JUST LISTS

Welcome to this year's Just Lists thread.


(source)

Please come and help others research possibilities, collate options, refine results - or ask for help doing so - or just add in a book list of interest!

Love the cartoon - so appropriate

>1 wandering_star: 🙂

I've noticed a lot of publications do "books to look forward to" lists at the beginning of the year, so I compiled a few here. If anything catches your interest or stands out, let me know!

- The Guardian, "The books to look out for in 2026"
- The Guardian, What to read in 2026: recommendations from booksellers and publishers in Abuja, Nairobi and Brighton
- BBC, 12 books you need to read in 2026
- TIME, The 36 Most Anticipated Books of 2026
- New Scientist, The best new popular science books of 2026
- New Scientist, The best new science fiction books of 2026
- People Magazine, PEOPLE Picks Our Most-Anticipated Books of 2026
- The New Arab, The most anticipated books of 2026: 26 fiction and non-fiction must-reads
- Book Riot, 2026’s Most Anticipated Books That Are Perfect for Book Clubs
- Publishers Weekly, Spring 2026 Fiction & Nonfiction Preview: Literary Fiction
- Vulture, 23 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2026
- Irish Independent, New Irish books on the block in 2026 – buzzy novels to add to your reading list
- Tatler Asia, Upcoming releases: 13 most anticipated historical fiction books of 2026

>4 rasdhar: a list of lists! We going exponential! I'll come back and overwhelm myself with this all this later. Everywhere i find some of these and they leave me in a fascinated state of gawking FOMO.

>4 rasdhar: Looks like there is something for everyone here. Some of these are behind a paywall for me.

Books by Chilean authors

Bad Vibes by Alberto Fuguet
Camanchaca by Diego Zúñiga
Chilco by Daniela Catrileo
The Cracks We Bear by Catalina Infante
The Days of the Rainbow by Antonio Skármeta
House of Mist by María Luisa Bombal
How to Order the Universe by María José Ferrada
Humiliation: Stories by Paulina Flores
In the Distance with You by Carla Guelfenbein
Madwomen: Poems of Gabriela Mistral by Gabriela Mistral
Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbé
Nervous System: a novel by Lina Meruane
Never Did the Fire by Diamela Eltit
The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán
The Shadow of What We Were by Luis Sepúlveda
The Son of Black Thursday by Alejandro Jodorowsky
The Touch System by Alejandra Costamagna
Voyager: Constellations of Memory by Nona Fernández
Ways of Going Home by Alejandro Zambra
Yesterday by Juan Emar

>7 ELiz_M: This is super helpful for those of us who might be participating in Paul's Chilean Authors challenge this month. I have only read one book by Bolaño, so this list is perfect. Thank you

ETA: Are these all books you have read?

>8 labfs39: Not at all. When you mentioned Chile books, I realized I hadn't really looked at options for my global reading challenge, so....

I love my library catalog -- I can search for "Chile" and then also filter by target age (18+), language of item, and fiction. Then I scroll the results and research the ones that look interesting.

Nice! Out of this list, I have read - and liked - Gabriela Mistral's poetry (the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, and now she's half-forgotten...) and The Shadow of What We Were by Luis Sepúlveda. I am surprised Pablo Neruda isn't on the list. One author that might appeal to people looking for genre (adventure, fantasy) books is Gilberto Villarroel. I went to a talk he gave a couple of years ago: he is very interesting and personable. I can't say Lord Cochrane et le trésor de Selkirk was quite to my taste - too many derring-dos, sea creatures, pirates and silliness -, but I'm sure others would love it, and you definitely learn a lot about Chilean and South-American history!

>7 ELiz_M: ❤️

>9 ELiz_M: i like your method

>7 ELiz_M: The Obscene Bird of Night is very high (possibly first) on my list of favorite South American novels, and it wouldn't take much to encourage me to read it again.

>7 ELiz_M: Thanks for this list. My library has How to order the universe, so I'm going to check that out. I'm also curious about The days of the rainbow and Madwomen: poems of Gabriela Mistral, which I would have to purchase to read.

>12 kidzdoc: This is a title that I keep encountering. I am intrigued and intimidated by it.

The long list for the the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2026 edition had been posted mid-December (here. Most of these will never be translated but I tend to keep an eye on the award:

(Author, English translation of the title*, country, publisher)
Ahmad Abdulatif , The Origin of Species, Egypt, Hayat Publications
Omaima Al-Khamis, The Al Musharaq Family’s Aunt, Saudi Arabia, Dar Al Saqi
Abdelouahab Aissaoui, Grandma Touma's Cord, Algeria, Tashkeel
Najwa Barakat, The Absence of Mai, Lebanon, Dar al-Adab
Nizar Chakroun, Days of the Murdered Fatimid, Tunisia, Dar Safsafa
Marwan Al-Ghafouri, Five Houses for God and a Room for My Grandmother, Yemen, Dar Al Saqi
Abdelsalem Ibrahim, The Solitude of the Kangaroo, Egypt, Tanmia
Doaa Ibrahim, A Cloud Above My Head, Egypt, Dar al-Ain
Diaa Jubaili, The Seer, Iraq, Dar Rashm
Said Khatibi, I Resist the River’s Course, Algeria, Hachette Antoine
Abdelmajid Sebbata, In the Labyrinths of Mr. F N, Morocco, Al-Markez al-Thaqafi al-Arabi
Khalil Sweileh, Water of the Bride, Syria, All Prints
Sherifa Al-Toubi, The Flag: The Blowing of the Wind, Oman, Alaan Publishing
Abdo Wazen, Life Is Not a Novel, Lebanon, Al-Mutawassit
Amin Zaoui, Siesta Dream, Algeria, Dar al-Ain
Essam El Zayaat, Hiding in a Hamster Wheel, Egypt, Dar Dawen

* These titles can be misleading when looking for a book as they are direct translation unless the book is already translated. So how the book appears in English (if it does) can be different.

Previously nominated works and winners are listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Prize_for_Arabic_Fiction (and the LT award's page has (most) of the ones that are in the DB: https://www.librarything.com/award/4903/International-Prize-for-Arabic-Fiction )

The 3 winners I had read (Voices of the Lost, The Italian and Frankenstein in Baghdad) and the one nominee (Brooklyn Heights) were all very good so I tend to keep an eye on the award (and look out for translations popping up). I do have a few more lined up I need to get around to.

>12 kidzdoc: >14 ELiz_M: I've had The Obscene Bird of Night on my shelf for years (I think on your recommendation Daryl). Perhaps this will be the year that I read it.

