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
August 29 2018. At approximately 10:16am Officer Rodriquez and I were dispatched to the site of an accident on northbound State Route 12, approximately 500 yards north of Exit 15. Witness J.M. Corrigan had called 911 and was still at the site with his passenger, Maria Corrigan, of Tyler. The witness stated he had been traveling behind a 2012 Ford Explorer when that vehicle suddenly veered sharply to the right, left the highway, broke through the guardrail, flipped end-over-end and then plunged over the precipice falling approximately 200 feet. While the witnesses did not see the impact, they heard it clearly.