What to Read Next If You Liked Edge of Eternity, The Day the Crayons Quit, Killing Patton, Gray Mountain, or Leaving Time
Ken Follett’s ambitious, epic Century Trilogy, tracking the course of the 20th century through the lives of five interconnected families, drew to a close this week with the publication of Edge of Eternity. If you’re looking for another widescreen journey through recent history, New York: A Novel, by Edward Rutherford, explores four centuries in the life of one of the world’s greatest cities, and the people who have inhabited it across the ages.
In the delightful picture book The Day the Crayons Quit, written by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, the colors go on strike: Blue is tired of coloring the sky, and Green would prefer something other than grass, thanks. If you’re looking for another story that gives children a peek at the inner lives of everyday objects, Spoon, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Scott Magoon, is a treat: a young spoon watches his friends spear morsels and slice bread and laments his every-day-soup-or-cereal lot in life, before finally realizing he has his own special gifts to offer the world.
Killing Patton, by Bill O’Reilly, the latest installment in the blockbuster series that explores the controversial deaths of significant historical figures, plumbs the lingering questions surrounding the death of the legendary American general. For more conspiracy theories surrounding the subject, check out Target Patton: The Plot to Assassinate General George S. Patton, by Robert K. Wilcox.
Gray Mountain, by John Grisham, shifts the popular author’s courtroom tropes to an entirely new venue when a third-year law firm associate finds herself hanging up her shingle in a backwoods Appalachian town and helping real people instead of aiding hedge-fund managers. Because this is a John Grisham novel, of course, she also uncovers some long-buried secrets. Believe it or not, this isn’t the first Appalachian-themed courtroom novel. In fact, Tess Collins wrote an entire trilogy of them, starting with The Law of Revenge.
In Leaving Time, one of the most unusual, ambitious novels of her career, Jodi Picoult follows the story of Jenna, a zoological researcher in search of her missing mother, who disappeared in the wake of a terrible accident. With the aid of unexpected allies, including a down-on-her-luck psychic and a world-weary private eye, Jenna searches for an answer to a mystery that turns out to be far more than she expected. Blue Diary, by Alice Hoffman, is another novel about a search for hidden truths about a loved one: Jorie believes she has the perfect life, but everything changes when her husband is arrested after someone recognizes him on a program about unsolved mysteries.
What’s the last book you recommended?