>15 AnnieMod: Whether it is translated as this or not, I love this title: Five Houses for God and a Room for My Grandmother

A caucus of indie publishers has started to put out weekly lists of their best sellers:
https://www.indiepubs.org/top40

Books mentioned in The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Cutting for Stone
State of Wonder
Murder on the Orient Express
Crossing to Safety
Blue Nights
Ulysses
Never Let Me Go
The Remains of the Day
The Orphan Masters Son
84, Charing Cross Road
The Year of Magical Thinking
The Emperor of All Maladies
Stoner
Outlander
Bel Canto

>19 ELiz_M: Interesting selection. I'm looking forward to when my book club reads The Correspondent later this year.

>19 ELiz_M: love this!

>7 ELiz_M: Fantastic, thank you! I've only read one book by Skarmeta, that was last year, and one by None Fernandez. Looking forward to exploring this list.

108 Indian language books translated into English and published in 2025
https://scroll.in/article/1089636/a-reader-compiled-a-list-of-104-indian-languag...

Of which I have read none! The article unfortunately is a collection of links to Twitter/X but I'll try and make a proper list here when I get the time.

Some award lists. 1st - one highlighting ten books from small presses

The Republic of Consciousness Prize, United States and Canada, has announced its fourth annual longlist of 10 titles from independent presses, celebrating the commitment of small presses to exceptional works of literary merit.

https://www.republicofconsciousnessprize-usa.com/news

The National Book Critics Circle Awards has come out with its short lists. There are numerous categories. A favorite of mine is on there (Audtion), as is our group read book by Greg Grandin America, América: A New History of the New World

https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/

>25 dchaikin: I'm pleased that the two books I'm currently reading were chosen for the shortlists in different categories, Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs (John Leonard Prize), and America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin (Nonfiction Prize).

Argh! I can only read one book at a time and there are so many I want to get to!

On the above lists Antidote, We do not part, Mother Mary comes to me, and Baldwin a love story.

>26 kidzdoc: i saw that!

>27 markon: and i feel this 100%

Philip K. Dick Award is given to a distinguished work of science fiction originally published in paperback form in the United States. The paperback requirement eliminates most of the big names and as it is science fiction only, the fantasy and horror and hybrids are also out allowing other works to shine. The list also comes so early in the year that it tends to highlight works that we may hear about later in the awards season (plus I like their selections most years).

2026 nominees (announced about a week ago):

Sunward by William Alexander
Outlaw Planet by M. R. Carey
Casual by Koji A. Dae
The Immeasurable Heaven by Caspar Geon
Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha
Scales by Christopher Hinz
City of All Seasons by Oliver K. Langmead & Aliya Whiteley

Considering my abysmal reading year in 2025, it is not surprising that I had read exactly none of these. On my way to fix that though.

The LT award record is here: https://www.librarything.com/award/942/Philip-K-Dick-Award

The Locus recommended Reading list is out (including a brand new category for translated novels).

https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-recommended-reading/

If you never heard of it, this is the genres’ big list (where the genres in question are science fiction, fantasy and horror).

>30 AnnieMod: The Locus is a Fanzine? Its an extensive list do you AnnieMod plan to read any?

>31 baswood: It is the trade journal of the genres - it used to be fanzine, then Semiprozine (won most Hugos in the respective categories when it was eligible there) and now I am not sure what it technically is except "the magazine for Speculative fiction reviews, news and lists".

The February "Recommended Reading" list had been going on since at least 2000 (here is the best of 2000 https://www.locusmag.com/2000/Reviews/BestOf2000.html for example). I like opening some older lists and seeing what actually made an impact - especially from the First Novel category.

What I plan to read from the list is a question I try not to even ask myself. If I have time, I'd read all the SF novels, all the first time novels (meeting new authors is fun) and all the short fiction plus a smattering from the rest of the categories. The reality is that it probably won't happen but a lot of them will start popping up on my thread as the year progresses (and I had already read some). Not everything will be for everyone but it is a useful resource to cut through the huge number of books being published. And of course, some books and stories were missed...

>32 AnnieMod: Thanks Annie thats useful to know

Announcing the Longlist for the 2026 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books)
Brother Brontë by Fernando A. Flores (MCD)
The Devil Is a Southpaw by Brandon Hobson (Ecco)
The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World)
The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Heart the Lover by Lily King (Grove Press)
Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore (Tin House)
An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park (Random House)
Small Scale Sinners by Mahreen Sohail (A Public Space Books)

https://www.penfaulkner.org/2026/02/02/announcing-the-longlist-for-the-2026-pen-...

I decide to look for a list of best African fiction and found Brittle Paper's best of 2025 here.

>35 markon: While looking for something else, I found Africa39: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa39 which can also give you some ideas.

>35 markon: This looks fabulous!! Thanks, Ardene; I'll go through that list soon.

>36 AnnieMod: Thanks for reminding me of Africa39, Annie. I did look at several of the authors on that list when it was announced in 2014, although I can't remember which ones offhand.

>30 AnnieMod: Wow, that’s quite a list! Tempting and daunting. I think I may have read one of those, and heard of a couple.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Longlist 2026
https://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/announcing-the-2026-longlist/

The Macrae Burnet book was already on my radar, but I am very interested in The Two Roberts and Helm as well.

VENETIAN VESPERS by John Banville (Faber & Faber)
THE TWO ROBERTS by Damian Barr (Canongate)
EDEN’S SHORE by Oisín Fagan (John Murray Press)
HELM by Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber)
THE PRETENDER Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)
BOUNDARY WATERS Tristan Hughes (Parthian Books)
THE MATCHBOX GIRL Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury)
EDENGLASSIE Melissa Lucashenko (Oneworld Publications)
BENBECULA Graeme Macrae Burnet (Polygon)
ONCE THE DEED IS DONE Rachel Seiffert (Virago)
THE ARTIST Lucy Steeds (John Murray Press)
SEASCRAPER Benjamin Wood (Viking)

>39 rasdhar: I read Venetian Vespers and Seascraper last year and enjoyed both. I have Helm on my list. This looks an enticing list and will revisit.

The 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction Longlist has been announced:

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: China’s Stolen Children and a Story of Separated Twins by Barbara Demick
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet
Don’t Let It Break You, Honey: A Memoir About Saving Yourself by Jenny Evans
Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health by Daisy Fancourt
With the Law on Our Side: How the Law Works for Everyone and How We Can Make It Work Better by Lady Hale
To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Creativity and Race in the 21st Century by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason
Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
Ask Me How It Works: Love in an Open Marriage by Deepa Paul
Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
The Genius of Trees: How Trees Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World by Harriet Rix
Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War by Jane Rogoyska
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Finding Albion: Myth, Folklore and the Quest for a Hidden Britain by Zakia Sewell
To Exist As I Am: A Doctor’s Notes on Recovery and Radical Acceptance by Grace Spence Green
Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century by Ece Temelkuran
Indignity: A Life Reimagined by Lea Ypi

>39 rasdhar: The Two Roberts was already on my Wishlist. It might be time to commit (if I can find a copy)

ETA There's a catalogue listed in LT of the only show they gave together: https://www.librarything.com/work/15974067/t/The-Two-Roberts-Robert-Colquhoun-an...

