Chunky Holiday Reading: 24 of my most memorable long books

A week or so ago, I watched a South Korean horror/thriller movie called Office. It started off with one of the office workers going home, killing his whole family, and then running off somewhere. The police, looking for leads, talked to his coworkers, who all felt that he wasn't the type of man to do such a thing. The movie then focused on one of the office interns, a young woman who'd been working her butt off for 5 months, desperately hoping to be hired on as a full-time employee. The only person in the office who'd ever been nice to her was the guy who murdered his whole family. As the movie progressed, viewers got to gradually watch all the cracks appear - the abusive boss, upper-management that only cared about what news of the murders would do to the company's image, employees who were expected to devote all their time to their jobs, etc. The ending was a bit weird, and I'm still not sure if there were supposed to be supernatural aspects or not.

At any rate, I'd like recommendations of books like this: thrillers or horror in workplace settings, preferably office jobs. I'd prefer a tense/suspenseful tone over something more comedic. I've been looking for recommendation lists that might work and here's what I have so far. Feel free to say you'd second one of the recommendations on the list. I haven't read any of these books.

- The Firm by John Grisham

- The Intern's Handbook by Shane Kuhn

- My Work is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror by Thomas Ligotti

- The Subsidiary by Matias Celedon

- The Consultant by Bentley Little

As far as stuff I've actually read goes, the closest things I can think of are:

- Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix - Not quite what I was thinking of, but it's horror in a workplace, so it fits in a way.

- Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothumb - Neither horror nor a thriller. I recall it being a bit of a black comedy, but it's been years since I read it, so I could be remembering wrong.

Can anyone recommend some "Creature Feature" books along the lines of Jaws, the Meg series, Jurassic Park, Congo, The Hatching, Skitter...etc.

By creature, I mean animal, bug, alien, mythical, killer plant, you name it. Creature verses humans sort of thing. Cheesy B movie types welcome. All age ranges welcome (children to adult) Short story, novella or full length novels all welcome.

Feel free to promo your own book, but please include a couple other recommendations, too! I do do read and reviews, but I'm honestly nobody here (hah) and bookstagram. Lol Though my Instagram is leighas_life and I have over 100 followers, though lets be honest, half are probably spam. :/

You'd have to be living under a rock buried somewhere halfway down to the center of the earth in order not to be aware that in recent years our beautiful world has been shaken up by a number of crises the likes of which I, at least, have not experienced in my entire lifetime -- I can't remember any other time when I have so consistently felt the urge to put on blinders and wrap myself in a giant comfort blanket approximately 10 seconds after opening a newspaper (or its online edition), or 10 seconds into listening to the news.  Obviously playing ostrich has never done anybody any good, but God knows, it's getting hard not to succumb to the temptation. 

So what does a book lover do in order to keep her sanity, equip herself to separate fact from fiction (in news reporting, politics, and plenty of other places) and deal with rat catchers and fire mongers?  She turns to books, of course.

I've decided to build a "Freedom and Future" personal library, which will contain books which (1) have either deeply impacted my personal thinking or that I expect will come to do so in the future, or which (2) provide valuable food for thought in today's social and political debate, both nationally and internationally; be it based on a profound analysis of the issues at stake (as a matter of principle or long term), or because even though they may not be of lasting significance, they contain a thought-provoking contribution to the current debate (even if they were not written with that express purpose in mind -- e.g., books about historic persons or events or books by long-dead authors).  I'm not expecting to binge-read the books added to this library, but I'm looking to add them to the mix with a bit more focus than I've been doing of late.

In the past couple of days, I've trawled my own bookshelves for books to add to the library, but this is one area where, even more than anywhere else, I'm looking for suggestions -- I can already see that I'm at risk of falling back on my old standbys, and that's the last thing I want to do here.

So, tell me: What books have recently made you sit up -- or which are the books that you've come to turn to and trust for guidance and inspiration?

These can be fiction or nonfiction, and books from any or all types of genres (I only draw the line at splatter punk).  As the first part of my new library's title indicates, liberty and freedom rights are a focus, but I'm really looking for food for thought on all the issues that I think are going to determine the path human society will be taking (hence the "future" part); including, in no particular order:

* Liberty and freedom(s) (of opinion and press, movement, association, worship, the arts, etc.),

* Equal access to justice and judicial independence and impartiality,

* Equality and empowerment (gender / sexuality, race, etc.), and the plurality of society;

* Poverty / the increasing gap in the distribution of wealth,

* Education (general, political, etc.);

* Funding and freedom of research and science,

* Protection of the environment,

* Democratic institutions and processes and how to safeguard them,

* Xenophobia, war(mongering) and the preservation / restoration of peace,

* Persecution, migration, and internal displacement,

* Free trade and globalization,

* Technological advances,

* Ethics -- in all of the above areas.

I'm adding a few books to this post to give you a rough idea of what sort of things I've so far added to this library -- please take them as very approximate guidance only, though.  It can be something totally different ... really anything that's jogged your brain or made you reevaluate your perspective on any of the above issues.

Thanks in advance!

Pretty much a book about books; each book recommended had it's own page along with a description of the book and which patron to recommend the book to. I picked this up at the library because I decided that starting in 2018, I will be working on my masters degree in library and informational sciences (right now I am just deciding on where to apply and what requirements I need to meet). So I figured a book by a librarian who surveyed other librarians about what they recommend to their patrons can come in handy.

And yes, it is handy, but most of the books aren't to my taste. However, I have to give credit to the author for the balance in diversity in the books she chose to highlight in this book - whether from authors of color, to authors from the LGBT* community, books about mental illness, disability, social issues are all there alongside more well-known authors/books. The author also chose to devote a chapter to audiobooks and another to graphic novels, so she wasn't snobby about format. There is also a chapter on YA novels, with the caveat that these YA novels would be good fits for adult readers who enjoy YA, so she wasn't snobby about patrons' reading tastes either. The book did lean more to fiction than non-fiction, but some recent non-fiction reads were recommend for the writing styles were as engaging as some fiction reads.

There were books from the cannon of English Lit (Shakespeare) and modern classics (O. Henry), but also some works dating post WWII all the way through to the early 2010s. Alas, no genre specific chapters were written, so no romance, mystery, sci-fi books were recommended - the author stayed pretty firm in mainstream fiction/literary fiction section of the library. Still I made a list of the books she recommends and that seemed interesting to me (there were a few that I have already read) so I could add them to my TBR pile.