Rus VanWestervelt

THE LIST: Books I recommend

The following is an ever-growing lists of books I have read and recommend to others. Disclaimer: Some of these books are YA, and some are not. Proceed with caution and check the titles before you actually check them out. I’m happy to chat about any of the titles! Feel free to reach out to me at thebaltimorewriter@gmail.com.

Novellas, Novels, Epic Poems, Plays, And Nonfiction:

  1. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 
  2. Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
  3. Adams, Richard. Watership Down.
  4. Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women.
  5. Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. 
  6. Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak.
  7. Angelou, Maya. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
  8. Anonymous. Beowulf.
  9. —. Sir Gawain And The Green Knight.
  10. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale.
  11. Austen, Jane. Emma.
  12. —. Pride and Prejudice.
  13. —. Sense And Sensibility.
  14. Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On The Mountain. 
  15. Bardugo, Leigh. Six of Crows.
  16. Baum, L Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
  17. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting For Godot.
  18. Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 
  19. —. The Illustrated Man.
  20. —. The Martian Chronicles.
  21. —. Something Wicked This Way Comes. 
  22. —. Zen in the Art of Writing.
  23. Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.
  24. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. 
  25. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Sonnets From The Portuguese.
  26. Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange.
  27. Buck, Pearl. The Good Earth.
  28. Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden.
  29. Butler, Octavia. Kindred.
  30. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero of a Thousand Faces.
  31. —. The Power of Myth.
  32. Camus, Albert. The Stranger.
  33. Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood.
  34. Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game.
  35. Carroll, Lewis. Alice In Wonderland.
  36. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. 
  37. Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard. 
  38. Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. 
  39. Christie, Agatha. And Then There Were None. 
  40. Cisneros, Sandra. The House On Mango Street.
  41. Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. 
  42. Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. 
  43. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between The World And Me. 
  44. Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. 
  45. Collins, Wilkie. The Woman In White.
  46. Conrad, Joseph. Heart Of Darkness.
  47. Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last Of The Mohicans.
  48. Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge Of Courage.
  49. Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. 
  50. Cunningham, Michael. The Hours.
  51. Dahl, Roald. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.
  52. Dante, Alighieri. Inferno.
  53. Dashner, James. The Maze Runner.
  54. De Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote.
  55. De Saint-Exupery, Antoine. The Little Prince. 
  56. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
  57. Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol.
  58. —. Great Expectations.
  59. —. Oliver Twist.
  60. —. A Tale Of Two Cities. 
  61. Doerr, Anthony. All The Light We Cannot See. 
  62. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov.
  63. —. Crime And Punishment.
  64. Douglass, Frederick. The Narrative Life Of Frederick Douglass, An 

American Slave. 