>41 kidzdoc: ooh… Thanks Darryl!

>41 kidzdoc: Thanks for posting this! I have my eye on the Harriet Rix book about trees!

Everytime I think I've heard of all the major literary prizes, I learn about another one and then browse through the longlist avariciously. This week I heard of the Duff Cooper Prize, which has apparently been awarded annually for the past 70 years, for "an outstanding work of nonfiction that combines originality, rigour and a strong narrative drive." Past winners include Seamus Heaney, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, and so on (I was relieved to see some women because this year's shortlist is exclusively male). Author and book notes from the prize site.

https://duffcooperprize.org/2026-shortlist/

This is the 2026 shortlist:

Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler - Tim Bouverie (Bodley Head)
A Scandal in Königsberg - Christopher Clark (Allen Lane)
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief - Richard Holmes (Harper Collins)
John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs - Ian Leslie (Faber & Faber)
Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe - Adam Weymouth (Hutchinson Heinemann)

I'm really tempted by the Tennyson bio, which apparently examines closely his interaction with three scientific concepts emerging contemporaneously: biological evolution, planetary extinction, and the idea of a boundless universe, and how they influenced his verse. Similarly, interested in Weymouth's book which follows a GPS tracked wolf that travelled over the Alps into Italy, marking the return of wolves to that region after a century.

One more: the prize formerly known as the Republic of Consciousness Award, which focuses on small presses and their publications, is now The Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize after partnering with Queen Mary University, Belfast. I really enjoy this one because it pays attention to books that might not catch the attention of the publishing-reviewing complex and gives small presses their due.

https://www.republicofconsciousness.com/2026-longlist-announcement

Toothpull of St. Dunstan by Kevin Davey from Aaaargh! Press
Darryl by Jackie Ess, from Divided Publishing
Spit by David Brennan, from époque press
The First Jasmines by Saima Begum, from Hajar Press
The Weasel and the Whore by Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas, translated by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue, from Héloïse Press
Mistress Koharu by Noboru Tsujihara, translated by Kalau Almony, from Honford Star
Ghost Driver by Nell Osborne, from Moist Books
On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, translated by Katharine Halls, from Peirene Press
Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson, from Small Axes/HopeRoad
Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group by Rebecca Gransden, from Tangerine Press

>43 dchaikin: You're welcome, Dan.

>44 rasdhar: You're welcome, Rasdhar. I had heard of Mother Mary Comes to Me and To Exist As I Am before this longlist was announced, and I'll look for those ones first, especially Roy's memoir.

>45 rasdhar:, >46 rasdhar: Thanks for posting those lists. There are several book prizes that I followed which are sadly no longer in existence, particularly the Wellcome Book Prize for the best books about medicine and public health that were published in the UK, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. After the Booker Prize was opened up to non-Commonwealth authors the number of books from African, Asian and Caribbean writers has sharply and sadly fallen off.

>46 rasdhar: - I generally follow the US/Canada Republic of Consciousness prize, but your list has given me some more small presses and books to check out.

The 2025 Lambda Literary Awards:

https://lambdaliterary.org/awards/2025-winners/

>49 nancyewhite: interesting. Is it an annual award? (The Safekeep is 2024, for example)

>50 dchaikin: It is annual. However, they award for the previous year's publication date because there are >1K submissions per year, and the committee needs the extra time to review them all.

>51 nancyewhite: 1000 books to read! In a year! Good grief!

>52 dchaikin: I know! I hope that judges are assigned to different genres. I do like that it's that egalitarian though.

From the the International Bestsellers Dataset {which gathered} data about international bestselling books from 2013 to 2022, via LitHub
https://lithub.com/find-your-next-read-in-this-dataset-of-international-bestsell...

The top 30 book titles appearing across these lists by frequency of appearance, you get a lot of hits from Paula Hawkins, Elena Ferrante, Dan Brown, etc. Here are the most popular individual books on the list:

The Girl on the Train: 62
My Brilliant Friend: 61
Where The Crawdads Sing: 60
All the Light We Cannot See: 37
Origin: 36
Fresh Water For Flowers: 34
The Midnight Library: 27
Homeland: 26
The Goldfinch: 25
After You: 24
The Evening and the Morning: 24
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: 23
The Fault in Our Stars: 23
Your Second Life Begins When You Understand You Only Have One: 23
It Ends with Us: 22
The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: 20
Inferno: 19
The Story of a New Name: 19
A Column of Fire: 19
And the Mountains Echoed: 18
The Silent Patient: 17
The Enigma of Room 622: 17
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared: 17
The Braid: 17
The Song of Achilles: 17
The History of Bees: 17
The Girl in the Spider’s Web: 16
Gone Girl: 16
Fifty Shades of Grey: 15
Nineteen Eighty-Four: 15

>54 ELiz_M: I enjoyed the article. Best sellers always feel like such a strange mix to me.

The Miles Franklin Award 2025
The 2026 list be available in May.
Chinese Postman — Brian Castro
The Burrow — Melanie Cheng
Theory & Practice Michelle de Kretser
Dirt Poor Islanders — Winnie Dunn
Compassion — Julie Janson
Politica- Yumna Kassab
Ghost Cities — Siang Lu
Highway 13 — Fiona McFarlane
The Degenerates — Raeden Richardson 
Juice — Tim Winton

>56 kjuliff: nice. Thanks! I need to read de Kretser.

I mentioned to Dan yesterday on Sam's/RoyallyReading's thread yesterday that I had little or no interest in reading books by classic late 19th and early 20th century American, British and Irish authors such as Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and James Joyce. However, very early this morning, as I was pondering which classic literature I would like to read it dawned on me: I definitely want to explore classic and contemporary novels and non-fiction by Russian and Eastern European authors. With that in mind I found an article titled Ten Russian Novels You Need To Read To Be a Better Human, which was written in 2018 by Andy Kaufman, a professor at the University of Virginia (UVa), which I thought would be a good starting point. The novels are:

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Funeral Party by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

I'll also undoubtedly read works by Vladimir Nabokov and the Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, although she's Belarusian, of course. This will be a multiyear effort, needless to say, and I'll try to read one book a quarter, starting with the second quarter of this year. Kauffman also wrote a book about War and Peace, titled Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times, which I may look at before I tackle that book.

ETA: The Funeral Party is only 160 pages in length, and with my credit the Kindle version cost only $2.99, so I'll plan to read it next month.

Edited to correct hyperlink to Dr Kaufman's article.

>58 kidzdoc: That's an interesting list, Darryl. I have read 6 out of the 10 novels and different works by 3 of the other authors. As with most lists of classic works, it is dominated by male writers (and notably missing Bulgakov and Chekhov). In addition to Svetlana Alexievich, you might consider adding in poetry by Anna Akhmatova and memoirs by Nadezhda Mandelstam and Evgenia Ginzburg. Two ex-pat writers I like are Alina Bronsky and Olga Grushin. Yuri Rytkheu is an interesting minority writer, but I think you've read works by him, no? Gogol's Taras Bulba is worth a look too.

