It’s always hard to do a list of “best books,” and you might have very different ideas about the best books to read. But this book list isn’t only about quality, but also about stories and ideas that had a big effect on me. Since it’s fun to compare book lists and talk about reading, and I am really curious about other people’s best-loved books, I figured I would give this a go!
I haven’t included any spiritual or religious books, because I feel like that kind of thing is both private and potentially divisive. This list includes some of the best novels I’ve ever read as well as nonfiction books that have taught me a lot or that just blew my mind.
These are in no particular order, and I’m sure I’m leaving some important ones off the list!
1. Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien.
I won’t have a long story for each of these books, promise! But I do for this one.
When I was nine years old, I had a slumber party for my birthday but only two girls came, because I was wildly unpopular. My parents gave me the boxed set of the Lord of the Rings books that I had asked for, and I was so excited I kept reading them instead of having fun with the other two girls.
I wonder why I was so unpopular? Haha.
Yes, I was a small nerd with almost no social skills, but as I read these books, I literally thought, “I feel like I’m catching fire.” And I was. They started a lifelong love of fantasy and epic, heroic, good-versus-evil adventures that still brings me joy every day.
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie.
This 80-year-old classic isn’t quite as dated as you might expect. The titles, in particular, read like contemporary Internet clickbait headlines: “Do This and You’ll Be Welcome Anywhere,” for instance.
This is just as much about getting along with people as it is about persuading them in any way. Some of the advice is common sense, but that doesn’t mean we actually follow it. It also contained tips I never thought of before… but as I said, social skills are not my strong suit.
I think it’s a brilliant book, and maybe the most life-changiest one on the list.
3. GMC: Goal, Motivation, Conflict, Debra Dixon.
I recommend this book so often, people probably think I wrote it under an assumed name or something. It shows you how to interweave plot and character, and it’s my favorite fiction writing book ever.
I gave away a copy of it to one of my newsletter subscribers a few days ago. (Incidentally, my newsletter goes out 5 -6 times a year, and sometimes I do giveaways, so sign up here if you want to!)
4. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison.
When I started reading this in college, I immediately knew that I had never read anything else like it. It’s surreal, nightmarish, and addictively lyrical, with indelible images and sensory details.
The female characters are stereotypes, which may or may not serve a literary purpose, but Invisible Man expanded my horizons both as a lover of language and as an American citizen.
5. Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert.
This is a book about how the brain works and how we aren’t even always that good at predicting what will make us happy, or for how long. It has a lot of good information that has actually helped me to be happier.
One point I found particularly interesting: we are much too likely to assume that our happiness is different from other people’s, and so when we make decisions, we too rarely ask other people about their experiences and what’s made them happy.
6. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett.
7. The Secret History, Donna Tartt.
If I ever write a literary type of novel, it will be because of writers like Ann Patchett and Donna Tartt, who prove that you can write elegant sentences, deal with interesting ideas, and have an exciting story! So many contemporary literary novels have weak plots or slow pacing. Not these.
Bel Canto is about a hostage situation in a South American country. It’s romantic and would make an incredible movie. In fact, I think they were going to make it into a movie, but it got held up in production or something.
The Secret History has murder and magic in the plot. The former is not a spoiler; it’s in the first sentence of the prologue. The latter made Publishers Weekly sniff that the book “suffers from a basically improbable plot.” Whatever, PW: it’s a fantastic book from an author who went on to win a well-deserved Pulitzer for The Goldfinch.
8. Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever, Jinny S. Ditzler.
Ohhh, do I love this book. It’s all about setting and achieving goals that really make sense for you, and it helps you identify self-defeating behaviors and beliefs. It’s just incredibly motivating. I re-read it before every New Year, but let’s be honest: your Best Year Yet could begin on any day of the year. 🙂
9. Thief of Shadows, Elizabeth Hoyt.
When people who haven’t read romance ask me for recommendations, I often suggest this. To me, this Georgian romance-slash-superhero story is best in class.
Its hero — selfless, virginal at the beginning, and a complete badass — is almost the antithesis of the rich, bossy, womanizing jerks who are the heroes of so many books in this genre. The sophisticated and unapologetically sensual heroine is far from typical herself. It’s an emotional story, and both the action and the sex scenes are terrific.
When I worry about how much my work in progress breaks the rules of the romance genre, I think of this novel.
10. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy.
It’s so difficult to convince people this is fun to read. Nobody ever believes me. Look, it’s got parties and war and love affairs, what more do you want? The writing is so good!
