Books Recommended by Our Authors
Each time we host a Conversation with Authors session, we invite the participants to share a short list of books they’d recommend to others. Below is the ongoing composite list of these cherished recommendations.
Sort the list by “Book,” by “Author,” or by the session participant who recommended the title by clicking on the corresponding heading in green below.
| Book | Author | Recommended by… |
|---|---|---|
| 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do | Amy Morin | Lori Gottlieb |
| A Crooked Smile | Terri Tate | Anne Lamott |
| A General Theory of Love | Thomas Lewis, et al. | Joan Ryan |
| A Gentleman in Moscow | Amor Towles | Jeff Schwager |
| A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Dave Eggers | Jason Rezaian |
| A Judgement in Stone | Ruth Rendell | Susan Minot |
| A Long Petal of the Sea | Isabel Allende | Colum McCann |
| A Long Petal of the Sea | Isabel Allende | Adam Hochschild |
| A Long Petal of the Sea | Isabel Allende | Jill Biden |
| A Man Called Ove | Fredrik Backman | Erik Larson |
| A Map of the World | Jane Hamilton | Anne Lamott |
| A Poet’s Journal | George Seferis | Mark Nepo |
| A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth | Daniel Mason | Jill McCorkle |
| A Simple Heart | Gustave Flaubert | Julia Alvarez |
| Al Franken: Giant of the Senate | Al Franken | Joan Ryan |
| All Adults Here | Emma Straub | Erik Larson |
| All My Puny Sorrows | Miriam Toews | Louise Erdrich |
| All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr | Ursula Hegi |
| All the Names They Used for God | Anjali Sachdeva | Khaled Hosseini |
| Am I There Yet? | Mari Andrew | Paris Rosenthal |
| American Places | William Zinsser | Jordan Blashek |
| American War | Omar El Akkad | Dave Eggers |
| Angle of Repose | Wallace Stegner | Lisa See |
| Animal Farm: Centennial Edition | George Orwell | Jason Rezaian |
| Animal Spirit | Francesca Marciano | Susan Minot |
| Anything and everything | Dave Eggers | Colum McCann |
| Apeirogon | Colum McCann | Dave Eggers |
| Apeirogon: A Novel | Colum McCann | Isabel Allende |
| Appointment in Samarra | John O’Hara | Jeff Schwager |
At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life |
Fenton Johnson | Jane Hirshfield |
| Barbarian Days | William Finnegan | Christopher Haugh |
| Beloved (Vintage International) | Toni Morrison | Jaquira Diaz |
| Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates | Ursula Hegi |
| Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life | Anne Lamott | Cara Black |
| Black Is the Body | Emily Bernard | Ann Patchett |
| Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East | Kim Ghattas | Yeganeh (Yegi) Rezaian |
| Black Widow | Leslie Gray Streeter | Jennifer Steinhauer |
| Book of Longings | Sue Monk Kidd | Janine Urbaniak Reid |
| Born a Crime | Trevor Noah | Don Asmussen |
| Born to Be Good | Dacher Keltner | Jane Hirshfield |
| Breasts and Eggs | Mieko Kawakami | Mary Ladd |
| Cancer Vixen | Marisa Acocella Marchetto | Mary Ladd |
| Candide | Voltaire | Jane Hirshfield |
| Cantoras: A Novel | Carolina De Robertis | Julia Alvarez |
| Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent | Isabel Wilkerson | Bill Petrocelli |
| Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition | Joseph Heller | Jason Rezaian |
| The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats | W. B. Yeats | Jane Hirshfield |
| Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind | Annika Harris | Jason Rosenthal |
| Cruel Beautiful World | Caroline Leavitt | Janine Urbaniak Reid |
| Dale Loves Sophie to Death | Robb Forman Dew | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| Deacon King Kong | James McBride | John Grisham |
| Deacon King Kong | James McBride | Ann Patchett |
| Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania | Erik Larson | Lisa See |
| Dear Ann | Bobbie Ann Mason | Jill McCorkle |
| Dear Edward | Ann Neapolitano | Colum McCann |
| Death in Summer | William Trevor | Julia Alvarez |
| Deep Gossip | Sidney Wade | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| Democracy in Chains | Nancy MacClean | Ayad Akhtar |
| Devotions | Mary Oliver | Amy Tan |
| Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead | Olga Tokarczuk | Rick Hanson |
| Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead | Olga Tokarczuk | Louise Erdrich |
| East of Eden | Josh Steinbeck | Rick Hanson |
| Educated | Tara Westover | Julie Lythcott-Haims |
| Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good | Helene Tursten | Cara Black |
| Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life | Amy Krouse Rosenthal | Jason Rosenthal |
| Eva Luna | Isabel Allende | Ursula Hegi |
| Exhalation | Ted Chiang | Alison Gopnik |
| Exhalation | Ted Chiang | Louise Erdrich |
| Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire | David Mura | Louise Erdrich |
| Figuring | Maria Popova | Jane Hirshfield |
| Finding Chika | Mitch Albom | Jason Rosenthal |
| Flights | Olga Tokarczuk | Louise Erdrich |
| From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation | Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor | Louise Erdrich |
| From Here to Eternity | Caitlin Coughty | Paris Rosenthal |
| Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Lov | Dava Sobel | Jane Hirshfield |
| Girl, Woman, Other | Bernadine Evaristo | Louise Erdrich |
| Heaven | Emerson Whitney | Dave Eggers |
| Heidi | Johanna Spyri | Lisa See |
| Help, Thanks, Wow | Anne Lamott | Janine Urbaniak Reid |
| Hieroglyphics | Jill McCorkle | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| His Truth is Marching On | Jon Meacham | Bill Petrocelli |
| Home Baked | Alia Volz | Mary Ladd |
| Homegoing | Yaa Gyasi | Julie Lythcott-Haims |
| How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents | Julia Alvarez | Jaquira Diaz |
| How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents | Julia Alvarez | Ursula Hegi |
| How to Be An AntiRacist | Ibram X. Kendi | Julie Lythcott-Haims |
| Hyperbole and a Half | Allie Brosh | Lori Gottlieb |
| Hyperbole and a Half | Allie Brosh | Don Asmussen |
| I Remember Nothing | Nora Ephron | Erik Larson |
| I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Filled with Whiteness | Austin Channing Brown | Janine Urbaniak Reid |
| If I Had Two Wings | Randall Kenan | Jill McCorkle |
| Immigrant, Montana | Amitava Kumar | Ayad Akhtar |
| In the Lateness of the World | Carolyn Forché | Louise Erdrich |
| In the Lateness of the World: Poems | Carolyn Forche | Jane Hirshfield |
| In the Time of the Butterflies | Julia Alvarez | Jaquira Diaz |
| In the Valley | Ron Rash | Jill McCorkle |
| Inland | Téa Obreht | Colum McCann |
| Intangibles | Joan Ryan | Phil Cousineau |
| Intimations | Zadie Smith | Susan Minot |
| Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | Joan Ryan |
| It Didn’t Start with You | Mark Wolynn | Sam Lamott |
| It’s Okay To Laugh (Cryng is Cool Too) | Nora McInerny | Lori Gottlieb |
| Just Mercy | Bryan Stevenson | Susan Minot |
| Leaves of Grass: (1855) (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) | Walt Whitman | Julia Alvarez |
| Ledger | Jane Hirshfield | Jill McCorkle |
| Letters from Mrs. Grundy | Oneita Jackson | Dave Eggers |
| Like Life | Lorrie Moore | Joan Ryan |
| Little Big Bully | Heid E. Erdrich | Louise Erdrich |
| Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | Lisa See |
| Little Women (Vintage Classics) | Jane Austen | Julia Alvarez |
| Lonesome Dove | Larry McMurtry | Nancy Pearl |
| Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Isabel Allende |
| MacDoodle St | Mark Alan Stamaty | Don Asmussen |
| Man’s Search For Meaning | Vicktor Frankl | Paris Rosenthal |
| Map: Collected and Last Poems | Wislawa Szymborska | Alison Gopnik |
| Mastering the Process: From Idea to Novel | Elizabeth George | Cara Black |
| Maybe You Should Talk To Someone | Lori Gottlieb | Paris Rosenthal |
| Members Only | Sameer Pandya | Jennifer Steinhauer |
| Memorial Drive | Natasha Tretheway | Jill McCorkle |
| Mindset: The New Psychology of Success | Carol S. Dweck | John Muir Laws |
| Missionaries | Phil Klay | Ayad Akhtar |
| Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times | Jonathan Sacks | Jordan Blashek |
| Motherland | Elissa Altman | Janine Urbaniak Reid |
| Mrs. Bridge | Evan Connell | Anne Lamott |
| My Antonia | Willa Cather | Lisa See |
| New Poets of Native Nations | Heid E. Erdrich | Louise Erdrich |
| News of the World | Paulette Jiles | Erik Larson |
| Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars | Joyce Carol Oates | Amy Tan |
| No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison | Behrouz Boochani | Jason Rezaian |
| Nobody Will Tell You This But Me | Bess Kalb | Jason Rosenthal |
| Norwegian Wood | Huruki Murakami | Jason Rezaian |
| O Pioneers! | Willa Cather | Lisa See |
| Oblivion | Hector Abad | Wade Davis |
| On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous | Ocean Vuong | Christopher Haugh |
