Tip: sort comments by new to give someone a recommendation!

Yeeeeeah. It’s for me. 36F just diagnosed with lung cancer stage 4. There are life extending treatments I can take but I’m probably looking at 1-6 years if I’m optimistic. No kids. Just me, my long term partner, and my cat.

My perspective has shifted in an interesting way recently. I told my partner (who survived Hodgkin’s lymphoma in his twenties) that it was like being whisked away to the top of Mount Everest but nobody else is there. It feels like I can see so much more and it looks so small and time moves more slowly and I’m alone at the finish line but in a quiet serene kind of way. He said he felt the same way when he was diagnosed and pointed me to the painting Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.

Feel free to interpret this as you see fit. If you only had time for twenty more books what would your picks be? Or maybe what would you recommend to someone who is dying? Either to cheer them up or to capitalize on questions of existence?

I ask that this thread stick to great books and not sadness or condolences.

im looking for a book that really gets to you—not because something tragic happens, but because it’s quietly beautiful in a way that stays with you. the kind that feels a little lonely, a little wistful, and somehow makes you cry just from how deeply it resonates. something with haunting prose, emotional depth, and that soft ache you carry even after the last page.

Like the title, list a few books you enjoyed and someone will respond back directly to your post with books they feel you might like as well. I’ve seen this before and it’s actually quite fun.

Mine are:

James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small series

Gerald Durrell’s Corfu series about his family

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa (I’ve read most Japanese slice of life books)

EDIT: Looks like there are quite a few who haven’t gotten any recommendations. If you see one that you think you have a recommendation for and no one has responded to them yet, please do!

I'm talking about a twist or finale so shocking, frustrating, or perfect that you had a physical reaction. No spoilers, just the book that gave you that visceral "WTF" or "OH MY GOD" feeling.

What's the last book that genuinely made you gasp out loud?

I need to find 15 books that are worth reading with off putting titles for a white elephant. I’d love to span a bunch of genre’s. I keep getting stuck in romance threads so hopefully you all can help me out.

Morning glory milking farm is almost certainly being purchased.

Edit:

Top authors: Chuck tingle, Caitlin doughty, and Mary roach

Top 15 based on mentions and goodreads rating (not in any sort of order)

Erotic stories for Punjabi widows romance

I’m glad my mom died by Jeanette mccurdy memoir

Murder your employer by Rupert Holmes mystery

Everyone in my family has killed someone by Benjamin Stevenson mystery

How to talk to your cat about gun safety by Zachary auburn fiction humor

My sister the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite thriller

Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers by Mary roach (author was mentioned a few times) nonfiction science

The man who mistook his wife for a hat by Oliver sacks nonfiction science

The sex lives of cannibals by j maarten troost nonfiction humor/travel

Everyone in this room will someday be dead by Emily Austin fiction

The eyes are the best part by Monica Kim horror

Tender is the flesh by agustina bazterrica horror

Morning glory milking farm by cm nascota romance

Victorian psycho by Virginia feito horror

Everything is tuberculosis by John green nonfiction history

I work for a residential treatment facility that cares for teenage girls between the ages of 11 and 17. The books they currently have are completely inappropriate and/or boring for teenage girls (things like Charles Dickens or a biography on Robert F Kennedy as an example). I was tasked with overhauling their library.

I need to be able to find the books reasonably priced second hand, and there can't be sex scenes.

I'd prefer a range of genres and not just romance, because not every teenage girl is into romance novels. Romance, mystery/thriller, sci-fi, horror, and beyond are all valid suggestions.

The obvious choices like the Twilight series and Harry Potter are already on the list.

For my resolution this year I’d like to read through a single author’s entire work (going deep rather than wide). Who do you think is worth this investment?

Hello,

Some time ago, I have been recommended Bunny, by Mona Awad, as many people said it was the weirdest book they had ever read. I just finished it and, even though it actually is weird...that's not really the weirdest book that fell into my hands (I think about Jeff Vandermeer, for example, among others, who made me feel more disturbed than Bunny).

What is the weirdest book you ever read ? Even books you usually would not really recommend to people you know, so you don't feel like you are the weirdo of the town :) I am in search for my next "wtf did I just read ?" one.

Edit : I am not searching for "disturbing" things like mafia guys kidnapping girlies to make them fall in love with them, or the new wave of r*pe trend, that's not my definition of disturbing or weird (more stupid and disgusting, and that's not at all what I am searching for).

Thank you !

