curated list
books recommended by authors
What working novelists, essayists, and non-fiction writers actually read — Stephen King, Ann Patchett, Margaret Atwood, Roxane Gay, John Green, Colson Whitehead, Zadie Smith, and dozens more. Aggregated from interviews, public lists, and tweets.
Aggregated across 30 people we track · 60 books ranked by how many on this list have publicly recommended each one.
most recommended books on this list
- 3 people
The Great Gatsby: Original Text
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925
3 recommenders
- 2 people
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Cathy Park Hong · 2020
2 recommenders
- 2 people
The Master and Margarita: 50th-Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Mikhail Bulgakov · 1996
2 recommenders
- 2 people
The Odyssey
Homer and translated by Emily Wilson · 1999
2 recommenders
- 2 people
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A novel
Gabrielle Zevin · 2022
2 recommenders
- 1 person
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Charles C. Mann · 2006
1 recommender
- 1 person
A Black Women’s History of the United States
Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross · 2021
1 recommender
- 1 person
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
Raj Patel · 2017
1 recommender
- 1 person
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
Hanif Abdurraqib · 2022
1 recommender
- 1 person
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories
Lucia Berlin · 2016
1 recommender
- 1 person
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
Evan Osnos · 2014
1 recommender
- 1 person
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
Kai-Fu Lee · 2018
1 recommender
- 1 person
Alice in Wonderland: The Original 1865 Edition With Complete Illustrations By Sir John Tenniel (A Classic Novel of Lewis Carroll)
Lewis Carroll · 2000
1 recommender
- 1 person
All Aunt Hagar’s Children: Stories
Edward P. Jones · 2006
1 recommender
- 1 person
American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
Edmund S. Morgan · 1975
1 recommender
- 1 person
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy and translated by Rosamund Bartlett · 2012
1 recommender
- 1 person
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Benjamin Alire Saenz · 2012
1 recommender
on this list
John Green
Malcolm Gladwell
Neil Gaiman
Stephen King
Michael Pollan
Roxane Gay
Margaret Atwood
Yuval Noah Harari
Salman Rushdie
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Elizabeth Gilbert
Jia Tolentino
Celeste Ng
Ann Patchett
Elif Shafak
Haruki Murakami
N. K. Jemisin
Min Jin Lee
Zadie Smith
Jonathan Franzen
Nick Hornby
Patti Smith
Rachel Cusk
Joan Didion
Isabel Wilkerson
George Saunders
Elena Ferrante
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Colson Whitehead
Kazuo Ishiguro
other curated lists
- books recommended by book clubs
- books recommended by billionaires
- books recommended by tech founders
- books recommended by podcasters
- books recommended by investors
- books recommended by CEOs
- best books everyone should read
- books recommended by celebrities
- books recommended by the New York Times
- books recommended by NPR
- books recommended by US presidents
- books recommended by scientists
- books recommended by Nobel Prize winners
- books recommended by comedians