One Hundred Years of Solitude
This landmark of magical realism sparked a wave of interest in Central and South American literature. 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
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Kundera’s postmodern masterwork; named one of the best books of 1984 (New York Times Book Review). More
Shilpi Somaya Gowda
At every stage of life, since being a kid with a flashlight under the covers, reading has always been my favorite activity. More
The White Tiger
Winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize. More
Cecelia Ahern
I write because I feel compelled to. More
A Woman of Substance
With her unforgettable heroine Emma Harte, Bradford popularized the rags-to-riches family saga. More
Anthony Doerr
We are all mapmakers: We embed our memories everywhere, inscribing a private and intensely complicated latticework across the landscape. More
To Kill a Mockingbird
Much-loved Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, voted by librarians across America as the best novel of the twentieth century. More
Bring Up the Bodies
Winner of the Man Booker Prize and the first to win as a sequel. More
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Pulitzer Prize winner; considered one of the classic works of creative nonfiction of the late twentieth century. More
The Poisonwood Bible
Pulitzer Prize finalist and runaway bestseller. More
Barbara Taylor Bradford
When I say I have the need to write, I do mean need. More
The God of Small Things
Winner of the 1997 Man Booker Prize, making Roy the first Indian woman to receive the award. 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
Go Set a Watchman
This newly discovered novel from beloved author Harper Lee became the bestselling book of 2015. 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 Shipping News
Highly acclaimed international bestseller; winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. More
People of the Book
Winner of the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year 2008. More
The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly
Memoir offering a haunting, harrowing look inside the cruel prison of locked-in syndrome. More
The Hours
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award; made into an Oscar-winning film. More
The Thorn Birds
McCullough’s sweeping family saga of forbidden love in the Australian outback; became a bestselling phenomenon. More
Hilary Mantel
I read out of hope and avid curiosity, and in an attempt to live in other times, and inhabit bodies that are not my own. More
Michael Chabon
The first writer that I really fell in love with was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in particular his Sherlock Holmes stories, and the first story that I ever wrote was a Sherlock Holmes story. More
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
An American classic called “one of the books of the century” by the New York Public Library. More
Heather O’Neill
A book that influenced me and why: A Season in the Life of Emmanuel by Marie-Claire Blais More
The Golden Notebook
A feminist landmark and the best-known work by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. More