>59 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa; that's very helpful. I view this list as a jumping off point, so I'll definitely want to get recommendations from people like yourself. I haven't read any books by the authors you mentioned, although I do have a copy of The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu that Archipelago Books published several years ago, and three of the most notable books by Svetlana Alexievich which I bought after she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Oh, wait...I did read Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky, which I did like. I thought I also owned The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, but apparently I don't.

>58 kidzdoc: love this, although I’m only 1/10th my possible better human…

>60 kidzdoc: Interestingly, the one book by Alina Bronsky that you have read is the one that I have not. I found Hottest Dishes quite disturbing and my least favorite. I loved Baba Dunja's Last Love, and very much enjoyed My Grandmother's Braid and Barbara Isn't Dying. Her protagonists are usually older women and often ex-pats in Germany or with a German connection, although Russian.

>61 dchaikin: 😂 Which one did you read, Dan?

Thanks for your indirect reminder that I did want to read classic Russian literature. I had intended to do that years ago but never followed through on that plan.

>62 labfs39: Thanks for those recommendations, Lisa. I should also check to see if Archipelago Books has published any books in Russian translation.

>63 kidzdoc: it’s my biggest problem with rereading, the unread stuff. 🙂 (i do enjoy rereading and recommend it!)

I’ve only read The Brothers Karamazov. And a different Tolstoy - Anna K.

>58 kidzdoc: 6 of the first 7 were in my dad’s mandatory list for his Russian classes when he was in high school so we had copies of them at home and I read them in my early teens. The 7th is of course Pasternak but by the time I was reading, it was on the shelf also.

Add some Gorky in there, Mother was the one usually added, Gogol (Taras Bulba) and some more poetry (Lermontov, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva) and you have the Russian classics equivalent to the standard list for the English classes. :)

>58 kidzdoc: I just purchased A Hero of Our Time because the LT recommendation algorithm has been pushing it pretty hard. It will be a while until I get to it, because I put it at the end of a pretty long queue. It is also pretty short.

>64 dchaikin: Some of my favorite books benefit from a rereading, although it's something I rarely do; Giovanni's Room, The Plague and The Stranger come to mind immediately. As I mentioned on RoyallyReading's thread, and probably mine, reading Baldwin: A Love Story has inspired me to read all of James Baldwin's writings, as I now have a much greater knowledge of his life, and how his family, friends and lovers inspired his works.

>65 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie! That's very helpful. I'll very likely compose a list of books by Russian authors that have been recommended by my LibraryThing friends.

>66 aprille: Thsnks, aprille. I just noticed that the Kindle version of A Hero of Our Time is only $0.99 USD, so I purchased it.

>67 kidzdoc: Dead Souls will always be my favorite Gogol book. But Taras is considered more readable so I tend to mention that first. I’d put both on any list of Russian novels to read though. :)

>69 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie. Both noted.

>58 kidzdoc: I sorted my library by original language (mostly looking for women writers, but...) and wanted to add these to the lists above:

I highly recommend The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol or a shorter collection as long as it contains "The Overcoat" and "The Nose".

Maybe something by Tatyana Tolstaya? I didn't like The Slynx, but I have a collection of stories, published by nyrb that I am hoping to enjoy more.

I found Buddha's Little Finger to be delightfully weird.

Oblomov is another oft-mentioned classic that I remember liking.

I read Sofia Petrovna when I was too young to "get" but it was a group read by the peresphone club on Litsy recently and has gotten a lot of positive reviews.

Classic Russian dystopias: We and Darkness at Noon. I found the latter better written and more disturbing, but the former is what books like 1984 and Brave New World are founded on.

Finally, nyrb has a substantial collection of more modern works:
https://www.nyrb.com/collections/nyrb-series?filter.p.tag=Russian+Literature&amp...

>71 ELiz_M: Awesome; thanks, Liz!

>58 kidzdoc: Great project
I'd also recommend Andrei Bely, (1880 - 1934) an author who now has a Russian prize named after him, and in the contemporary arena, Oleg Pavlov.

For darker reading, there is The Golovlyov Family by Mikahail Saltykov-Shchedrin.

>73 SassyLassy: Thanks, Sassy!

I plan to create a Google Docs file with recommendations I've received here. I could be wrong, but I thought that LibraryThing had a way of tagging books that were recommended by my fellow readers, so I'll explore that as well.

>74 kidzdoc: You cannot tag a book you do not have in your library but you can create a list (and control who can add books to it - only you for example).

>75 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie. I tried to add a book and immediately saw that I was wrong. No problem, it will be easy enough to compose a Google Docs file.

>76 kidzdoc: if you decide to keep the list in LT: https://www.librarything.com/home#lists

:)

I have discovered many a good book from the Dublin Literary Award. Here is the 2026 longlist.
Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner – USA
Dream Count, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Nigeria
Gliff, Ali Smith – Scotland
Good Girl, Aria Aber – Germany
In Late Summer, Madalena Blažević – Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia
Intermezzo, Sally Rooney – Ireland
Live Fast, Brigitte Giraud – France
Ordinary Saints, Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin – Ireland
Our Evenings, Alan Hollinghurst – UK
Perspectives, Laurent Binet – France
The Antidote, Karen Russell – USA
The Brittle Age, Donatella Di Pietrantonio – Italy
The Creation of Half-Broken People, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu– Zimbabwe
The Echoes, Evie Wyld – UK/Australia
The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong – Vietnam/USA
The Empusium,Olga Tokarczuk – Poland
The Original Daughter, Jemimah Wei – Singapore
There are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak – Turkey/UK
What I Know About You, Éric Chacour – Egypt/Canada
Endling, Maria Reva – Ukraine/Canada

>77 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie!

>78 kjuliff: interesting list!

International Booker long list

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2026

>81 rasdhar: Their substack has a formatted list that is easier to copy-paste :)

The International Booker Prize 2026 longlist

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin

We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from Spanish by Robin Myers

The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from Dutch by David McKay

The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated from French by Charlotte Mandell (no audio version?)

Small Comfort by Ia Genberg, translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson (to be published Mar 2026 / Sep 2026)

She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel no audio version?)

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin

On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan (no audio version?)

The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre, translated from Italian by Antonella Lettieri (UK only? pub Nov 2025)

The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump (to be published Apr 2026)

Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated from Persian by Faridoun Farrokh
(pub in US by Feminist Press / to be published UK in Mar 2026)

The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

The Republic of Consciousness 2025 US/Canada shortlist

The short list for the Republic of Consciousness 2025 prize for US/Canada was released today. This is a prize that recognizes the best books published by small/independent presses. Here they are:

The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daange, published by New Vessel Press
The Endless Week by Laura Vasquez, published by Dorothy, a publishing project
Dreaming of Dead People by Roselyn Belben, published by And Other Stories
Hothouse Blooms by Austyn Wohlers, published by Hub City Press
Little Lazarus by Michael Bible, published by Clash Books

>81 rasdhar: >82 ELiz_M:

Hey, I've read one! (the Ravn - review in my thread and all that) :) And I had not read the Bulgarian one - had not even heard of it until this morning when it got nominated. Sigh.

