Fiction to try if you like….

One of my favourite features in book reviews is the comparisons reviewers often make to other books – putting a new book in the context of an older one to help readers to get a feel for it. Finding similar reads to our favourite titles can be a challenge (one that we here at the Reader hope we’re helping you with!). In a recent post I talked about an upcoming book that’s been suggested for fans of Jodi Picoult. In this post, I’ve compiled a few other “if you like” recommendations based on reviews.

If you liked dust bowl era circus novel Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Publisher’s Weekly magazine suggests that you’ll want to know about The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno by Ellen Bryson. Released this week, it’s a debut novel set in late 1800s New York, and centres around the P.T. Barnum (of circus fame) American Museum, which the wikipedia notes was a “combination zoo, museum, lecture hall, wax museum, theater and freak show”. When a mysterious new woman arrives at the museum, her mystique is increased when Barnum himself asks Fortuno to keep tabs on her.

If you liked the emotional challenge of reading Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel of the desperate lives of New York drug addicts Requiem for a Dream, Library Journal thinks you’ll appreciate Jon McGregor’s Even the Dogs. The discovery of a body in an abandoned apartment is the catalyst for this book that looks into the troubled lives of addicts in an unnamed British city. The book jacket describes it as “intense, exhilarating and shot through with hope and fury … an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society”.

If you liked Audrey Niffeneger’s romantic tale The Time Traveler’s Wife you’ll want to know about Anna Brashares’ My Name is Memory. Daniel and Sophia have been in love throughout history, but they have also been repeated torn tragically apart. Daniel remembers each of their past lives, but Sophia does not. This novel jumps between present day and various points in the past where the lovers have found one another. (You may recognize Brashares’ name from her hit YA series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—this is her second title with an adult audience in mind).

If you like the historical setting of Peter Tremayne’s medieval Irish Sister Fidelma mysteries, you’ll want to know about the a new series by Cora Harrison. In Harrison’s series a lady judge investigates crime in 16th century Ireland. The library owns 4 in the series which begins with Writ in Stone. A new installation, Eye of the Law has just been released.