What to read next if you loved 'The Goldfinch,' 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and more bestsellers

By Tom Beer and Marion Winiktom.beer@newsday.com,February 12, 2016

“What should I read next?” That’s the question that we, as book critics, get asked most frequently — and that we’re always happy to answer. (In fact, you might not be able to shut us up.) But before making a recommendation, it helps to know what else the reader in question has enjoyed. Here are some fail-safe pairings.

If you liked THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Credit: Riverhead

Paula Hawkins' novel about a drunken woman who inserts herself into a crime investigation, read...

THE LAST SEPTEMBER by Nina de Gramont

Credit: Algonquin

A literary whodunit set on Cape Cod, weaving a murder mystery with the emotionally intense story of a fraying marriage. (Algonquin, $25.95)

If you liked ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

Credit: Scribner

By Anthony Doerr, about a blind girl and a German soldier in occupied WWII France, read...

THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE by Julie Orringer

Credit: Vintage

This sweeping saga concerns the fate of a small group of Hungarian Jews living in Paris. As Hitler's shadow falls over Europe, our heroes and heroines endure unimaginable hardships but never lose their humanity. (Vintage, $15.95)

If you liked THE GOLDFINCH

Credit: Back Bay

Donna Tartt's prize-winner about a boy whose mother is killed in a New York City museum bombing, read...

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer

Credit: Mariner

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell, having lost his father in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, finds a key amongst his father's possessions and carries it through the five boroughs of New York City trying to find what it unlocks. (Mariner, $14.95)

If you liked GONE GIRL

By Gillian Flynn, about a woman who disappears and her husband, who becomes a suspect, read...

THE SILENT WIFE by A.S.A. Harrison

Credit: Penguin

This quick, sharp boning knife of a novel, told in alternating he said/she said chapters, chronicles the dissolution of a marriage and how a successful female therapist becomes a killer. (Penguin, $16)

If you liked ME BEFORE YOU

Credit: Penguin

By Jojo Moyes, about a young woman who becomes a caregiver for a quadriplegic man and falls in love, read...

BIG GIRL SMALL by Rachel DeWoskin

Credit: Picador

A thoroughly modern coming-of-age story with a 3-foot-9-inch heroine who faces cruelty and misfortune with humor and resilience. (Picador, $17)

If you liked THE HUSBAND’S SECRET

Credit: Berkley

By Liane Moriarty, about a wife whose life is turned upside down by her husband's death and the letter he leaves behind, read...

THE WHOLE WORLD OVER by Julia Glass

Credit: Anchor

The complexities of love are explored through the intertwining lives of a chef in Greenwich Village, the governor of New Mexico, a homeless young woman, and a formidable four-year-old boy. (Anchor, $16.95)

If you liked THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Credit: Penguin

By John Green, about a teenage girl with stage IV cancer and the cancer survivor she falls in love with, read...

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL by Jesse Andrews

Credit: Abrams

A socially awkward, brutally self-conscious and hilarious teenage filmmaker tells the story of his complicated friendships with a street-smart best friend and a classmate with leukemia. (Harry N. Abrams, $9.95)

If you liked A LITTLE LIFE

Credit: Doubleday

By Hanya Yanagihara, about four close college friends and the dark past one of them harbors, read...

THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN by Claire Messud

Credit: Vintage

The story of three talented friends from Brown University who land in New York to make their fortunes (as an author, critic and television producer) while the cataclysm of 9/11 hovers in the no-so-distant future. (Vintage, $15.95)

If you liked THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Credit: Vintage

By Stieg Larsson, about a goth-girl hacker who joins forces with a crusading journalist, read...

GORKY PARK Martin Cruz Smith

Credit: Ballantine

In the first of a series that set the gold standard for the international detective novel, brilliant police investigator Arkady Renko investigates murders in Soviet-era Moscow that end up involving the KGB, the FBI and the NYPD. (Ballantine, $16)

If you liked FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

Credit: Vintage

By E.L. James, about a college girl in a sadomasochistic relationship with a multimillionaire, read...

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY TRILOGY by A.N. Roquelaure

Credit: Plume

Before Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele were even a gleam in the eye of E.L. James, author Anne Rice, writing under a psuedonym, was recasting a classic fairy tale as high-class erotica about a princess's sexual initiation. (Plume, $48 box set)

If you liked GO SET A WATCHMAN

Credit: HarperCollins

Harper Lee's rediscovered "sequel" to "To Kill a Mockingbird," read...

THE LITTLE FRIEND by Donna Tartt

Credit: Vintage

Twelve-year-old Harriet Cleve Dufresnes navigates the complex society -- white and black -- of her Mississippi hometown as she attempts to solve the murder of her brother years earlier. (Vintage, $15.95)