>81 rasdhar: >82 ELiz_M: ❤️ i’ve been thinking about this all day! I have pages of notes. Three books ordered from Blackwells. One book getting shipped from a friend. 8 books requested from my library…

>83 dudes22: this award list looks lovely

>83 dudes22: did you mean 2026? Interesting that on their website i see only a longlist.

@AnnieMod - you might be interested that there’s a Bulgarian work on that international booker longlist

>87 dchaikin: See >84 AnnieMod: :)

>88 AnnieMod: ha! I missed that. Sorry

>86 dchaikin: - Here's the press link: https://www.republicofconsciousnessprize-usa.com/news
I thought it strange that they're calling it 2025, but I'm guessing that's because of when they were published.

>90 dudes22: Half the awards out there use the year of eligibility, half use the year they give the award in when dating their awards. Drives me crazy sometimes and always need to recheck to make sure I am looking at the latest list when they use the former.

>89 dchaikin: Nah, thanks for the ping anyway :)

>90 dudes22: thanks. I couldn’t find that page. Found another RoC page. A foundation : https://www.republicofconsciousness.com/

>92 dchaikin: - That link is for the ROC prize in the UK & Ireland. It's two separate prizes.

>93 dudes22: oh…. Ok, get it now. A little slow here

For the music, and especially jazz, lovers in the house: A while ago I found this online. This is the reading list that Ellis Marsalis, famed New Orleans pianist and educator (father of Wynton, Branford, Jason and Delfayo Marsalis) provided for his music students when he was professor at the University of New Orleans. Ellis, who I knew and worked with during my New Orleans radio days, was a victim of Covid in the early days of the pandemic, and I'm not sure of the exact date that this reading list was put together, so all references to a work being "the most current," and so forth, should be taken with a grain of salt. Otherwise, enjoy! All commentary on the books is Ellis.' Apologies for my laziness-induced failure to include touchstones.

1)“Danny Barker: My Life in New Orleans” x Danny Barker (1986) (Re-issued by the Historic New Orleans Collection as
“ Danny Barker: A Life in Jazz ” in 2016) This text is written by Danny Barker himself and should not be confused with another
book written about Danny Barker entitled “Bourbon Street Black.” Danny personally discredited that book as fictitious.

2)“ American Negro Spirituals ” x J. Rosamond Johnson (1925)
These are American Spirituals arranged by pianist J. Rosamond Johnson, with the
preface by his brother James Weldon Johnson. These spirituals, as well as others not
included in this book, represent the musical basis which significantly impacted the
evolution of Jazz music.

3)“Music is My Mistress” x Duke Ellington with Edward Kennedy (1973)
This is a group of testimonials by Ellington of performers in his orchestra over the years.

4)“ Thinking in Jazz : The Infinity Art of Improvisation” x Paul Berliner (1994)
This ethnomusicology text has examples of improvisational approaches as well as
biographical interviews with various Jazz masters conducted by Berliner. (Chicago)

5)“ Kansas City Lightning ” x Stanley Crouch (2007)
The currently definitive biography of Charles “Charlie” Christopher Parker, Jr. (aka “Bird”)

6) “Bass Line” x Milt Hinton (1988)
An avid amateur photographer tells the story of his life from Mississippi to Chicago to
New York. He developed into a premiere bassist and eventually on first call for studio
sessions. It contains snapshots of musicians he encountered while traveling with the
Cab Calloway Band and continued throughout his life.

7)“ Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original ” x Robin G. Kelley
An intimate look at the private and professional life of Thelonious Sphere Monk, jazz
pianist and composer. (2010)

8)“ Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing ” x Gene Lees (1988)
Lees takes a scholarly approach with significant historical references that help to paint a
picture of Peterson’s Canadian upbringing, as well as his professional career.

9)“ Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn ” x David Hajdu (1996)
A personal view of Billy Strayhorn’s life and ambitions from Pittsburgh, PA to the Duke
Ellington Orchestra.

10) “ Let Freedom Swing ” x Howard Reich (2010)
Reich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, examines Jazz, Gospel, and Blues deftly. He
puts the secular music of Chicago into perspective. (Northwestern University Press)

11)“ Myself Among Others ” x George Wein with Nate Chinen (2004)

12)“ Finding the Groove ” x Robert Gelinas (2009)
Composing a Jazz-shaped faith.

13)“ Black Notes ” x William C. Banfield (2004)
Essays of a musician writing in a post-album age. Banfield’s critique of Black music and
Black artists in today’s society and music industry.

14)“ Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop ” x Driggs/Haddix (2006)
The socioeconomic relationship of Jazz musicians with the syndicate that controlled the
night clubs and the salaries of the Jazz men.

15)“ Chord Changes on the Chalkboard ” x Al Kennedy (2005)
How public school music teachers helped contribute to Jazz and the popular music of
New Orleans. (Forward by Ellis Marsalis Jr.)

16)“ I Walked with Giants ” x Jimmy Heath (2010)
Tenor saxophonist and composer expounds on his life in Jazz from his Philadelphia
roots, including his times with the Miles Davis band. (Foreward by Wynton Marsalis)

17)“ Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz ” x Frank Barrett
Barrett directs this text to the executives in the business world with suggestions as to
how Jazz can assist in business decisions in corporate America . (2012)

18)“ Talk That Music Talk ” x Sunpie Barnes (2014)
Passing on brass band music in New Orleans, the traditional way. (UNO Press)

19) “ American Popular Song ” x Alec Wilder (1972)
An analytical approach of the popular American songs from 1900 to 1950.

20)“ The American Songbook ” x Ken Bloom (2005)
Short bios and photos of primarily singers of the 1930s through the 1960s.

21)“ Fats Waller: Cheerful Little Earful ” x Alyn Shipton (1988)
Thomas “Fats” Waller was a gifted pianist/organist who had a composer’s curiosity for
musical theater.

22)“ Art Tatum - A Guide to His Recorded Music ” x Arnold Laubich & Ray Spencer
(1982)

23)“ Jazz Anecdotes ” x Bill Crow (1991)

24)“ The Jazz Ear ” x Ben Ratliff (2008)

25)“ Now’s The Time ” x Doug Goodkin - Teaching Jazz to all ages. (2004)

26)“ Blues People ” x Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka (1963, 1967, 1999)
Baraka expounds on Negro music in White America.

27)“ Satchmo Blows Up the World ” x Penny M. von Eschen (2004)
Jazz ambassadors play the Cold War; The international touring exploits of Louis
“Satchmo” Armstrong.