It’s the best book I ever read, mostly because of Tolstoy’s psychological insights into people. When I got halfway through, I turned back to the beginning and read the first half again because I didn’t want to be done. And I am not the kind of person who does stuff like that.
Okay, it’s a little long. It’s a bit longer than Infinite Jest. It’s shorter than Les Miserables, which is a fantastic book.
I will admit that I skipped the second epilogue, which is a philosophical essay. What the hell, Tolstoy?
11. 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, Laura Vanderkam.
This book kicked my ass. Honestly, I should re-read it. While Ms. Vanderkam is a little privileged, she makes a lot of brilliant points. This made me believe I could fit a lot more into my life, and it motivated me to use my time much more wisely.
12. Persuasion, Jane Austen.
I think it’s her best and most emotional book. It breaks my heart that it was published after her death. It suggests how difficult it is to make the right decisions in life, asks the question, “Is it too late?” and answers it with, “No.”
13. The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron.
I never actually did the program laid out in this book, though I know many people who have done it and loved it. Ms. Cameron’s perspectives on how to be a productive, sane, and fulfilled creative person have had a huge influence on me.
I enjoy her books Walking in the World and The Vein of Gold as well, and her memoir Floor Sample — about her marriage to Martin Scorcese, her recovery from alcoholism, and her growth as a creative person — is a great read.
14. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, Jared Diamond.
Diamond destroys any racist notions anyone might harbor about white superiority. He delineates the environmental factors that determine if and when hunter-gatherer societies transition into agricultural ones, which it turn leads to cities, advanced technologies, and higher immunity to disease.
Guns, Germs, and Steel made me see cultures and political conflicts in terms of the environmental and geographical underpinnings. In the best way, this book blew my mind.
15. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson.
This short 1959 horror novel is beautifully written and just… so creepy. Stephen King and pretty much everybody else recognize it as one of the best horror novels ever. It was great inspiration when I was writing my haunted house romance, Sole Possession.
16. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, María Rosa Menocal.
I bet nobody expected this one 🙂 I read my share of history books, and I almost always enjoy them, but this one depicted a slice of medieval civilization that captured my imagination and didn’t let go.
The paranormal romance trilogy I’m writing features a modern-day secret society that was founded in Granada, Spain, in the tolerant and intellectually curious era described by this book.
17. Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens.
I know this isn’t Dickens’s greatest novel, but it’s the one that stuck with me the most. Mark Tapley is one of my favorite characters of all time — a cheerful person who sometimes wishes for grimmer circumstances, just to prove how cheerful he really is. He’s kind of my hero. I also loved John Westlock’s friendship with Tom Pinch and his courtship of Tom’s sister Ruth.
18. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business, Charles Duhigg.
This is a fantastic, wide-ranging study of why we form habits and how we can change them. Although the case studies often involve large groups of people, the principles also apply to changing habits in your own life.
I have a personal bias toward this book, because it discusses Target Corporation and their direct mail data mining during the time that I was the creative manager in charge of direct mail at Target Corp. I wasn’t responsible for any of the data mining and clever algorithms, of course — that was Andrew Pole and another individual who goes unnamed in this book. Both of them, like me, had worked at Hallmark, Inc. before coming to Target. I went back to Hallmark fairly quickly.
19. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks.
I love reading about neuroscience, and this book is to blame. Mr. Sacks’s case studies make you think in new ways about beliefs, perceptions, and reality. I enjoyed An Anthropologist on Mars just as much, and I appreciate the fact that Mr. Sacks, like me, suffered from face blindness.
20. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I’ve read this novel three times. What really gets me is the use of visual imagery — the multicolored shirts, the green light at the end of the dock, the all-seeing eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg from the billboard.
I identify with Jay Gatbsy’s ambition and self-invention in a way that is probably about the opposite of what the author intended. Or is it?
The Great Gatsby suggests that glamour and youthful passions are all empty illusions. But we can’t help but be beguiled by those very things, because what isn’t an illusion, in the end?
~
What books have stuck with you or changed your life? Let us know in the comments — I would love to hear! Thanks for reading!
A few books that immediately come to mind as having stuck with me are:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Secret Daughter by June Cross
Paula Deen: It Ain’t All About the Cookin’ by Paula Deen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Vicar’s Wife by Katharine Swartz
Bluebells in the Mourning by KaraLynne Mackrory
Betrayed by Donnell Ann Bell
Oh yeah, I just read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I will never forget it! And The Kite Runner was so good.
