The Golden Notebook
A feminist landmark and the best-known work by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. More
Heather O’Neill
A book that influenced me and why: A Season in the Life of Emmanuel by Marie-Claire Blais More
Katherine Paterson
I read because I want more than one life, and books give me a limitless number of lives—lives that are different from the one I was born into. More
Publishing Firsts: The Historical Romance Genre
At the time of its publication in 1972, nothing like Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower had ever been published. More
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Christie’s first book to be published by William Collins; known for its startling reveal. 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
Anne O’Brien
Writing about medieval women is compulsive. More
Rita Williams-Garcia
My childhood reading helped to build me from the inside. More
Journey to Jo’burg
Groundbreaking book set in South Africa during the apartheid era and banned by its government. More
Donna Hay
I read Patrick Süskind’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer at twenty-three years old on the plane on my way to Paris, on the beginning of my first big overseas adventure. More
Crime & Mystery At HarperCollins
In 1860, Harper & Brothers had paid Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralded the publisher’s entry into the crime and mystery genre. 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
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans, born in 1819, led a turbulent life that often broke with Victorian social norms. More
Judith Kerr: Beyond The Tiger Who Came to Tea
Collins author Judith Kerr may be best known in the UK for her classic children’s picture books The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog the Forgetful Cat, but she is also renowned for her powerful autobiographical novels about her childhood and young adulthood. More
Mary Karr
I read to save my life, to take communion, to enter a community of fellow sufferers and rejoicers. More
Prince Charles reading a Harlequin Mills & Boon title
Prince Charles checks out The Pirate by Jayne Ann Krentz, a Harlequin Mills & Boon title, at the library in Perth, Scotland, in 1995. More
Divergent
First book in the Divergent trilogy, which has sold more than 32 million copies worldwide. More
Middlemarch
Ranked number one in a 2015 BBC poll of the 100 greatest British novels. More
Cathy Glass
I have always been a writer. More
The Perfect Neighbor
First category romance novel to ever hit the New York Times bestseller list. More
Their Eyes Were Watching God
One of the most widely read and acclaimed novels in the canon of African-American literature. More
16 Lighthouse Road
The first in Macomber’s most popular series, about the fictional town of Cedar Cove. More
Katherine Applegate
I write to see where I’ve already been. 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
Just Kids
Legendary artist Patti Smith’s critically acclaimed memoir; winner of the National Book Award. More
A Woman of Substance
With her unforgettable heroine Emma Harte, Bradford popularized the rags-to-riches family saga. More