28)“ Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson & The Invention of Blues ” x Elijah Wald
The story of legendary Bluesman Robert Johnson. (2004)

29)“ DUKE: A Life of Duke Ellington ” x Terry Teachout (2014)
A biographical view of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington.

30)“ Unfinished Blues ” x Harold Battiste Jr. with Karen Celestan (2010)
A New Orleans Jazz musician whose vision took him from the Crescent City to the tinsel
town of Los Angeles.

31)“ Autobiography of George ‘Pops’ Foster ” as told to Tom Stoddard (2005)
Foster’s life in New Orleans as a musician is well documented here. This is one of the
better books chronicling the life of Jazzmen from the turn of the 19th century, and well
into the 20th century. The story of a New Orleans jazzman.

32)“ Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club ” x Kathy Sloane (2011)
This is a document that pays tribute to a San Francisco night club owned by Todd
Barkan with testimonial support from the musicians who performed there. Many black
and white photographs are also included.

33)“ Jazz Piano: Jazz History & Development ” x Billy Taylor (1982)

34)“ Up from the Cradle of Jazz ” x Jason Berry , Foose and Jones (1986, 2009)
New Orleans music since World War II.

35)“ I Was Not Asked ” x George Allen, PhD. (2013)
An African American music educator from Philadelphia spreads his love for music and
shares his involvements in Jazz education in this look back at his 50 years in teaching.

36)“ Hear Me Talkin To Ya ” x Shapiro/Hentoff (1951, 1966)
The story of Jazz by the men who made it.

BONUS READS :
37) “ Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie ” (1985)
38) “ Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong ” by Gary Giddens (1988)

A very long list, but one with great variety. There's fiction, nonfiction, memoir, academic writing, food writing and cookbooks, children's fiction, middle grade and YA, and many more. A list with something for just about everyone.

For some reason the touchstones don't work with the text as copy pasted from the Jewish Book Council website, so I'm having to retype everything to make them work. I'll go in and edit some more tomorrow. For now, if you want to look them up, know that copy pasting also doesn't bring them up in search. You'll have to retype them. It's all very weird.

75th Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award Win­ners and Finalists (all categories):
Hostage by Eli Sharabi, Eylon Levy trans. (winner)
Antisemitism, an American Tradition by Pamela S. Nadell (winner)
The Jewish South: An American History by Shari Rabin
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy by Julia Ioffe (winner)
Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging (finalist) by Angela Buchdahl
The Prosecutor: One Man's Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice by Jack Fairweather (winner)
Crash of the Heavens: The Remarkable Story of Hannah Senesh and the Only Military Mission to Rescue Europe's Jews During World War II by Douglas Century
Will Eisner: A Comics Biography by Stephen Weiner & Dan Mazur
Dog by Yishay Ishi Ron, Yardenne Greenspan, trans. (winner)
33 Place Brugmann by Alice Austen
Behind the Trigger by Yariv Inbar
On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization by Douglas Murray
The Remembering Candle by Alison Goldberg , Selina Alko, illus. (winner)
Fanny’s Big Idea: How Jewish Book Week Was Born by Richard Michelson, Alyssa Russell, illus.
On the Wings of Eagles by Tami Lehman-Wilzig, Alisha Mon­nin, illus.(finalist)
As A Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us by Sarah Hurwitz (winner)
Soul Full: Gateways to Jewish Prayer by Dr. Ronit Ziv-Kreger
Going Out with Knots: My Two Kaddish Years with Hebrew Poetry by Wendy I. Zierler
The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai (winner)
Boy From the North Country: A Novel by Sam Sussman
Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation by Sarah Yahm
Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children’s Literature by Miriam Udel (winner)
Fagin the Thief by Alli­son Epstein (winner)
Mrs. Lilienblum’s Cloud Factory: A Novel by Iddo Gefen (finalist)
Arthurs: Home of the Nosh by Rae­gan Stein­berg, Alexan­dre Cohen and Eve­lyne Eng (winner)
Gursha: Timeless Recipes for Modern Kitchens, from Ethiopia, Israel, Harlem, and Beyond: A Cookbook by Beejhy Barhany
Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond by Laurel Kratochvila
Happy New Years by Maya Arad
Jews in the Soviet Union: A History: Revolution, Civil War, and New Ways of Life, 1917 – 1930, Volume 1 by Elissa Bemporad (winner)
Enemies, a Love Story: Mizrahi-Arab-Ashkenazi Relations Since the Dawn of Zionism by Hillel Cohen, Haim Watzman, trans.
World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews by Jochen Hellbeck
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery by Richard Kreitner
People Without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust by Anna Hájková, William Ross Jones, trans. (winner)
Saints and Liars: The Story of Americans Who Saved Refugees from the Nazis by Debórah Dwork
The Hour of Revenge: Holocaust Survivors and Their Search for Revenge and Retribution by Katarzyna Person
Return to the Place I Never Left by Tobias Schiff, Dani James, trans. (winner)
Hidden Lives by Rachelle L. Goldstein
The Courtyard by Benjamin Parket and Alexa Morris
The Rudashevski Diary by Yitskhok Rudashevski, Solon Bein­feld trans.
Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship by Janice Shapiro (winner)
Scattergood by H. M. Bouwman
Max in the Land of Lies by Adam Gidwitz
Right Back At You by Carolyn Mackler
Living in Both Worlds: Modern Orthodox Judaism in the United States, 1945 – 2025 by Lawrence Grossman (winner)
The Holy and the Broken: A Cry for Israeli-Palestinian Peace from a Land that Must Be Shared by Ittay Flescher
Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement by Daniel Taub
Requiem & Other Poems by Aharon Shabtai, Peter Cole, trans. (winner)
King of the Jews by Matthew Lippman
PRO­TO­COLS: An Erasure by Daniela Naomi Molnar
In This Distance by Brooke Sahni
A Woman Is Respon­si­ble for Every­thing: Jew­ish Women in Ear­ly Mod­ern Europe by Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach (winner)
A World of Piety: The Aims of Castilian Kabbalah by Jeremy Phillip Brown
The Rise of Talmud by Moulie Vidas
Golden Threads by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Hagar Ophir, illus.(winner)
Moses Maimonides: A Very Short Introduction by Ross Brann
Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British Palestine by Mostafa Hussein
Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialsm by Elizabeth E Imber (winner)
Brazillian Belonging: Jewish Politics in Cold War Latin America by Michael Rom
Who Will Rescue Us? The Story of the Jewish Children who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust by Laura Hobson Faure
I Wish I Didn't Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir by Eugene Yelchin (winner)
Loudmouth: Emma Goldman vs America (A Love Story)by Deborah Heiligman

>96 Julie_in_the_Library: Had you tried to retype only the last letter before the closing bracket and before you add the bracket itself? The opening bracket should already be in place. That usually triggers the search needed for the touchstone to work.

