Good writers know the secret to writing…they read. They read a lot. When I took writing classes in college, most of our time was spent reading and analyzing various novels and poems to help inspire a jolt of creative energy – and your favorite writers are no exception.
Below is a list of books well-loved by some of our most popular writers, both past and present. J.K. Rowling, Maya Angelou, Mark Twain, and many more share their top pick of favorite book. Do you share any favorites with these authors?
24 Authors Share Their Favorite Books
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
Favorite Book: Calumet K, Henry Kitchell Webster
A novel about the problems encountered in building a grain elevator in Chicago. It’s a refreshingly honest portrayal of labor unions and morality.
Ernest Hemmingway (A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea)
Favorite Book: Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
A story about a woman who has an affair and is given a choice between going into exile or remaining with her family and abiding by the rules of discretion.
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking, Slouching Towards Bethlehem)
Favorite Book: Victory, Joseph Conrad
Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, decides to cut himself off from humanity on a remote island. When he rescues a young English girl, their relationship becomes a perceptive study on power and love.
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine)
Favorite Book: John Carter: Warlord of Mars, Edgar Rice Burrough
John Carter is the greatest hero of two worlds! Marvel at these classic tales of danger and daring as Carter battles deadly opponents, warring civilizations and a host of Barsoomian beasts.
George R. R. Martin (A Game of Thrones)
Favorite Book: The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
You know the story…hobbits, rings, friendship, talking trees…
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
Favorite Book: And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
First, there were ten – a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island. Their host is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal. One by one they fall prey…and only the dead are above suspicion.
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
Favorite Book: Ulysses, James Joyce
Ulysses stands as an inventive, multiple-point-of-view (there are eighteen) vision of daily events, personal attitudes, cultural and political sentiments, and observations of the human condition.
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
Favorite Book: King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
In a time when there were damsels in distress to save, and mythical dragons to slay, King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table were there to render justice in the face of any danger. From the incredible wizardry of Merlin to the undeniable passion of Sir Lancelot, these tales of Arthur and his knights offer epic adventures with the supernatural, as well as timeless battles with our humanity.
Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings)
Favorite Book: Old Filth, Jane Gardam
An old man slips back into the past with ever mounting frequency and intensity, and on the tide of these vivid, lyrical musings, he approaches a reckoning with his own history. Not all the old filth, it seems, can be cleaned away.
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City)
Favorite Book: The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
Favorite Book: Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
The tale of Carrie Meeber’s rise to stardom in the theatre and George Hurstwood’s slow decline captures the twin poles of exuberance and exhaustion in modern city life as never before.
Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)
Favorite Book: The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, a young boy leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. Insanity ensues.
R.L. Stine (Goosebumps series)
Favorite Book: Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
A magical, timeless story about summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding.
J.K. Rowling (The Harry Potter series)
Favorite Book: Emma, Jane Austen
Nothing delights Emma more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
Favorite Book: Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Following the lives of four sisters on a journey out of adolescence, Little Women explores the difficulties associated with gender roles in a Post-Civil War America.
Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer)
Favorite Book: Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine’s father.
John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men)
Favorite Book: King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
In a time when there were damsels in distress to save, and mythical dragons to slay, King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table were there to render justice in the face of any danger. From the incredible wizardry of Merlin to the undeniable passion of Sir Lancelot, these tales of Arthur and his knights offer epic adventures with the supernatural, as well as timeless battles with our humanity.
Cheryl Strayed (Wild)
Favorite Book: The Dream of a Common Language, Adrienne Rich
A powerful collection of poetry about power, sexuality, and violence against women.
Joyce Carol Oates (We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, The Gravediggers Daughter)
Favorite Book: Crime and Punishment, Fydor Dostoyevsky
Through the story of the brilliant but conflicted young Raskolnikov and the murder he commits, Fyodor Dostoevsky explores the theme of redemption through suffering.
Judy Blume (The Romona Quimby series)
Favorite Book: American Pastoral, Philip Roth
In American Pastoral, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all the twentieth century’s promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss.
Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle, Half Broke Horses)
Favorite Book: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
The beloved American classic about a young girl’s coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident.
Emma Donoghue (ROOM)
Favorite Book: Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon
Solomon’s startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition—that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down’s syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, and who are transgender.
Paula McLain (The Paris Wife)
Favorite Book: The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey
A couple living in Alaska build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone…but they glimpse a young blonde-haired girl running through the trees.
Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
Favorite Book: The Music Room, Dennis McFarland
In an incredible novel of devastating beauty, Martin Lambert must come to terms with the aftermath of his brother’s suicide. Replaying sad melodies of his affluent youth, Martin embarks on a poignant journey through his family’s haunted past.
Looking for a new book to read? Check in every Friday for a “Bee Happy” post, where I share reviews of books I’ve read or other book-themed lists.
The Hob-bee Hive 