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. The language and nature writing drew me in and stuck with me forever.
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen. Sooo midwestern. I really identified with every character in the book. At one point the adult daughter comes home for Christmas and while she’s there she gets so agitated being in her parents’ house that she goes in the basement and cleans out a closet. There’s a full page devoted to listing the items in the closet, and many of them were things my mom had in her basement closet at the very moment I read it. Like, maybe Franzen hung around my parents’ house and snooped through their closets while writing the book? I also had a parent who had dementia. How did a guy from New York know my personal life so intimately?
Mason and Dixon, Thomas Pynchon. Magic realism and absurdity in eighteenth century language. Hilarious, even though I’m sure I missed at least half of the jokes. More than you’d ever think you’d want to know about surveying, Jesuits, and the Gregorian calendar. Probably the most amazing book I’ve ever read, from a writer’s perspective.
The Corrections really is Midwestern… I assumed he was from the Midwest, actually! Ha, that is really funny about the closet scene.
Great list, Bryn – and I’ve read several. My go-to book through all my reading life is “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith. Currently taking a class on Jane Austen, I totally agree with you regarding “Persuasion.” And, as an aside, it is Ralph Ellison’s birthday. I’ll be posting a birthday meme of him about midday online at https://www.facebook.com/ItsAllAboutTheWords/
Thank you for the list, I promise to investigate the ones I have not yet read over the summer.
Oh wow, I didn’t know it was Eillison’s birthday! ~ Nor did I know you had a FB page… liked!
Re: Neverwhere–I’ve read it and enjoyed, but I think other Gaiman stories are better, especially The Graveyard Book!
Thanks for the list Bryn. I have read some of these and enjoyed them and added others to my “Want to Read” list. Sometimes a book just seems to resonate with a person – possibly the time, situation and other factors surrounding us when we read them. I would guess the same reasoning is behind why I can pick up a book and decide I really can’t get into it and then pick it up three or four years later and not be able to put it down until I’m finished (this actually happened to me with Stephen King’s The Stand, believe it or not).
Cheryl, I almost said something about the “right place, right time” factor in reading! The first time I picked up The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber I hated it… I was like, “What is this lurid garbage?” I gave it away! A couple of years later I had the urge to try it again, and I thought it was really good.
Mr. Donovan tells me I would like The Stand. I’ve only read The Shining by King.
Persuasion, Bel Canto, and Hill House are incredible and would probably make my list, too. Fantastic list here!
I am not surprised that we have similar tastes, G.G. 🙂
Quick question – over the weekend someone posted how much they loved Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” and recommended it highly. Any thoughts?
I hope someone answers you! I have not read it, myself, though I think we’re reading it soon in a book club.
Bryn: just out last month, The Fantasy Fiction Formula by Deborah Chester, who taught Jim Butcher to write successfully (according to Jim). While I have other good books on writing, this one is getting How-To-Do-it into my thick head and deep into me. What, technically, is a scene, and why are we writing them? What purpose must they serve to move the narrative forward, and how to do just that?
For me, this is sure to be a favorite writing book, read again and again.
Ahh, that’s very cool! I actually heard about that book because someone told me that when they were looking at it on Amazon, my book popped up as another suggestion… I was pretty happy to hear that. 🙂 Is it specifically for fantasy, do you think? It sounds really good.
While I don’t think it’s only applicable to fantasy, fantasy is where Deborah publishes. I don’t think anyone who wants to learn to write character-driven stories including sci-fi, fantasy, urban fantasy, horror or paranormal will feel anything is lacking, and I think anyone writing fiction would profit from this until they’re an expert at writing, and possibly even then they’ll enjoy a good read and go on to recommend it to their circles of those who want to learn.
UGH you are going to be the one to finally get me to actually read War and Peace, aren’t you… 🙂 No but seriously, I know I don’t have to tell you how much I love The Lord of the Rings and why they are my favorite books, and I love Guns, Germs, and Steel as well (if you haven’t read The Third Chimpanzee by Diamond, it is really good too) but I got a lot of good suggestions off of this list so thanks!
Other books I’ve read over and over:
-America’s Women, by Gail Collins (so, SO good. a must-read.)
-A World Lit Only By Fire, by William Manchester (Black Death/Dark Ages stuff)
-Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent (are we sensing that I’m a huge history nerd yet?)
-The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson (intertwines the true story of the 1893 World’s Fair being built and how America’s first known serial killer, H.H. Holmes used it to lure his victims.)