  1. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes.
  2. —. The Hound of the Baskervilles.
  3. Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy.
  4. Dumas, Alexandre. The Count Of Monte Cristo.
  5. —. The Three Musketeers.
  6. Eliot, George. The Mill On The Floss.
  7. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man.
  8. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Selected Essays.
  9. Euripedes. Alcestis.
  10. Everett, Percival. James.
  11. Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying.
  12. —. The Sound And The Fury.
  13. Fielding, Henry. The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling.
  14. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 
  15. Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary.
  16. Follett, Ken. The Pillars Of The Earth.
  17. Frank, Anne. The Diary Of Anne Frank.
  18. Gilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
  19. Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers.
  20. Golden, Arthur. Memoirs Of A Geisha.
  21. Golding, William. Lord Of The Flies.
  22. Goldman, William. The Princess Bride.
  23. Green, John. The Fault In Our Stars. 
  24. Grimes, Nikki. One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance.
  25. Gruen, Sara. Water For Elephants.
  26. Haig, Matt. The Midnight Library.
  27. Hannah, Kristin. The Nightingale.
  28. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin In The Sun. 
  29. Hardy, Thomas. Tess Of The D’Ubervilles.
  30. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. 
  31. Heller, Joseph. Catch 22.
  32. Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell To Arms.
  33. —. The Old Man And The Sea.
  34. Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha.
  35. Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken. 
  36. Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders. 
  37. Homer. The Iliad.
  38. —. The Odyssey.
  39. Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. 
  40. Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.
  41. —. Les Miserables.
  42. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  43. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World.
  44. Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House.
  45. Irving, John. A Prayer For Owen Meany.
  46. Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting Of Hill House. 
  47. James, Henry. The Portrait Of A Lady.
  48. —. The Turn Of The Screw.
  49. Joyce, James. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man.
  50. Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth.
  51. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis.
  52. Keller, Helen. The Story Of My Life. 
  53. Kerouac, Jack. On The Road.
  54. Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
  55. Keyes, Daniel. Flowers For Algernon. 
  56. Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life Of Bees.
  57. King, Stephen. 11/22/63. 
  58. —. Fairy Tale.
  59. —. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft.
  60. —. The Shining. 
  61. —. The Stand.
  62. Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible.
  63. Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior.
  64. Klune, TJ. The House in the Cerulean Sea.
  65. —. We Burned So Bright.
  66. Krakauer, Jon. Into The Wild. 
  67. —. Into Thin Air.
  68. Kuang, RF. Babel.
  69. Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. 
  70. Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
  71. Larsson, Stieg. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. 
  72. Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. 
  73. L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle In Time.
  74. Leroux, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera.
  75. Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles Of Narnia. 
  76. Lewis, John. Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America.
  77. London, Jack. The Call Of The Wild.
  78. Lorde, Audre. The Collected Poems Of Audre Lorde.
  79. —. Sister Outsider.
  80. Lowry, Lois. The Giver.
  81. Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte D’Arthur.
  82. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years Of Solitude.
  83. Martel, Yann. The Life Of Pi. 
  84. Martin. George R.R. Game Of Thrones.  
  85. McCarthy, Cormac. The Road.
  86. McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes.
  87. McGuire, Seanan. Every Heart A Doorway (The Wayward Children Series)
  88. Melville, Herman. Bartleby, The Scrivener.
  89. —. Moby Dick.
  90. Michaelides, Alex. The Silent Patient. 
  91. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible.
  92. —. Death Of A Salesman.
  93. Milton, John. Paradise Lost.
  94. Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With The Wind.
  95. Montgomery, LM. Anne Of Green Gables.
  96. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 
  97. Moore, Alan. V For Vendetta. 
  98. —. Watchmen. 
  99. Morgenstern, Erin. The Night Circus. 
  100. Morrison, Toni. Beloved.
  101. Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. 
  102. Nazemian, Abdi. Like A Love Story.
  103. Niffeneger, Audrey. The Time Traveller’s Wife.
  104. O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.
  105. O’Farrell, Maggie. Hamnet.
  106. O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
  107. Orwell, George. Animal Farm. 
  108. —. 1984.
  109. Owens, Delia. Where The Crawdads Sing.
  110. Paine, Thomas. Common Sense.
  111. Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago.
  112. Patterson, James. Along Came A Spider. 
  113. Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper. 
  114. Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar.
  115. Poe, Edgar Allan. Great Tales And Poems. 
  116. Pratchett, Terry. The Colour Of Magic. 
  117. Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone. 
  118. Proust, Marcel. Swann’s Way.
  119. Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying Of Lot 49.
  120. Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet On The Western Front.
  121. Reynolds, Jason. Long Way Down.
  122. Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters To A Young Poet.
  123. Riordan, Rick. The Lightning Thief. 
  124. Rostand, Edmond. Cyrano De Bergerac.
  125. Rothfuss, Patrick. The Name Of The Wind. 
  126. Rubin, Rick. The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
  127. Saenz, Benjamin Alire. Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The 
    1. Universe. 
  128. Salinger, JD. The Catcher In The Rye. 
  129. Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are.
  130. Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
  131. —. Hamlet.
  132. —. King Lear.
  133. —. Macbeth.
  134. —. Othello.
  135. —. Romeo And Juliet. 
  136. —. The Tempest.
  137. Shankar, Sri Sri Ravi. Celebrating Silence: Excerpts From Five Years Of 

Weekly Knowledge.

