Tracy Chevalier
I read because I want to know what it’s like to look at the world through someone else’s eyes, and reading is a remarkably efficient and vigorous way of doing that. More
Jane Eyre
Brontë’s masterpiece of Gothic romance; a milestone title in the history of British feminist literature. More
The Golden Notebook
A feminist landmark and the best-known work by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. More
Our Town
Pulitzer Prize–winning drama; hailed by Edward Albee as “The finest play ever written by an American.” More
Namita Gokhale
I read to share the world, to treasure words, to learn and intuit and recognise experiences to which I have no direct access. More
Cathy Glass
I have always been a writer. More
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Pulitzer Prize winner; considered one of the classic works of creative nonfiction of the late twentieth century. More
The Once and Future King
White’s masterful retelling of the Arthurian legend. More
Bel Canto
Patchett’s critically acclaimed novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. More
Bring Up the Bodies
Winner of the Man Booker Prize and the first to win as a sequel. More
Lionel Shriver
Why I write: To find out what I think. More
Wolf Hall
Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. More
Lauren Weisberger
A book that influenced me and why . . . Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume was incredibly influential to me as a child. 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
Barbara Taylor Bradford
When I say I have the need to write, I do mean need. More
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Tudor court seen as never before; this take on the Boleyn sisters reinvented the historical novel. More
The Poisonwood Bible
Pulitzer Prize finalist and runaway bestseller. 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
People of the Book
Winner of the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year 2008. More
The Shipping News
Highly acclaimed international bestseller; winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. 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
A Woman of Substance
With her unforgettable heroine Emma Harte, Bradford popularized the rags-to-riches family saga. More
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Multimillion-copy global bestseller that won critical acclaim for its beautifully wrought depiction of innocence corrupted. More
Middlemarch
Ranked number one in a 2015 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British novels. More
Anthony Doerr
We are all mapmakers: We embed our memories everywhere, inscribing a private and intensely complicated latticework across the landscape. More
The Corrections
Winner of the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002. More