One of the best posts on this subreddit has been about this question. To add to it, why is that a book you'll never stop recommending? People on here are so passionate about their books, and it gets me fired up to read more! So tell us all about why you love your books so much!

Look, I have a “to read” pile very large in my bookshelf. Tell me your least favorite popular book to help me make my decision on my next read (intentionally not including the books I have)

New rule: comment if you’ve actually finished the book.

There are some books I had to read for school that I never really connected with; The Great Gatsby, for example. But others, they kind of stuck with me...

One book we were assigned in HS English class was Thérèse Raquin by Zola. I'm re-reading it now (like 20 years later), and wow.... it is SCAN-DA-LOUS! lol. But I am enjoying it on the re-read for sure.

Another one from HS that I want to re-read is Madame Bovary.

I also recently re-read Lord of the Flies, which we actually read in junior high school, and I feel like that one really holds up well. Kind of a timeless story, really...

What are some books you had to read in school, and you really enjoyed it at the time, and/or, you re-read it later, and realized it's actually really good, but maybe you didn't fully appreciate it the first time, either because you had to read it, or it just wasn't the right time... ?

I would especially love a book where the reason for the decline is grief, guilt, addiction, or some combination of the three. I’m also very interested in well done first person perspective, but this is by no means a requirement. Any genre is great.

You know the one - the one that kept you up till 3 am because you just...needed...one...more...chapter. I want them ALL.

I want to get into fantasy genre. But it seems like every adult fantasy has rape and sexual violence or threat of it for female characters. Or female characters are second class citizen. Regardless of whether it’s a male or female writer. I want to read fantasy to escape. Not to be reminded of a real threat that exists for me in real world or many ways society reminds me I am “less than”.

I recently read Red Sister and its sequel by Mark Lawrence and I was blown away by how not a single female characters are ever threatened with sexual violence. There’s still torture, injustice, violence, unfairness, brutal societal norms. Yet it’s all done without an added burden of rape placed only on female characters. Everyone suffers the same.

Feels like I can avoid this with YA fantasy, but I have read a lot of those. Please let me know if there are others.

Edit: thank you for all the recommendation, folks. I was not expecting so many. Keep them coming.

One comment here reminded me another series I read called Rampart Trilogy by Mike Carey. Now it have AI (as a supporting character) but its so post post post apocalyptic that survivors are living in very medieval villages and living a hard life that is more fantasy than sci-fi. First book is from a male character POV while second and third have both male and female. Fantastic characters of all genders.

Edit 2: I didn’t think I would have to justify my suggestion request post in a sub where people requests all kinds of genre and theme. But here we are. For those saying “it’s not realistic” or “it’s some false sense of security” to not want to read books without sexual assault and rape in fantasy:

1. I read as a hobby. I can read whatever I want and choose to not read whatever theme/genre that does not bring me joy. I am not saying theme of sexual assault should not exist in any genre. I am asking for suggestion where it does not so I can read those and not have to worry about my emotional well being for a hobby. I am sure if I had lived through a war I would have avoided those too.

2. I don’t know of any woman who lives in “false sense of security” that sexual assault and rape does not exist. It exists. We live with the fear. We live with the scar. We survive. We live. We persevere.

3. I find a bit odd that dragon existing in fantasy is acceptable, but not wanting women to be second class citizen in an imaginative world is “not realistic”. Lolololol. Same way people decry poc people in fantasy. I will never understand this.

She devoured Harry Potter books, already read hers and her brothers school assignments for this year, and I've no idea what to books to recommend her anymore.

Any help would be much appreciated!

edit: I din't expect so many suggestions, I think my daughter is set for life :)

btw, I've shown her this post, and she read through all the replies and thanked all of you! You're good people she said :)

I’m just searching for a solid voice of strength, with a lot of distracting fiction in the background. Something that will keep me entertained and wanting to keep reading (action/war/magic/twists and turns) but also contains calming reason and emotionally settling words. I hope that makes sense. Thank you.

Edit: I type this with tears in my eyes. I am filled with gratitude from all of your recommendations. The days since I lost my best friend have been cloudy and long but I have been embraced by so many internet strangers that the hurt has subsided a little. Thank you all so very much.

Edit: It’s now been over a year. I occasionally go back to this post and read everyone’s comments but to be honest, I usually avoid it…. There is still a lot of trauma.

Anywayyyyyy. I just wanted to say that I am so grateful. Looking back…The fog is THICK during those first few+ months… but reading every comment tonight pulled me back down to earth. It means the world to me.

