I’m not claiming these are the best novels ever written. The point is, I felt enough resonance with that particular piece of storytelling that I am compelled to read it again. Some novels I have read many, many times. There are also novels I truly admire, novels that are rightly called classics, that aren’t here because I could not bring myself to read that novel again.
This list is not divided up by genre, so let me warn you: you’ll find pretty much everything, from espionage and romance to very dark crime and sci-fi. And then there’s Austen.
- Richard Adams The Girl in a Swing
- Jane Austen Persuasion; Pride and Prejudice…
- Toni Cade Bambara Gorilla, My Love
- Amy Bloom Come to Me
- Heinrich Böll Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum
- James Lee Burke In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead; White Doves at Morning; A Morning for Flamingos
- A.S. Byatt Angels & Insects; Possession
- Jetta Carleton The Moonflower Vine
- Wilkie Collins The Woman in White
- Laurie Colwin A Big Storm Knocked It Over
- Jennifer Crusie Crazy for You; Faking It; Welcome to Temptation
- Judy Cuevas Dance; Bliss, Beast (as Judith Ivory)
- Junot Díaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- Stephen Dobyns The Burn Palace
- Dorothy Dunnett Niccolo Rising (House of Niccolo; 8 volumes)
- Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca
- George Eliot Adam Bede
- Ken Follett Eye of the Needle
- John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s Woman
- Ariana Franklin City of Shadows; Mistress of the Art of Death
- Charles Frazier Cold Mountain
- Günter Grass Die Blechtrommel
- Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge
- Mo Hayder Poppet (the Jack Caffery series)
- John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s Woman
- Mark Helprin A Soldier of the Great War
- Ruth Hogan The Keeper of Lost Things: A Novel
- Irene Hunt Up a Road Slowly
- Baine Kerr Wrongful Death
- Stephen King The Stand; Black House; Dolan’s Cadillac
- Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams; The Poisonwood Bible
- Margaret Lawrence Hearts and Bones (Hannah Trevor series; 4 volumes)
- Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird
- Dennis Lehane Gone, Baby Gone; Darkness Take My Hand
- Elmore Leonard Pagan Babies, Cuba Libre, Get Shorty
- Gabriel Garcia Márquez A Hundred Years of Solitude
- Charles McCarry The Bride of The Wilderness
- Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove
- Jacquelyn Mitchard Second Nature; The Breakdown Lane
- Toni Morrison Beloved, The Bluest Eye
- Jojo Moyes The Girl You Left Behind
- Alice Munro Friend of my Youth
- Audrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler’s Wife
- Tim O’Brian The Things They Carried
- Michael Ondaatje The English Patient
- Joseph O’Neill Netherland
- George Orwell Down and Out in Paris and London
- Ann Patchett The Magician’s Assistant
- Annie Proulx The Shipping News; Wyoming Stories
- Mario Puzo The Fortunate Pilgrim
- Mary Doria Russell A Thread of Grace
- Richard Russo Straight Man; Empire Falls
- Bernhard Schlink Der Vorleser (The Reader)
- Karin Slaughter Will Trent series
- Jane Smiley A Thousand Acres
- Scott Spencer Waking the Dead; Endless Love
- Mary Ann Shaffer The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- Kathryn Stockett The Help
- William Styron Sophie’s Choice
- Barry Unsworth Sacred Hunger
- John Updike The Witches of Eastwick
- Gore Vidal Burr; Lincoln
- Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five
- Alice Walker The Color Purple
- Edith Wharton Ethan Frome
- Laura Ingalls Wilder The Long Winter