I’ll start by saying I’m embarrassed it’s taken me so long to put this list up. I’ll also start by saying the list of books to be read is literally endless, not to mention overwhelming – in the best sense. I think that is the explanation for the delay.
It is thrilling to consider the possibilities held between the pages of an unopened book. So many things to learn, experience, and encounter. I asked all of you, along with several of my most well-read friends, to contribute just a few of your favorite books to my list. The response was enourmous.
I intend to extract my own list from all the suggestions below. My hope is that you will be inspired to do the same.
FICTION
Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
The Harry Potter Series (J. K. Rowling)
Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
Midnight Children (Salman Rushdie)
The Kite Runner (de Khaled Hosseini)
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
Five Quarters of the Orange (Joanna Harris)
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Louis De Bernieres)
Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
Franny and Zooey (Salinger)
Portrait of a Lady (Henry James)
Vanity Fair (Thackery)
Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier)
Jitterbug Perfume (Tom Robbins)
Madame Bovary (Flaubert)
Brother’s Karamozov (Dostoevsky)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)
The Sun also Rises (Hemmingway)
Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The Sound & The Fury (William Faulkner)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
Specimen Days (Michael Cunningham)
Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)
Ocean Sea (Alessandro Barrico)
White Noise (Don DeLillo)
Til We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende)
Of Love & Other Demons (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)
Summerland (Micharl Chabon)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
My Name is Asher Lev (Chaim Potok)
A Gathering of Old Men (Ernst J. Gaines)
A Lesson Before Dying (Romulus Linney & Ernest J. Gaines)
The Gift of Asher Lev (Chaim Potok)
The Magician of Lublin (Isaac Bashevis)
Don Quixote (Miguel De Cervantes)
Middlemarch (George Elliot)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
The Angel’s Game (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
Assassination Vacation (Sarah Vowell)
The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy)
NON-FICTION
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
The Myth of Certainty (Daniel Taylor)
Paul and the Self: Apostolic Teachings for Personal Wholeness (J. Knox Chamblin)
The Art of Eating: A Collected Gastronomical (M.F.K. Fisher)
Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution (Thomas McNamee)
No Future Without Forgiveness (Desmond Tutu)
Salt: A World History (Mark Kurlansky)
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (N. T. Wright)
The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (Louis Menand)
A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine (Jay Mcinerney)
Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale (Frederick Buechner)
Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Michael Pollan)
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (Michael Pollan)
Pensees (Blaise Pascal)
The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life & Our World (John Robbins)
Diet for a New America (John Robbins)
The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted & the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long Term Health (T. Colin Campbell)
A Language Older than Words (Derrick Jensen)
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (Wendell Berry)
Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Jared Diamond)
The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin)
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (Flannery O’Connor)
The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (Simon Winchester)
The Memory of Fire Trilogy (Eduardo Galeano)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (Azar Nafisi)
Fraud (David Rakoff)
Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems (David Rakoff)
A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
The Emigrants (W. G. Sebald)
Camera Lucida (Roland Barthes)
Blue Like Jazz (Don Miller)
Traveling Mercies (Anne Lamott)
The Five Love Languages (Gary Chapman),
In His Steps (Charles Sheldon)
Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)
Getting Things Done (David Allen)
Think Big (Ben Carson)
The Bible
The Quaran, English Translation
The Other Side of Israel (Susan Nathan)
The success principles (Jack Canfield)
Banker to the Poor (Muhammad Yunus)
SHORT STORY
A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O’Connor)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Zadie Smith
Vladimir Nabokov
How We Are Hungry (Dave Eggers)
OTHER
Poetry:
Sandra Cisneros
Joseph Brodsky
Czeslaw Milosz
Michael Ondaatje
Dylan Thomas
Anna Akhmatova
Great blog Meg! Lots of interesting wine and food books. I’d love to hear your suggestions for wine and food pairings (for my online matching tool: http://www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher).
Cheers,
Natalie
http://www.nataliemaclean.com
Editor of Nat Decants Free Wine Newsletter
Author of Red, White and Drunk All Over
I am so excited to see that so many of the books on my personal reading list are on yours. I tried to start “Guns, Germs, and Steel” while in a History of the World class last semester – it was too tough to chew on due to my workload, but I am glad to know that I’m not the only one that would like to read the book! YouTube has a video series about Jared Diamond’s research for the book – be sure to check it out. Thanks for posting so many books. I lose count of everything I want to read, though I have so many of the works on my shelves waiting to be delved into. Looking forward to seeing your pared-down list.
This is a great list. You’re going to have a hell of a good year reading these. A correction: American Gods, by the freakishly talented Mr. Gaiman, is a work of fiction. Although I suppose the gods themselves wouldn’t be too pleased with me saying that. Enjoy!
What a big list for one year
Books can change our lives, and reading lots of good ones is sure to change it in many positive ways. I am also glad to see my suggestions on the list and I wish you a good read.