>97 AnnieMod: the search is working, it just says it can't find the works. But once I retype them, it finds them just fine.

It turns out that there were extra invisible characters in the text. When you paste into a document, you can see them and delete them out.

>85 dchaikin: I'm going to join you this year and read the Booker longlist. I am on a bunch of waitlists at the library too!.

>100 rasdhar: fantastic!

Still slowly fixing touchstones on the American Jewish Book Award finalists and winners list. The link in the title of the list itself takes you to the actual award webpage if you want more information on categories, etc.

>95 rocketjk: Thanks for this list, Jerry! I've only read the biographies of Thelonious Monk and Billy Strayhorn, two of the indisputable geniuses of modern music.

>103 kidzdoc: You're welcome! I'm trying to decide whether to include an occasional selection from this list into my reading rotation. I probably should. Maybe when I'm done with my Isaac Singer project.

The Women’s Prize longlist dropped today

https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-fiction/

The full list in alphabetical order by author surname is:

Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps (Weatherglass Books)
Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi (4th Estate, HarperCollins Publishers UK)
Moderation by Elaine Castillo (Atlantic Books)
Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Europa Editions UK)
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine (Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton, Hachette UK)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House UK)
The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson (Cassava Republic Press)
The Others by Sheena Kalayil (Fly on the Wall Press)
Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (Saraband)
Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate)
Audition by Katie Kitamura (Fern Press, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Scribner, Simon & Schuster UK)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Canongate)
The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal (Tinder Press, Headline Publishing Group, Hachette UK)
A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang (Dead Ink)

Oh, Dan, thanks for this. Many tempting titles.

>107 markon: you’re welcome, and yes! 🙂

Dublin Literary Award longlist

https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/the-library/prize-years/2026/

Anyone save time for a NYBRWomen project?

https://www.joiedevivre9.com/nyrbwomen26.html

>106 dchaikin: Hmmm, some familiar titles, some new ones. No self-insert fanfiction this year, I see.

>110 dchaikin:, >111 dchaikin: Oh dear. I have to at least try Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (Elizabeth Taylor), since it's available at my library, and Sun city (Tove Jansson.)

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction’s longlist for works of fiction by women and non-binary writers in the United States and Canada

https://carolshieldsprizeforfiction.com/2026-longlist

The Edge of Water by Olufunke Grace Bankole (Tin House)

Sea, Poison by Caren Beilin (New Directions Publishing)

milktooth by Jaime Burnet (Vagrant Press)

Suddenly Light by Nina Dunic (Invisible Publishing)

Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards (Spiegel & Grau)

Hellions by Julia Elliott (Tin House)

Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma (Atlantic Monthly Press)

The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World)
Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead Books)

Cannon by Lee Lai (Drawn & Quarterly)

Wild Life by Amanda Leduc (Random House Canada)

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (McClelland & Stewart, Canada; Knopf, USA)

The Morgue Keeper by Ruyan Meng (7.13 Books)

The Sea Gives Up the Dead by Molly Olguín (Red Hen Press)

Lion by Sonya Walger (New York Review Books)

Here's a link to a list of 54 books by women from each of Africa's 54 countries dated 2025. It's from a Nigerian journal, The Republic. Not all are fiction.

Do we mention the winners here? Or is that giving something away?

>116 dudes22: please highlight winners. Even if they fail the list criteria, being possibly only one book.

>115 markon: wow!

>115 markon: Thank you: this is a fantastic ressource! The choices for francophone African countries are sometimes disappointing, but it helped me fill in so many of my gaps for under-represented countries, quite often with poetry too, which I love.

The Republic of Consciousness Prize US/Camada for 2025 was announced yesterday. The winner was The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje published by New Vessel Press.

>114 dchaikin: And the same prize, but for Australia:

The 2026 Stella Prize Longlist presents twelve exceptional works by Australian women and non-binary writers.

Spanning poetry, memoir, fiction, non-fiction and graphic works, the 2026 longlist presents themes that explore the transformative power of memory, truth and the intrinsic beauty of creative fiction.

KONTRA by Eunice Andrada (Poetry)
The Rot by Evelyn Araluen (Poetry)
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (Non-Fiction/Memoir)
Ankami by Debra Dank (Nonfiction/Memoir/Social commentary)
Fireweather by Miranda Darling (Fiction)
Apron-Sorrow / Sovereign-Tea by Natalie Harkin (Non-Fiction)
Cannon by Lee Lai (Graphic Novel)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Fiction)
Wait Here by Lucy Nelson (Fiction)
Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family by Micaela Sahhar (Nonfiction/Memoir)
58 Facets: On violence and the law by Marika Sosnowski (Non-Fiction)
I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton (Fiction)

>120 dudes22: thanks! I’ll get to that

>121 ELiz_M: cool

PEN America finalists

https://www.writingafrica.com/pen-america-2026-finalists-announced/

"Since 1935, the distinguished books earning Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards have opened and challenged our minds. Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the book prizes in honor of her father, John Anisfield, and husband, Eugene Wolf, to reflect her family’s passion for issues of social justice. Today it remains the only American book prize focusing on works that address racism and diversity."

The books nominated for this year's awards were announced last week:

Death Does Not End At The Sea by Gbenga Adesina: a “groundbreaking debut book of poems” that “explores the complexity of elusive citizenship, an immigrant’s brokenhearted prayer for a new beginning, a chorus of elegies, and a cosmic love song between the living and the dead.”

Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of an American City by Bench Ansfield: “The explosive account of the arson wave that hit the Bronx and other American cities in the 1970s—and its legacy today.”

The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza: “A brush with death. An ancestral haunting. A century of family secrets. Sarah Aziza’s searing, genre-bending memoir traces three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City—and back.”

Joy Goddess A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance by A’Lelia Bundles: “A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A’Lelia Walker—daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance—written by her great-granddaughter.”

Becoming Ghost by Cathy Linh Che: “The follow-up to her acclaimed poetry debut, Split, Becoming Ghost details the lives of refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and were utilized as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now. This poetry collection uses persona, speculation, and the golden shovel form as a means of centering Vietnamese voices. The speaker’s disownment raises questions about power, art, and the meaning of forgiveness.”

Flashlight by Susan Choi: “A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heart-gripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.”

Jailbreak of Sparrows by Martín Espada: “a collection of arresting poems that roots itself in the image, the musicality of language, and the depth of human experience. “Look at this was all he said, and all he had to say,” the poet says about his father, a photographer who documented his Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn and beyond. The poems of Martín Espada tell us: Look.”

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide by Howard W. French: “The Second Emancipation, the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa’s pivotal role in shaping world history, underscores Adam Hochschild’s contention that French is a “modern-day Copernicus.” The title—referring to a brief period beginning in 1957 when dozens of African colonies gained their freedom—positions this liberation at the center of a “movement of global Blackness,” with one charismatic leader, Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), at its head.”

