Stephen King, in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Scribner 2000), King lists some of his own favorite reading:
  1. Abrahams, Peter: A Perfect Crime
  2. Abrahams, Peter: Lights Out
  3. Abrahams, Peter: Pressure Drop
  4. Abrahams, Peter: Revolution #9
  5. Agee, James: A Death in the Family
  6. Bakis, Kirsten: Lives of the Monster Dogs
  7. Barker, Pat: Regeneration
  8. Barker, Pat: The Eye in the Door
  9. Barker, Pat: The Ghost Road
  10. Bausch, Richard: In the Night Season
  11. Blauner, Peter: The Intruder
  12. Bowles, Paul: The Sheltering Sky
  13. Boyle, T. Coraghessan: The Tortilla Curtain
  14. Bryson, Bill: A Walk in the Woods
  15. Buckley, Christopher: Thank You for Smoking
  16. Carver, Raymond: Where I’m Calling From
  17. Chabon, Michael: Werewolves in Their Youth
  18. Chorlton, Windsor: Latitude Zen
  19. Connelly, Michael: The Poet
  20. Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
  21. Constantine, K.C.: Family Values
  22. DeLillo, Don: Underworld
  23. DeMille, Nelson: Cathedral
  24. DeMille, Nelson: The Gold Coast
  25. Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist
  26. Dobyns, Stephen: Common Carnage
  27. Doyle, Roddy: The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
  28. Elkin, Stanley: The Dick Gibson Show
  29. Faulkner, William: As I Lay Dying
  30. Garland, Alex: The Beach
  31. George, Elizabeth: Deception on His Mind
  32. Gerritsen,Tess: Gravity
  33. Golding, William: Lord of the Flies
  34. Gray, Muriel: Furnace
  35. Greene, Graham: A Gun for Sale (a/k/a This Gun for Hire)
  36. Greene, Graham: Our Man in Havana
  37. Halberstam, David: The Fifties
  38. Hamill, Pete: Why Sinatra Matters
  39. Harris, Thomas: Hannibal
  40. Haruf, Kent: Plainsong
  41. Hoeg, Peter: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
  42. Hunter, Stephen: Dirty White Boys
  43. Ignatius, David: A Firing Offense
  44. Irving, John: A Widow for One Year
  45. Joyce, Graham: The Tooth Fairy
  46. Judd, Alan: The Devil’s Own Work
  47. Kahn, Roger: Good Enough to Dream
  48. Karr, Mary: The Liar’s Club
  49. Ketchum, Jack: Right to Life
  50. King, Tabitha: Survivor
  51. King, Tabitha: The Sky in the Water (unpublished)
  52. Kingsolver, Barbara: The Poisonwood Bible
  53. Krakauer, Jon: Into Thin Air
  54. Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird
  55. Lefkowitz, Bernard: Our Guys
  56. Little, Bentley: The Ignored
  57. Maclean, Norman: A River Runs Through it and Other Stories
  58. Maugham, W. Somerset: The Moon and Sixpence
  59. McCarthy, Cormac: Cities of the Plain
  60. McCarthy, Cormac: The Crossing
  61. McCourt, Frank: Angela’s Ashes
  62. McDermott, Alice: Charming Billy
  63. McDevitt, Jack: Ancient Shores
  64. McEwan, Ian: Enduring Love
  65. McEwan, Ian: The Cement Garden
  66. McMurtry, Larry: Dead Man’s Walk
  67. McMurtry, Larry and Diana Ossana: Zeke and Ned
  68. Miller, Walter M.: A Canticle for Leibowitz
  69. Oates, Joyce Carroll: Zombie
  70. O’Brien, Tim: In the Lake of the Woods
  71. O’Nan, Stewart: The Speed Queen
  72. Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient
  73. Patterson, Richard North: No Safe Place
  74. Price, Richard: Freedomland
  75. Proulx, Annie: Close Range: Wyoming Stories
  76. Proulx, Annie: The Shipping News
  77. Quindlen, Anna: One True Thing
  78. Rendell, Ruth: A Sight for Sore Eyes
  79. Robinson, Frank M.: Waiting
  80. Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  81. Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban
  82. Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
  83. Russo, Richard: Mohawk
  84. Schwartz, John Burnham: Reservation Road
  85. Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
  86. Shaw, Irwin: The Young Lions
  87. Slotkin, Richard: The Crater
  88. Smith, Dinitia: The Illusionist
  89. Spencer, Scott: Men in Black
  90. Stegner, Wallace: Joe Hill
  91. Tartt, Donna: The Secret History
  92. Tyler, Anne: A Patchwork Planet
  93. Vonnegut, Kurt: Hocus Pocus
  94. Waugh, Evelyn: Brideshead Revisited



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