  1. Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.
  2. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 
  3. Shusterman, Neal. Scythe.
  4. —. Unwind. 
  5. Silverstein, Shel. The Giving Tree.
  6. —. Where The Sidewalk Ends. 
  7. Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks. 
  8. Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. 
  9. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich. 
  10. Sophocles. Antigone.
  11. —. Oedipus Rex.
  12. Steinbeck, John. East Of Eden.
  13. —. The Grapes Of Wrath. 
  14. —. Of Mice And Men. 
  15. Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.
  16. —. Treasure Island. 
  17. Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. 
  18. Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
  19. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
  20. Strasser, Todd. The Wave.
  21. Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels. 
  22. Tan, Amy The Joy Luck Club.
  23. Taylor, Laini. Strange The Dreamer. 
  24. Thackeray, William Makepiece. Vanity Fair. 
  25. Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give.
  26. Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood In The Water: The Attica Prison Uprising 

And Its Legacy. 

  1. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden.
  2. Tolkien, JRR. The Fellowship Of The Ring. 
  3. —. The Hobbit. 
  4. —. The Return Of The King. 
  5. —. The Two Towers. 
  6. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina.
  7. —. War And Peace.
  8. Twain, Mark. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.
  9. —. The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer.
  10. Underhill, Edward. The In-Between Bookstore.
  11. VanWestervelt, Rus. Fossil Five.
  12. Verghese, Abraham. Cutting For Stone.
  13. Virgil. The Aeneid.
  14. Voltaire. Candide.
  15. von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Faust.
  16. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five.
  17. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple.
  18. Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. 
  19. Webb, Wendy. Daughters of the Lake.
  20. Weir, Andy. The Martian. 
  21. —. Project Hail Mary.
  22. Wells, HG. The War of the Worlds.
  23. Wiesel, Elie. Night. 
  24. Wharton, Edith. The House Of Mirth.
  25. White, EB. Charlotte’s Web.
  26. White, TH. The Once And Future King. 
  27. Whitman, Walt. Leaves Of Grass.
  28. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance Of Being Ernest. 
  29. —. The Picture Of Dorian Gray.
  30. Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie.
  31. Wolfe, Tom. Bonfire Of The Vanities.
  32. Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman.
  33. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. 
  34. —. To The Lighthouse.
  35. Wordsworth, William. The Excursion.
  36. —. Lyrical Ballads.
  37. Wright, Richard. Native Son. 
  38. Yoon, Nicola. The Sun Is Also A Star. 
  39. Yousafzai, Malala. I Am Malala. 
  40. Zusack, Marcus. The Book Thief. 

Poems, Essays, And Short Stories:

  1. Baldwin, James. “Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone.”
  2. Bierce, Ambrose. “The Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.”
  3. Bradbury, Ray. “There Will Come Soft Rains.”
  4. Cather, Willa. “Paul’s Case.”
  5. Connell, Richard. “The Most Dangerous Game.”
  6. Crane, Stephen. “The Open Boat.”
  7. Eliot, TS. “The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock.”
  8. —. “The Wasteland.”
  9. Faulkner, William. “A Rose For Emily.”
  10. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
  11. Gorman, Amanda. “The Hill We Climb.”
  12. Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.”
  13. Henry, O. “The Gift Of The Magi.”
  14. Irving, Washington. “The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow.”
  15. —. “Rip Van Winkle.”
  16. Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.”
  17. Lawrence, DH. “The Rocking-Horse Winner.”
  18. London, Jack. “To Build A Fire.”
  19. Munro, HH. “The Open Window.”
  20. Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
  21. O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.”
  22. Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask Of Amontillado.”
  23. —. “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.”
  24. —. “The Murders In The Rue Morgue.”
  25. —. “The Raven.”
  26. —. “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
  27. Stockton, Frank R. “The Lady, Or The Tiger?”
  28. Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.”
  29. Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”
  30. Thurber, James. “The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty.”
  31. Twain, Mark. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County.”
  32. Wordsworth, William. “The World Is Too Much With Us.”