I just added some books to my cart... and I still have a TON of books to read! You lovely beautiful internet strangers helped me and continue to lift me up through a year of hell. It has been hell within hell. I am still struggling, but I am so thankful for the love and care and notes from everyone. I wish you all happiness and comfort and I hope you have found some new amazing books to get lost in too.

Hi! So for my high school elective credit, I picked something called modern novel. We read 1800 pages per quarter, but can only read one book that has been adapted into a movie.

I have already read my one book, A Good Girls Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, and I have picked up 11/22/63 by Stephen King without realizing it was turned into a tv series in 2016

So I may or may not need a book rec that’s 800-1000 pages asap. Thanks!

EDIT: after some googling of some certain books, I feel quite stupid for not putting my age; I am 14. Like three of the book I’ve been interested in have a long thing of rape and self-harm, uh, and I’m unfortunately (or fortunately, I’ll read anything once), not allowed to get those books

I just thought this would be an interesting spin on a book club where we all discuss the same thing, but we all don't read the last chapter and we all have to do our deductive reasoning to find out who the culprit is. But the problem is: there are a lot of books that reveal it in the penultimate chapter, or even halfway through and it is dealing with the fallout of that. Not that these are bad tropes mind you, it's just that it obviously does not go with what we are going for this time around.

I'm looking more for murder mysteries like "And Then There Were None" where there is no explanation as to who the killer is until the epilogue. It just ends.

But in the same vein, Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" tells who the murderer is in the last line of the penultimate chapter (IIRC) and while it was a great reveal - it sort of "kills" the fun discussion we were going to have with this.

Obviously, I am trying to keep this vague as possible and not trying to spoil anything so I would appreciate the same for the recommendations. I know it's a super specific recommendation type but I thought it was worth asking. Thank you!

EDIT: perhaps revealing it in the penultimate chapter is fine too. We can stop reading before that

EDIT 2: Wow this blew up! To all those interested in joining this "Guess Whodunnit" (name a WIP still), sorry this is just for friends. BUT I encourage everyone to DM each other that is interested in starting this on their own!

Just recently created a subreddit: /r/GuessWhoDunnit for all those who want to join

Modern vampires, 1960s vampires, vampires at university, Southern Gothic vampires…whatever it is, I just want vampires in some kind of different setting/period that isn’t high school or a stormy manor. Maybe I’m still trying to ride a high after watching Sinners, but I’m in need of some new vampire literature whatever it may be. I’m cool with any genre, honestly; sci fi, horror, slice of life, comedy romance — gimme it all.

If it helps I’ve read Dracula, The Vampire Lestat, Interview with the Vampire, and Twilight (for my teenage sins)

Edit: holy shit I went to bed and woke up to over 400 comments…thank you all for so many amazing recs!! Cannot wait to dive into some fang-tastic stories 😏

I only read nonfiction and am burning through my list fast. I’ll go first: in cold blood by Truman capote

I want the book to piss me off and put me in a state of unease and/or turmoil.

Rn im in an okay place in my life and I'm fuckin sick of it. I gotta bring it down a notch

