Blonde
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. More
The Sheltering Sky
Bowles’s landmark literary novel, a classic work of psychological terror. More
The Known World
The Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that examines the troubling complexities of slavery. More
Our Town
Pulitzer Prize–winning drama; hailed by Edward Albee as “The finest play ever written by an American.” More
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Multimillion-copy global bestseller that won critical acclaim for its beautifully wrought depiction of innocence corrupted. More
One Hundred Years of Solitude
This landmark of magical realism sparked a wave of interest in Central and South American literature. More
Room
Winner of the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize regional prize; made into a major motion picture. More
Anthony Doerr
We are all mapmakers: We embed our memories everywhere, inscribing a private and intensely complicated latticework across the landscape. More
The Wapshot Chronicle
Winner of the 1958 National Book Award, it established Cheever as a major American novelist. More
Caroline Overington
I read to observe the world as it is seen by others; to walk the planet as strangers do; to breathe a story that is not my own. More
The Hours
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award; made into an Oscar-winning film. More
The God of Small Things
Winner of the 1997 Man Booker Prize, making Roy the first Indian woman to receive the award. More
The Corrections
Winner of the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002. More
Bring Up the Bodies
Winner of the Man Booker Prize and the first to win as a sequel. More
People of the Book
Winner of the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year 2008. More
Dorothea Benton Frank
You’ve asked me to tell you why I write but I think the answer might be longer than the fifty or one hundred words you’ve allotted me. More
Jacqueline Winspear
I read because I love language, the way the joining of words and the rhythm of a story can make me laugh, cry, or take me out of my world or immerse me in the lives of others. More
The Golden Notebook
A feminist landmark and the best-known work by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. More
Wolf Hall
Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. More
The White Tiger
Winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize. More
The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly
Memoir offering a haunting, harrowing look inside the cruel prison of locked-in syndrome. More
Heather O’Neill
A book that influenced me and why: A Season in the Life of Emmanuel by Marie-Claire Blais More
Bel Canto
Patchett’s critically acclaimed novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. More
The Thorn Birds
McCullough’s sweeping family saga of forbidden love in the Australian outback; became a bestselling phenomenon. More
The Bell Jar
A haunting classic that chronicles the breakdown of a brilliant, talented, successful young woman. More
Middlemarch
Ranked number one in a 2015 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British novels. More
Tales of the City
First book in Maupin’s acclaimed and groundbreaking series documenting San Francisco’s underground and gay culture. More