NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Anna Quindlen presents a “swift and compelling paean to the joys of books” (Booklist). “Like the columns she used to write for the New York Times, [How Reading Changed My Life] is tart, smart, full of quirky insights, lapidary, and a pleasure to read.”—Publishers Weekly “Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. . . . Yet of all the many things in which we recognize universal comfort—God, sex, food, family, friends—reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung, at least publicly, although it was really all I thought of, or felt, when I was eating up book after book, running away from home while sitting in a chair, traveling around the world and yet never leaving the room. . . . I read because I loved it more than any activity on earth.”—from How Reading Changed My Life
The Reading Lists from Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life:
10 Big Thick Wonderful Books that Could Take You a Whole Summer to Read (But Aren't Beach Books)
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Forstyte Saga by John Galsworthy
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
10 Non Fiction Books That Help Us Understand the World
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick
Lincoln by David Herbert Douglas
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
How We Die by Sherwin Nuland
The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Power Broker by Robert Caro
10 Books that will Help a Teenager Feel More Human
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Lost In Place by Mark Salzman
What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Bloodbrothers by Richard Price
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
The 10 Books I Would Save in a Fire (If I Could Only Save 10)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats
The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Ten Books for a Girl Who is Full of Beans (Or Ought to Be)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Julius the Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes
Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank
The BFG by Ronald Dahl
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Catherine Known As Birdy by Katherine Paterson
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Ten Mystery Novels I'd Most Like to Find in a Summer Rental
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham
The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre
10 Books Recommended by a Really Good Elementary School Librarian
The View From Saturday by E.L. Koningsburg
Frindle by Andrew Clements
My Daniel by Pan Conrad
The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick
Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
No Flying in the House by Betty Brock
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Gannett Stiles
Habibi by Naomi Nye
Mudpies and Other Recipes: A Cookbook for Dolls by Marjorie Winslow
The Story of May by Mordecai Gerstein
10 Good Book Club Selections
Fraud by Anita Brookner
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
Eden Close by Anita Shreve
10 Modern Novels that Made Me Proud to be a Writer
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser
True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The French Lieutennant's Woman by John Fowles
Falconer by John Cheever
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Information by Martin Amis
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
10 of the Books My Exceptionally Well-Read Friend Ben says He's Taken the Most From
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
Something of an Achievement by Gwyn Griffin
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Moon and a Sixpence by Somerset Maugham
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
Heretics by G.K. Chesterton
The Wapshot Chronicles by John Cheever
(With addendum: Now I can't believe I settled for that list. What about William Maxwell's The Folded Leaf, or Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris? )
Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bestseller lists. She is the author of many novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, Every Last One, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, and Miller’s Valley. Her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, published in 2012, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. While a columnist at The New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud. Her Newsweek columns were collected in Loud and Clear.
View titles by Anna Quindlen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Anna Quindlen presents a “swift and compelling paean to the joys of books” (Booklist). “Like the columns she used to write for the New York Times, [How Reading Changed My Life] is tart, smart, full of quirky insights, lapidary, and a pleasure to read.”—Publishers Weekly “Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. . . . Yet of all the many things in which we recognize universal comfort—God, sex, food, family, friends—reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung, at least publicly, although it was really all I thought of, or felt, when I was eating up book after book, running away from home while sitting in a chair, traveling around the world and yet never leaving the room. . . . I read because I loved it more than any activity on earth.”—from How Reading Changed My Life
Excerpt
The Reading Lists from Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life:
10 Big Thick Wonderful Books that Could Take You a Whole Summer to Read (But Aren't Beach Books)
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Forstyte Saga by John Galsworthy
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
10 Non Fiction Books That Help Us Understand the World
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick
Lincoln by David Herbert Douglas
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
How We Die by Sherwin Nuland
The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Power Broker by Robert Caro
10 Books that will Help a Teenager Feel More Human
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Lost In Place by Mark Salzman
What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Bloodbrothers by Richard Price
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
The 10 Books I Would Save in a Fire (If I Could Only Save 10)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats
The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Ten Books for a Girl Who is Full of Beans (Or Ought to Be)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Julius the Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes
Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank
The BFG by Ronald Dahl
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Catherine Known As Birdy by Katherine Paterson
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Ten Mystery Novels I'd Most Like to Find in a Summer Rental
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham
The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre
10 Books Recommended by a Really Good Elementary School Librarian
The View From Saturday by E.L. Koningsburg
Frindle by Andrew Clements
My Daniel by Pan Conrad
The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick
Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
No Flying in the House by Betty Brock
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Gannett Stiles
Habibi by Naomi Nye
Mudpies and Other Recipes: A Cookbook for Dolls by Marjorie Winslow
The Story of May by Mordecai Gerstein
10 Good Book Club Selections
Fraud by Anita Brookner
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
Eden Close by Anita Shreve
10 Modern Novels that Made Me Proud to be a Writer
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser
True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The French Lieutennant's Woman by John Fowles
Falconer by John Cheever
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Information by Martin Amis
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
10 of the Books My Exceptionally Well-Read Friend Ben says He's Taken the Most From
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
Something of an Achievement by Gwyn Griffin
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Moon and a Sixpence by Somerset Maugham
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
Heretics by G.K. Chesterton
The Wapshot Chronicles by John Cheever
(With addendum: Now I can't believe I settled for that list. What about William Maxwell's The Folded Leaf, or Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris? )
Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bestseller lists. She is the author of many novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, Every Last One, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, and Miller’s Valley. Her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, published in 2012, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. While a columnist at The New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud. Her Newsweek columns were collected in Loud and Clear.
View titles by Anna Quindlen
