Psychological Thrillers with a Twist, recommended by Hannah Beckerman
It's tempting to think that good psychological thrillers are all about plot twists, but in reality it's the characters that make some books truly memorable. Novelist and literary critic Hannah Beckerman recommends five of her favourites, from Agatha Christie to Alex Michaelides.
LITERARY THRILLERS 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
“It’s one of the most incredible reading experiences I’ve ever had. It operates on every level. For the length of time you’re reading it, it feels like the most important thing in the world”—Chris Power, novelist
HISTORICAL FICTION Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
“Life and Fate…is probably the most important work of fiction about World War II. But, in fact, it is more than just a fiction because it is based on very close reporting from his time with the soldiers”—Antony Beevor, military historian
CLASSIC LITERATURE Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
“Sense and Sensibility…tracks a period of huge precarity and anxiety in Austen’s life. It’s a stunning read. I highly, highly recommend it”—Sophie Gee, professor, Princeton University and host, Secret Life of Books podcast
NONFICTION BOOKS Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present
by Ruth Ben-Ghiat
“Strongmen is a history of the authoritarian form of rule and how it has evolved over a hundred years”—Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian
FANTASY The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Illustrated Boxset by J.R.R. Tolkien
“Tolkien’s extraordinary achievement was to recover the epic landscapes of Anglo-Saxon myth, bring them back to life, and then to take us through them on foot”—Lev Grossman, critic and novelist
UKRAINE Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan
“He’s a fantastic voice of independent Ukraine. His writing is humorous as well as poetic”—Sasha Dovzhyk, literary scholar
THRILLERS Conclave by Robert Harris
“It’s based on solid research and you’ll find out a lot about the way a new pope is elected…As is almost always the case, the book is better than the movie.”
THE BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge
“I chose it because I like its ambition, in trying to use some of the really big ideas in science”—Alom Shaha, physics teacher
FICTION The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
🏆 Winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature
“This book is attempting to embrace an entire world and culture, a particular period in Poland and Eastern Europe, and fold it into everything that can be known”—Frank Wynne, translator
ECONOMICS BOOKS The Cartoon Introduction to Economics by Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein
“It’s not a comic book with some economic messages, it’s a textbook in the form of a cartoon. But it’s quite sophisticated and it’s very nicely done”—Tim Harford, economist & FT columnist
TOP ‘ROMANTASY’ BOOKS to get you started
“A word of warning—these books are real page turners and you’ll find yourself reading until the early hours of the morning”—Francesca Martin, journalist
HISTORY BOOKS Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China by Linda Jaivin
“You can read this book in three hours and know all the main features of a complex event that tore China apart and left between 500,000 and 2 million people dead”—Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books
ALTERNATE HISTORY BOOKS 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King
“It’s about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The twist is that you have a history teacher from today who finds a portal that allows him to go back to a date in 1958″—Hans-Åke Lilja, Stephen King expert
AI BOOKS ChatGPT-4 offers its own opinions on artificial intelligence “These books offer valuable insights into the development, challenges, and future prospects of AI”—ChatGPT-4, AI chatbot
SCIENCE FICTION The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
“It’s a really fascinating piece of almost-historical fiction about space colonization…It’s an alternate history where in the 1950s, a meteorite crashes into Chesapeake Bay and takes out the Eastern Seaboard”—Erika Nesvold, astrophysicist
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