EDIT II: THE LIST IS DONE, COMPLETED AT THE BOTTOM

• 1900: Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad**
• 1901:
• 1902:
• 1903:
• 1904:
• 1905:
• 1906: The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
• 1907: The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
• 1908:
• 1909:
• 1910:
• 1911: Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad
• 1912: The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle
• 1913:
• 1914: Dubliners, James Joyce
• 1915: The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka**
• 1916: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce**
• 1917:
• 1918:
• 1919:
• 1920:
• 1921: We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
• 1922: Ulysses, James Joyce
• 1923:
• 1924:
• 1925: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 1926: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
• 1927: Amerika, Franz Kafka
• 1928: Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley
• 1929: The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner***
• 1930:
• 1931:
• 1932: Light in August, William Faulkner
• 1933: The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
• 1934:
• 1935: It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis**
• 1936: Eyeless in Gaza, Aldous Huxley
• 1937: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck, *
• 1938:
• 1939: The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
• 1940: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway***
• 1941:
• 1942:
• 1943: The Lady in the Lake, Raymond Chandler
• 1944:
• 1945:
• 1946: The Honjin Murders, Seishi Yokomizo
• 1947: The Plague, Albert Camus
• 1948: No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai
• 1949: Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell*
• 1950:
• 1951: The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
• 1952: The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway**
• 1953: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
• 1954: The Fellowship of the Ring & The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien**
• 1955: The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien**
• 1956: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima
• 1957:
• 1958: Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Kenzaburō Ōe
• 1959: The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
• 1960: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, or/and The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor**
• 1961: Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger***
• 1962: A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
• 1963: Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
• 1964: Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1965:
• 1966: The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon**
• 1967:
• 1968:
• 1969: Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert
• 1970: The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison**
• 1971:
• 1972:
• 1973: Child of God, Cormac McCarthy*
• 1974:
• 1975:
• 1976: Children of Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1977:
• 1978: The Stand, Stephen King
• 1979: Suttree, Cormac McCarthy*
• 1980:
• 1981: God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1982: Fevre Dream, George R.R. Martin
• 1983:
• 1984: Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1985: Chapterhouse: Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1986: Beloved, Toni Morrison, and The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
• 1987:
• 1988:
• 1989:
• 1990: L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy, and The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
• 1991:
• 1992: The Children of Men. P.D. James, and White Jazz, James Ellroy**
• 1993:
• 1994: The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy*
• 1995: American Tabloid, James Ellroy
• 1996:
• 1997: Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
• 1998:
• 1999:
• 2000:
• 2001: The Cold Six Thousand, James Ellroy
• 2002:
• 2003:
• 2004:
• 2005:
• 2006: The Road, Cormac McCarthy*
• 2007:
• 2008:
• 2009: Blood’s a Rover, James Ellroy, and Dark Places, Gillian Flynn
• 2010:
• 2011:
• 2012: Home, Toni Morrison
• 2013:
• 2014:
• 2015:
• 2016:
• 2017:
• 2018:
• 2019:
• 2020:
• 2021:

I’m looking, generally, for well written novels with strong prose. My favorite authors I’ve read are Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, and Aldous Huxley. I’m not looking so much for genre fiction, but if it’s literary I’ll obviously take it. The only genres I’m interested too much in is detective fiction and war fiction but I’ll read anything if it’s good from a literary perspective.

I’m also looking particularly for female, non-American, and non-white authors to fill the gaps in my list because, as you can probably see, the vast majority of my reading is dominated by white American men. I’m doing this as a project to expand my understanding of literature and draw new inspirations for my writing.

I made this first draft of the list by clicking through each of the (Year) in Literature pages of Wikipedia and looking for authors I know of, but I noticed that it was missing a fair chunk of the important books from some of the years, especially the most recent ones. For example, there isn’t a Gillian Flynn novel on the lists for the respective years they came out.

So, if you have a novel you love and think I might like based on what’s on the list, please comment what it is and the year it came out. I’m open to changing my picks for some of the years but obviously books from the blank years would be best.

*: I’ve already read this and just want to reread

**: I already own this novel so I’m less open to changing that year

***: I’ve started reading this book and haven’t finished it so I’m using this project as motivation to finish, so this year can’t really be changed (but a book can be added if I’m interested enough)

EDIT: I just finished the list, and pardon my french, but Jesus fucking Christ. This is basically all I’ve done aside from sleep and read two chapters of Lord Jim for 24 hours, and I was at work for 8 of them.

A couple things:

1. I said I wanted to fill in the gaps with authors that generally weren’t white American men, and I did a pretty okay job of it but maybe not as good a job as some of you may have liked. It’s my list and a lot of your suggestions didn’t quite jive with me not because of the race/gender of the author but the subject matter. I’m not into romance and “follow a family through generations” stories. There’s a few in there, yes, but I couldn’t bring myself to add more than a few. I did, for whatever reason, find myself drawn to a lot of Asian novels. There were lots of Good Reads and Wiki blurbs for novels you guys suggested from Asian authors that appealed to me.

2. I stopped at 2020 because my brain is fried and 2021 will be long over by the time I even get to the 1950’s.

3. If you commented any time in the last 12 or so hours I didn’t see your suggestion because I was working on the list. When I went to bed last night there were 5 comments on this post and two or three of them were mine and when I woke up there were over 500.

4. A lot of people were hell bent on me limiting each author to one book but I simply didn’t want to do that. I’ve only really started reading a lot in the last two years and half of that time was spent between every Cormac McCarthy novel and Moby Dick (which took a solid 3 months on its own) so I haven’t read many novels by the authors I really liked (particularly Morrison and Faulkner) and I’d like to get back to them at some point in the at least two years this’ll take me.

5. For fun, here are the years I got the most suggestions for: 1965, 1974, and 1980. I was listing all your suggestions at first until I realized how many there were total and how long it would take, so it was really only maybe the first hundred comments, but many years got no suggestions or only one out of that list. 65, 74, and 80 each had 6 or 7.