| On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft | Stephen King | Cara Black |
| Orange World and Other Stories | Karen Russell | Susan Minot |
| Our Souls at Night (Vintage Contemporaries) | Kent Haruf | Julia Alvarez |
| Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World | Laura Spinney | Jennifer Steinhauer |
| Paris Is Always a Good Idea | Jenn McKinlay | Rhys Bowen |
| Paula: A Memoir | Isabel Allende | Adam Hochschild |
| Postcolonial Love Poem | Natalie Diaz | Louise Erdrich |
| Pudd’nhead Wilson: and Those Extraordinary Twins | Mark Twain | Jason Rezaian |
| Race Against Time | Jerry Mitchell | John Grisham |
| Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes | Adam Hochschild | Isabel Allende |
| Remembrance of Things Past | Marcel Proust | Jane Hirshfield |
| Richard II | William Shakespeare | Khaled Hosseini |
| Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | Kelly Corrigan |
| Saved by Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran | Roger Housden | Yeganeh (Yegi) Rezaian |
| Selected Poems: Pablo Neruda | Pablo Neruda | Julia Alvarez |
| Selected Stories | Alice Munro | Jane Hirshfield |
| Seven Brief Lessons on Physics | Carlo Rovelli | Khaled Hosseini |
| Shrapnel Maps | Phil Metres | Colum McCann |
| Siddhartha | Hermann Hesse | Mark Nepo |
| So Long and Thanks for All the Fish | Douglas Adams | Don Asmussen |
| South and West | Joan Didion | Christopher Haugh |
| Speedboat | Renata Adler | Anne Lamott |
| Stories of Your Life and Others | Ted Chiang | Alison Gopnik |
| Sum | David Eagleman | Khaled Hosseini |
| Summer World | Bernd Heinrich | Amy Tan |
| Summerlings | Lisa Howorth | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity | Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods | Amy Tan |
| Surviving Autocracy | Masha Gessen | Louise Erdrich |
| Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas | Jeffrey Ostler | Louise Erdrich |
| Tender Is the Night | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| Testament of Youth | Vera Brittain | Wade Davis |
| The Act of Creation | Arthur Koestler | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Age of Phillis | Honoree Jeffers | Jill McCorkle |
| The Arabian Nights (Leather-bound Classics) | Sir Richard Burton | Julia Alvarez |
| The Betrothed | Alessandro Manzoni | Judith Martin |
| The Black Echo (A Harry Bosch Novel #1) | Michael Connelly | Lisa See |
| The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison | Ursula Hegi |
| The Book of Ruth | Jane Hamilton | Anne Lamott |
| The Boy in the Field | Margot Livesey | Ursula Hegi |
| The Boy in the Field | Margot Livesey | Jill McCorkle |
| The Boy in the Field | Margot Livesey | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| The Bridge on the Drina | Ivo Andric | Adam Hochschild |
| The Buddha in the Attic | Julie Otsuka | Julia Alvarez |
| The Burglar | Thomas Perry | Cara Black |
| The Butchers’ Blessing | Ruth Gilligan | Colum McCann |
| The Cactus League | Emily Nemens | Joan Ryan |
| The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht | Bertolt Brecht | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Color of Air: A Novel | Gail Tsukiyama | Lisa See |
| The Complete Novels of Jane Austen | Jane Austen | Julia Alvarez |
| The Couple Next Door | Shari Lapena | Erik Larson |
| The Dragons, the Giant, the Women | Wayetu Moore | Ann Patchett |
| The Dutch House | Ann Patchett | Isabel Allende |
| The Dutch House | Ann Patchett | Jennifer Steinhauer |
| The Dutch House | Ann Patchett | Louise Erdrich |
| The Fire Next Time | James Baldwin | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Game of Thrones (boxed set) | George RR Martin | Sam Lamott |
| The Gift of Therapy | Irvin Yalom | Lori Gottlieb |
| The Godmother: A Crime Novel | Hannelore Cayre | Cara Black |
| The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation | Alexandr Solzhenitsyn | Jason Rezaian |
| The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood | Anne Lamott |
| The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature | J. Drew Lanham | Amy Tan |
| The House at Sugar Beach | Helene Cooper | Jennifer Steinhauer |
| The House of Broken Angels | Luis Alberto Urrea | Isabel Allende |
| The House of the Spirits | Isabel Allende | Adam Hochschild |
| The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall | Mark Moffett | Amy Tan |
| The Hunters | James Salter | Dave Eggers |
