Great Reads—
Historical, Period & Otherwise
Caleb Carr. The Alienist. New York: Random House, 2006.
Willa Cather. Death Comes for the Archbishop. New York: Vintage Books, 1927/1971.
Miguel Cervantes. Don Quixote, translation by Edith Grossman. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003.
Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White. New York: Simon & Brown, 1860/2011.
Michael Cox. The Meaning of Night. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
Patrick deWitt. The Sisters Brothers. New York: Ecco, 2011.
E.L. Doctorow. The March. New York: Random House, 2005.
Ivan Doig. Last Bus to Wisdom. New York: Riverhead Books, 2015.
Emma Donoghue. Slammerkin. Boston, MA: Mariner Books, 2002.
Michel Faber. The Crimson Petal and the White. Fort Washington, PA: Harvest Books, 2003.
John Gardner. Grendel. New York: Vintage Books, 1971/1989.
Elizabeth Gilbert. The Signature of All Things. New York: Penguin Group, 2013.
Graham Greene. The End of the Affair. New York: Penguin Books, 1951/1999.
Sheri Holman. The Dress Lodger. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.
Barbara Kingsolver. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
Nicole Krauss. The History of Love. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.
Erik Larson. The Devil in the White City. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
Ariel Lawhon. Code Name Hélène. New York: Doubleday, 2020.
David Liss. A Conspiracy of Paper. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
Ian McEwan. Atonement. New York: Anchor Books, 2001.
Sandor Marai. Embers. New York: Vintage Books, 2001 (translation).
Valerie Martin. Property. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
Steven Millhauser. Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.
Sena Jeter Naslund. Ahab’s Wife or, the Star-Gazer. New York: Harper, 2000.
Alix Nathan. The Warlow Experiment. Anchor Books, 2019.
Joyce Carol Oates. Blonde. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.
Maggie O'Farrell. Hamnet. New York: Knopf, 2020.
Charles Portis. True Grit. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1968/2007.
Marilynne Robinson. Housekeeping. New York: Picador, 1980.
M. L. Stedman. The Light Between Oceans. Scribner, 2012.
Wallace Stegner. Angle of Repose. New York: Penguin, 1971/1992.
Darin Strauss. Chang and Eng. New York: Plume, 2001.
Italo Svevo. Zeno’s Conscience. translation by William Weaver. New York: Knopf, 2001/1923.
Graham Swift. Mothering Sunday. New York: Knopf, 2016.
Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow. New York: Penguin Random House, 2016.
Barry Unsworth. Sacred Hunger. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.
John Updike. Gertrude and Claudius. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
Sarah Waters. Fingersmith. New York: Riverhead Books, 2002.
Edith Wharton. The Age of Innocence. New York: Collier Books, 1920/1986.
Edmund White. Fanny. New York: Ecco, 2004.
Alice Winn. In Memoriam. New York: Knopf, 2023.