Reading List

My Reading List. Writer Heather Sellers recommends in Chapter After Chapter that all writers keep a list of 101 books that they have read cover to cover. This is my list.

Here is my list, beginning December 2016:

Book 101

1 Chapter After Chapter, by Heather Sellers *

2 Dialogue, by Robert McKee *

3 The Awakening, Kate Chopin

4 The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder

5 Go Set a Watchman, by Nell Harper Lee

6 All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

7 Wintering, Peter Geye

8 The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

9 Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

10 Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare

11 Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl

12 Invisible Ink: A practical guide to building stories, Brian McDonald *

13 The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler *

14 Muscle and a Shovel, Michael J. Shank

15 The Story Grid, by Shawn Coyne *

16 The Heaven of Mercury, Brad Watson

17 The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

18 To Kill a Mockingbird, by Nell Harper Lee

19 Story, by Robert McKee *

20 Twelve Days of Christmas, Debbie Macomber

21 The Snowden Files, Luke Harding

22 Please Understand Me II, David Keirsey *

23 Make Your Words Work, Gary Provost *

24 The Story Solution, Eric Edson *

25 Inner Drives, Pamela Jaye Smith *

26 The Grid, by Harry Hunsicker

27 A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

28 The Games People Play, by Dr. Eric Berne *

29 Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett

30 Twain’s End, by Lynn Cullen

31 Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

32 War and Turpentine, by Stefan Hertmans

33 Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

34 Mere Christianity, C S Lewis.

35 Moonglow, Michael Chabon

36 The Storied Life of A J Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin

37 A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles

38 Rules of Civility, Amor Towles

39 A Separate Peace, John Knowles

40 The Travelers, Chris Pavone

41 History of Wolves, Emily Fridlund

42 The Human Comedy, William Saroyan

43 The Emotional Craft of Fiction, Donald Maass *

44 Writing 21st Century Fiction, Donald Maass *

45 Writing The Breakout Novel, Donald Maass *

46 The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden

47 Caraval, Stephanie Garber

48 The Wolf in the Attic, Paul Kearney

49 The Daniel Plan, Rick Warren, Daniel Amen, Mark Hyman ^

50 The Barrowfields, Phillip Lewis

51 The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron *

52 The Call of the Wild, Jack London

53 How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck, Steve Stockman *

54 Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome

55 Finding Water, Julia Cameron *

56 A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick

57 Walking In This World, Julia Cameron *

58 Fearless Writing, William Kenower *

59 Elmet, Fiona Mozley

60 Let’s Write a Short Story, Joe Bunting *

61 The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert

62 A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway *

63 Uncommon Type, Tom Hanks

64 The Right to Write, Julia Cameron *

65 The Lodger, Marie Belloc Lowndes

66 Hemingway in Love, His Own Story, A.E. Hotchner

67 On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan

68 The Paris Wife, Paula McLain

69 The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, The Hemingway Library

70 To Have and Have Not, Ernest Hemingway

71 The Waters and the Wild, DeSales Harrison

72 Before We Were Yours, Lisa Wingate

73 A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

74 The Torrents of Spring, Ernest Hemingway

75 The Figure in the Carpet,  Henry James

76 The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald

77 The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway 

78 Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh

79 Animal Farm, George Orwell

 

(Have placed an asterisk * behind books that are about writing. Hemingway in A Moveable Feast calls them “Explainers.” (I put an asterisk by his, but it is less about writing than it is about his life). There are at least 20 of them on the list, which leads me to believe I should create a separate list about books for writing and leave them off the 101 books meant to help me become a better writer–as better writing is inspired through reading the works of other writers, not necessarily via books on craft, though books on craft certainly have bene helpful. Heather Sellers says during any writing project that one should not use more than one, if my memory holds. I’ve far exceeded that.)

^ The Daniel Plan is a book about eating healthy, though my nutritionist says they didn’t consult a nutritionist to write the book….