hall describes the achievements of these golden ages and outlines the precise combinations of forces -- both universal and local -- that led to each city's belle epoque.

Hall identifies four distinct expressions of civic innovation: artistic growth, technological progress, the marriage of culture and technology, and solutions to evolving problems. Descriptions of Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence,…


Book cover of House of Leaves
Book cover of The Haunting of Hill House
Book cover of Invasion of the Body Snatchers

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Interested in cities, the apocalypse, and Maine?

Cities 37 books
The Apocalypse 84 books
Maine 114 books