| The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan | Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Jungle Book (Puffin Classics) | Rudyard Kipling | Lisa See |
| The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse | Louise Erdrich | Ursula Hegi |
| The Lord of the Flies | William Golding | Erik Larson |
| The Lost Pianos of Siberia | Sophy Roberts | Adam Hochschild |
| The Lost Pianos of Siberia | Sophy Roberts | Susan Minot |
| The Magician’s Elephant | Kate DiCamillo | Ann Patchett |
| The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane | Kate DiCamillo | Ann Patchett |
| The Namesake | Jhumpa Lahiri | Khaled Hosseini |
| The Night Watchman | Louise Erdrich | Colum McCann |
| The Nightmare Years | William Shirer | Wade Davis |
| The Nightwatchman | Louise Erdrich | Ann Patchett |
| The Opposite of Certainty: Fear, Faith and Life in Between | Janine Reid | Anne Lamott |
| The Overstory | Richard Powers | Joan Ryan |
| The Philosophical Baby | Alison Gopnik | Alison Gopnik |
| The Pillow Book | Sei Shonagon | Alison Gopnik |
| The Radetzky March | Joseph Roth | Adam Hochschild |
| The Resisters | Gish Jen | Ann Patchett |
| The Return | Hisham Matar | Susan Minot |
| The Righteous Mind | Jonathan Haidt | Jordan Blashek |
| The Scientist in the Crib | Alison Gopnik | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara | Frank O’Hara | Ann Patchett |
| The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters | Sean B. Carroll | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna: A Novel | Juliet Grames | Cara Black |
| The Shimmering Road | Hester Young | Janine Urbaniak Reid |
| The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake | Steven Novella | John Muir Laws |
| The Sketchnote Handbook: the Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking | Mike Rhode | John Muir Laws |
| The Song of the Dodo, Island Biogeography in An Age of Extinctions | David Quammen | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Song of the Lark | Willa Cather | Lisa See |
| The Source of Self Regard | Toni Morrison | Dominique Crenn |
| The Splendid and the Vile | Erik Larson | John Grisham |
| The Stranger Diaries | Ellie Griffiths | Rhys Bowen |
| The Testaments | Margaret Atwood | Anne Lamott |
| The Underground Railroad | Colson Whitehead | Ursula Hegi |
| The Undocumented Americans | Karla Cornejo Villavicencio | Louise Erdrich |
| The Unnamable | Samuel Beckett | Jane Hirshfield |
| The Water Dancer | Ta-Nehisi Coates | Joan Ryan |
| The Water Dancer | Ta-Nehisi Coates | Jill Biden |
| The Water Dancer: A Novel | Ta-Nehisi Coates | Isabel Allende |
| The Woman in the Window | A. J. Finn | Erik Larson |
| The Woman Who Lost Her Soul | Bob Shacochis | Nancy Pearl |
| They Came Like Swallows | William Maxwell | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| Things in Jars | Jess Kidd | Erik Larson |
| Thinking, Fast and Slow | Daniel Kahneman | John Muir Laws |
| This is Happiness | Niall Williams | Louise Erdrich |
| This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire | Nick Flynn | Susan Minot |
| Three Hours In Paris | Cara Black | Rhys Bowen |
| Together Tea | Marjan Kamali | Yeganeh (Yegi) Rezaian |
| Transcendent Kingdom | Yaa Gyasi | Ann Patchett |
| Troop 6000: The Girl Scout Troop That Began in a Shelter and Inspired the World | Nikita Stewart | Jennifer Steinhauer |
| Underland | Robert Macfarlane | Louise Erdrich |
| Until the End of Time | Brian Greene | Jason Rosenthal |
| Valentine: A Novel | Elizabeth Wetmore | Jill Biden |
| Wagnerism | Alex Ross | Ayad Akhtar |
| We Learn Nothing | Tim Kreider | Lori Gottlieb |
| Weather | Jenny Offill | Susan Minot |
| What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance | Carolyn Forche | Adam Hochschild |
| When Breath Becomes Air | Paul Kalinithi | Paris Rosenthal |
| When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir | Esmeralda Santiago | Jaquira Diaz |
| When Time Stopped | Arianna Neuman | Bill Petrocelli |
| White Feathers: The Nesting Lives of Swallows | Bernd Heinrich | Amy Tan |
| White Rage | Carol Anderson | Ann Patchett |
| White Rage | Carol Anderson | Louise Erdrich |
| Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy | Geralyn Lucas | Mary Ladd |
| Women Talking | Miriam Toews | Louise Erdrich |
| Writers & Lovers | Lily King | Ann Patchett |
| Writers and Lovers | Lily King | Jill McCorkle |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Brontë | Bobbie Ann Mason |
| Your House Will Pay: A Novel | Steph Cha | Lisa See |