-The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, by Joan Jacobs Brumberg
-How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror, by Reza Aslan
-Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
-Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI, by Robert K. Ressler
-Hitch 22, by Christopher Hitchens (his autobiography. SO interesting, at least it was to me.)
-A History of The Wife, by Marilyn Yalom
Those are all non-fiction because as you know: Huge Nerd. But they are all REALLY readable and not stuffy or else trust me- I’d never have made it through them. Now! In addition to the Lord of the Rings, here are my favorite fiction books.
-Literally everything James Thurber ever wrote
-Mark Twain’s short stories
-Good Omens
-Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
-Chronicles of Narnia
-1984
-The Time Machine & The Invisible Man (both by H.G. Wells, not the same as your Invisible Man 🙂 )
-The Picture of Dorian Gray
-The Forgotten Realms: Dark Elf Trilogy
-Dragonlance: Chronicles, I, II, & III
– Jane Eyre
-Wuthering Heights
-All Agatha Christie books (but especially Poirot)
-All of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books.
-The Poisonwood Bible (I think that was fiction? -ish, maybe?)
-Jurassic Park & The Lost World, by Michael Chrichton (although the 1st movie will always slay my 90’s nostalgia + Goldblum feels and I love it, the books are, naturally, MUCH better. imo.)
I could keep going forever so I’m going to stop, even though I know I forgot at LEAST one important one… Sorry it’s so long, but when someone asks me to talk about my favorite books they kind of have it coming. xo
Ooh I haven’t read most of these! Don’t apologize for it being long! A lot of these sound so good. Is it weird that I’m particularly interested in A World Lit Only By Fire? Such a great title, too. And the one about tracking serial killers for the FBI sounds amazing!
Not weird! So much fascinating stuff there, I learned a LOT. As far as the FBI one I literally just selected one of the maybe 15 or so books (some of them textbooks, but still good) on the topic that I have because I am obsessed with forensic profiling… I chose that one not only because it is fascinating but it was literally the birth of official psychological profiling in serial murders. The author in fact, was the one who coined the term “serial killer”. So it is really interesting to read about what started an entire new field… anyway I wish we lived closer so we could exchange books to read! 🙂
In one of my blogs I have a spot set aside for books. Because, well, Books!!!!!! One of my very all time favorite books is one I recently wrote about. ‘Daddy-Long-Legs’ by Jean Webster. I am pretty sure if I was on a desert island and had to choose one book, this one would be it. I read it over and over and never get tired of the adventures of Judy and her college friends. It isn’t her adventures, it is the way Jean Webster writes. I’ll be knee deep in some activity and something Judy said will come back and make me think. It is a simple book chock full of life and life lessons. Plus, the story of Jean Webster fascinates me. I’d have loved to have met her.
I’d meander along on other life changing reads, but the last one I’ll mention is ‘To think I saw it on Mulberry Street’. This book changed my life because it was the first book I actually got my hands on that I wanted to read. I was 5 or 6 and it opened my eyes to words on a page. Hooray for the Dr!
Thanks, Kris! I hadn’t heard of Daddy-Long-Legs… I love hearing about something new. And oh, it’s so great to remember those very first books we fell in love with. 🙂 I still remember that one very well!
Great list. Thanks for sharing.
Quoted you in my review of Thief of Shadows: https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R3JBN3GDSFUY3E?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl
I enjoyed Thief of Shadows, but I loved Hoyt’s Dearest Rogue about blind Lady Phoebe and her bodyguard, Captain James Trevillion.
Aw, what an honor to be quoted in your review! Thank you!
I have not read Hoyt’s Dearest Rogue yet. I was actually leery of it because of the title — I get weary of standard rogues. 🙂 But I should have known it wouldn’t be standard, since it’s Hoyt! I will check it out!
Hey! This is Michele Newell from EPCHS! I just found your blog. Love this post. My #1 favorite book ever, which I have reread so many times, is The Count of Monte Cristo. From Freshman English. Something about the deliberate and exacting revenge that Edmund constructs for those who wronged him is so satisfying. What does that say about me? I don’t want to know! Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier is wonderfully haunting. And Pride and Prejudice is another all-time favorite. Lizzy’s strong logical female character in the crazy family she has is wonderful. I adore the classics, does it show?
Michele! Oh my gosh, how awesome to hear from you! Oh, I LOVE The Count of Monte Cristo! I don’t think that says anything bad about you — it’s a thrilling book! 🙂 I love all your picks. I hope everything is going great with you. Thanks so much for commenting!