John Gaines

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk is a classic parable of Generation X alienation: "THE FIRST RULE about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with whitecollar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter, and dark, anarchic genius, and it's only the beginning of his plans for violent revenge on an empty consumer-culture world." (Book summary)

If you enjoyed this novel's themes of social alienation, search for meaning through dark subcultures, and atmosphere of paranoia, here are some other titles you may enjoy:

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
In a black satire of the eighties, a decade of naked greed and unparalleled callousness, a successful Wall Street yuppie cannot get enough of anything, including murder. (worldcat.org)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Six hundred years into the future, humans are bred by cloning, and "mother" and "father" are forbidden words. Originally published in 1932, Huxley's terrifying vision of a controlled and emotionless future "Utopian" society is truly startling in its prediction of modern scientific and cultural phenomena, including test-tube babies and rampant drug abuse. (worldcat.org)

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye by Victoria Laurie: "Abby Cooper is a P.I., psychic intuitive. But her insight failed her when she didn't foresee the death of one of her clients-or that the lead investigator for the case is the gorgeous blind date she just met. Now, with the police suspicious of her abilities and a killer on the loose, Abby's future looks more uncertain than ever." (Book Summary)

If you like Victoria Laurie's Psychic Eye series, which starts with Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye, here are some books you may also enjoy:

The Chick and the Dead by Casey Daniels
Ever since the former rich girl-turned-Cleveland cemetery tour guide banged her head on a headstone, she sees dead people. Worse still, she hears them -- and they won't shut up! (worldcat.org)

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
The investigations of Dirk Gently, a private detective who is more interested in telekinesis, quantum mechanics and lunch than fiddling around with fingerprint powders, produce startling and unexpected results. (worldcat.org)



 

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: Huxley's story shows a futuristic World State where all emotion, love, art, and human individuality have been replaced by social stability.

If you like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, here are some other titles you may enjoy:
 

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Told through a central character, Alex, the disturbing novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism. A modern classic of youthful violence and social redemption set in a dismal dystopia whereby a juvenile deliquent undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior.(worldcat.org)


 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 is a novel set in the (perhaps near) future when "firemen" burn books forbidden by a totalitarian "brave new world" regime. The hero, according to Mr. Bradbury, is "a book burner who suddenly discovers that books are flesh-and-blood ideas and cry out silently when put to the torch." (worldcat.org)

This readalike is in response to a patron's book-match request. If you would like personalized reading recommendations, fill out the book-match form and a librarian will email suggested titles to you. Available for adults, teens, and kids.  You can browse the book matches here.

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown: World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist.

If you like Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, you me be interested in some of the recommended books from book searches from another entry in this series, The Da Vinci Code, available here: http://www.librarypoint.org/bm_da_vinci_code

In addition to those books listed, here are some other titles you may enjoy:

Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
Along Came a Spider begins with the double kidnapping of the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress and the young son of the secretary of the Treasury. And that's only the beginning! (amazon.com)

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown
When the NSA's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant, beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage--not by guns or bombs -- but by a code so complex that if released would cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves. (amazon.com)