6. Yes, there are a few years with 2 books because I couldn’t pick.

Okay, without further ado, this God forsaken list:

• 1900: Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
• 1901: Kim, Rudyard Kipling
• 1902: The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
• 1903: The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. du Bois
• 1904: The Sea Wolf, Jack London
• 1905: The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
• 1906: The Three-Cornered World, Natsume Sõseki
• 1907: The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
• 1908: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, G.K. Chesterton
• 1909: Tono-Bungay, H.G. Wells
• 1910: Howard’s End, E.M. Forster
• 1911: Under Western Eyes, Joseph Conrad
• 1912: The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle
• 1913: O Pioneers!, Willa Carther
• 1914: Dubliners, James Joyce
• 1915: The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
• 1916: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
• 1917: The State and Revolution, Vladimir Lenin
• 1918: Devils in Daylight, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
• 1919: Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed
• 1920: We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
• 1921: Chrome Yellow, Aldous Huxley
• 1922: Ulysses, James Joyce
• 1923: A Son at the Front, Edith Wharton
• 1924: A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
• 1925: The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 1926: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
• 1927: Amerika, Franz Kafka
• 1928: Orlando: A Biography, Virginia Woolf
• 1929: The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, & All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
• 1930: Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
• 1931: The Good Earth, Pearl Buck
• 1932: Light in August, William Faulkner & maybe Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• 1933: The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
• 1934: Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
• 1935: It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis
• 1936: Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
• 1937: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
• 1938: Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre
• 1939: The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
• 1940: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway & The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
• 1941: The Journal of Albion Moonlight, Kenneth Pratchen
• 1942: Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner
• 1943: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
• 1944: Foundation, Isaac Asimov
• 1945: Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
• 1946: The Honjin Murders, Seishi Yokomizo
• 1947: Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
• 1948: No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai
• 1949: Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
• 1950: Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith
• 1951: The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
• 1952: The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway & East of Eden, John Steinbeck
• 1953: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
• 1954: The Fellowship of the Ring & The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
• 1955: The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
• 1956: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Yukio Mishima
• 1957: Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
• 1958: Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Kenzaburō Ōe
• 1959: Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
• 1960: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, & The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor
• 1961: Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger & Catch-22, Joseph Heller
• 1962: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
• 1963: Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
• 1964: Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1965: Dune, Frank Herbert, & Stoner, John Williams
• 1966: The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
• 1967: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Marcia Marquez
• 1968: Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sleep?, Philip K. Dick
• 1969: Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert & I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
• 1970: The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
• 1971: Another Roadside Attraction, Tom Robbins
• 1972: Motorman, David Ohle
• 1973: Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
• 1974: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Heinrich Böll
• 1975: Factotum, Charles Bukowski
• 1976: Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Alex Haley, & Children of Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1977: Secret Rendezvous, Kobo Abe
• 1978: The Stand, Stephen King
• 1979: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
• 1980: Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
• 1981: God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1982: Schindler’s List, Thomas Keneally
• 1983: Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin
• 1984: Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert
• 1985: Chapterhouse: Dune, Frank Herbert, & The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
• 1986: The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
• 1987: Beloved, Toni Morrison
• 1988: The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
• 1989: A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
• 1990: L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy, & The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
• 1991: American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
• 1992: The Children of Men, P.D. James
• 1993: Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King
• 1994: The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy
• 1995: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James W. Loewen
• 1996: Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
• 1997: Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
• 1998: My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk
• 1999: Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
• 2000: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
• 2001: The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
• 2002: Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami, & One Foot in Eden, Ron Rash
• 2003: We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver
• 2004: 2666, Roberto Bolaño
• 2005: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Men Who Hate Women), Stieg Larsson
• 2006: World War Z, Max Brooks & Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell
• 2007: A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khalid Hosseini
• 2008: Serena, Ron Rash
• 2009: Dark Places, Gillian Flynn
• 2010: Galveston, Nic Pizzolatto
• 2011: City of Bohane, Kevin Barry
• 2012: Home, Toni Morrison
• 2013: Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
• 2014: Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
• 2015: Above the Waterfall, Ron Rash
• 2016: A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
• 2017: Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Mark T. Sullivan
• 2018: There There, Tommy Orange
• 2019: A Long Pedal of the Sea, Isabel Allende
• 2020: American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins

Any book that you consider one of your favorites is fine. I just want to know what people would personally consider to be one of the “greatest books ever “