Way back in 2009 I published a series of posts counting down my 100 Favorite Books of All Time. I figure the list is way overdue for an update. This time I won’t be counting it down, just one big list in alphabetical order. Some of the books are classic works of literature and others just have a personal connection or influenced me in some way. But I love every one of them.
I’m going to start a tradition of revising this list every year on my birthday (yes, today I turn 47), so keep an eye out every November 18th to see how this list changes.
Note: Books that are new to the 2020 list are marked in bold. Series of books are counted as one.
- 1939: Lost World of Fair by David Gelernter
- A Clearing In The Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century by Witold Rybczynski
- Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
- The Appalachian Trail Reader by David Emblidge
- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M.T. Anderson
- Ball Four by Jim Bouton
- The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson
- Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Book of Ages : The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Code name Verity (Young Pilots Series) by Elizabeth Wein
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
- The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things by Barry Glassner
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- The Day I Swapped My Father for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaimon
- The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
- Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel Series)by Connie Willis
- The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists by Taras Grescoe
- The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next series)by Jasper Fforde
- Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
- Five Points by Tyler Anbinder
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Gregor the Overlander (Underland Chronicles series)by Suzanne Collins
- A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts by Joseph M. Bagley, Jr.
- Holy spokes : The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels by Laura Everett
- Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
- How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built by Stewart Brand
- How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll : An Alternative History of American Popular Music by Elijah Wald
- How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev
- In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepard
- In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life by James Deetz
- In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
- Irish America: Coming Into Clover by Maureen Dezell
- Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman
- Jazz by Toni Morrison
- Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
- Joshua: A Parable for Today by Joseph F. Girzone
- Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park
- King Lear by William Shakespeare
- Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie
- Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk
- Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh
- The Lord of the Rings (Series)by J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Lost Continent : Travels in Small-Town America (Travel book series) by Bill Bryson
- Looking for America on the New Jersey Turnpike by Angus K. Gillespie
- A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg by Richard Handler
- The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
- The Once and Future King by T.H. White
- Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
- A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn
- Persepolis (Series) by Marjane Satrapi
- Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
- The Portable Door (J. W. Wells & Co. series)by Tom Holt
- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
- Reign of Error : The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools by Diane Ravitch
- The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
- Rise Up Singing by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson
- The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City, 1763-1834 by Paul A. Gilje
- Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks
- Seeing Things by Seamus Heaney
- Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- Sophies Choice by William Styron
- Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens
- Tales of the City (Series)by Armistead Maupin
- Talking to Girls about Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield
- Tattoos on the Heart by Greg Boyle
- The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- This is an Uprising : How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century by Mark Engler
- Through a Window by Jane Goodall
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
- Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
- The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz
- We Can’t Eat Prestige: The Women Who Organized Harvard by John Hoerr
- Winnie The Pooh (Series)by A.A. Milne
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
- You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting
- The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
What are your favorite books? Do you have a list? Please share in the comments!