Guatemalan Rhapsody by Jared Lemus: “Guatemalan Rhapsody explores how we journey from the circumstances that forge us and whether the ability to change our fortunes lies in our own hands or in those of another. Revealing the places where beauty, desperation, love, violence, and hope exist simultaneously, Jared Lemus’s poignant, unflinching debut establishes him as a major new voice in the form.”

Make Your Way Home by Carrie R. Moore: “In eleven stories that span Florida marshes, North Carolina mountains, and Southern metropolitan cities, Make Your Way Home follows Black men and women who grapple with the homes that have eluded them.”

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy: “A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati’s life both as a woman and a writer.”

This year's winners will be announced on April 15th. I already own a copy of Mother Mary Comes to Me, and I suspect that I will buy or borrow many if not most of the books in this longlist.

https://www.anisfield-wolf.org/2026/03/explore-the-2026-anisfield-wolf-book-awar...

>124 kidzdoc: novels, Poetry, memoirs… very interesting!

>125 dchaikin: I agree, Dan. i'll follow these awards much more closely from now on, especially if they are as interesting as these books sound. This list of finalists stands a good chance of being a personal summer project.

>124 kidzdoc: Thanks for bringing this list to our attention. There are indeed several titles that I'm interested in that I wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

>119 Dilara86: You're welcome! As I'm slowly going through the list there are several languages other than English represented, mainly French and Spanish with some Portuguese so far.

This year's Nebula nominees for Best Novel:

When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones
Katabasis, R. F. Kuang
Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor
The Incandescent, Emily Tesh
Sour Cherry, Natalia Theodoridou
Wearing the Lion, John Wiswell

Stella Prize longlist today

“twelve exceptional works by Australian women and non-binary writers.”

KONTRA by Eunice Andrada (Poetry)
The Rot by Evelyn Araluen (Poetry)
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (Non-Fiction/Memoir)
Ankami by Debra Dank (Nonfiction/Memoir/Social commentary)
Fireweather by Miranda Darling (Fiction)
Apron-Sorrow / Sovereign-Tea by Natalie Harkin (Non-Fiction)
Cannon by Lee Lai (Graphic Novel)
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Fiction)
Wait Here by Lucy Nelson (Fiction)
Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family by Micaela Sahhar (Nonfiction/Memoir)
58 Facets: On violence and the law by Marika Sosnowski (Non-Fiction)
I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton (Fiction)

https://stella.org.au/stella-prize-longlist-2026/

And The Climate Change fiction prize announced their shortlist

Dusk by Robbie Arnott (Chatto & Windus, Vintage)
The Tiger’s Share by Keshava Guha (John Murray Press, Hachette)
Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan (Simon & Schuster)
Hum by Helen Phillips (Atlantic Books)
Endling by Maria Reva (Virago, Little, Brown)
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien (Granta Books)

https://climatefictionprize.co.uk/

:-D >129 dchaikin: that's the same list as >121 ELiz_M:

Yesterday was the beginning of the two-week Trans Right Readathon that concludes on the Trans Day of Visibility on March 31st. Some books recommended by trans-owned bookstores:

So Many Stars by Caro de Robertis
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
Wild Geese by Soula Emmanuel
Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas
The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Pageboy by Elliot Page
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition By Julia Kaye
An Unkindness of Ghosts By Rivers Solomon
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
Future Feeling by Joss Lake
Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan
None of the Above by Travis Alabanza
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

>132 ELiz_M: Wow, thanks for posting this. So much to explore. I'm particularly interested in the The Thirty Names of Night.

>132 ELiz_M: Thanks! Before We Were Trans sounds interesting. I have several books on my reader by or about gender divergent persons that I need to start or continue reading:
Trans: A Memoir and Variations by Juliet Jacques
Trans/Love, an anthology of short stories
La fin des monstres - Récit d’une trajectoire trans by Tal Madesta
99 Erics by Julia Serano, who also wrote many non fiction books about gender, which I should probably read but since I follow her blog, I don’t know how new they would be to me

ETA: there’s also Transfuges de sexe - Passer les frontières du genre by Emmanuel Beaubatie, a sociological study that I have read

>133 rasdhar: The cover is so enticing!

>134 FlorenceArt: Admittedly I chose mostly fiction, as I don't read much non-fiction, but that one was on almost every list
https://roomofonesown.com/trans-nonfiction
https://bookshop.org/lists/trans-awareness-all-year-long
https://libbyapp.com/library/queerliblib/curated-1673827/page-1
https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/v2/list/display/204842963/2139011249
https://www.nypl.org/books-more/recommendations/trans-reads/adults

>131 ELiz_M: 🤦🏻‍♂️ eek. Sorry. We have a lot of lists here….

The Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist

https://www.swansea.ac.uk/dylan-thomas-prize/2026-shortlist/

edited to replace duplicate of >130 dchaikin:

The Goldsmiths Prize was established in 2013 to celebrate the qualities of creative daring associated with the College and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. The annual prize of £10,000 is awarded to a book that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best.

2025 winner: We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose
2024 winner: Parade by Rachel Cusk
2023 winner: Cuddy by Benjamin Myers
2022 winner: Diego Garcia by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams
2021 winner: Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner
2020 winner: The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison
2019 winner: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
2018 winner: The Long Take by Robin Robertson
2017 winner: H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker
2016 winner: Solar Bones by Mike McCormack
2015 winner: Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
2014 winner: How to be Both by Ali Smith
2013 winner: A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride

>138 ELiz_M: - see >130 dchaikin: 😉

>139 dchaikin: D'oh! I've replaced the duplicate in >138 ELiz_M: with the past winners of a different prize list that I find intriguing.

>140 ELiz_M: nice!

The National Book Critics Circle Award

https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/

Fiction
We Do Not Part
Han Kang, translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris

Nonfiction
Empire of AI
Karen Hao

Biography
A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America's Disabled
Alex Green

Autobiography
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Arundhati Roy

Poetry
Night Watch
Kevin Young

Criticism
Hayek's Bastards
Quinn Slobodian

John Leonard Prize
Baldwin
Nicholas Boggs

Gregg Barrios Book in Translation
Sad Tiger
Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer

I finally updated my spreadsheet of books I've read and it's up to date from 2008-2025. These are my most-read authors. I only counted authors for whom I've read 6 or more books (including rereads). And some of these I've already added to in 2026, but they aren't in my spreadsheet yet (Zola and Woolf). The list is in alphabetical order.

My Most-Read Authors 2008-2025:
Kate Atkinson – 6
Margaret Atwood - 10
Jane Austen – 28 (lots of rereads)
E.F. Benson – 6
Agatha Christie – 8
Emma Donoghue – 7
Tana French – 9
Barbara Kingsolver – 6
Hilary Mantel – 12 ( I read wolf hall 3 times)
Toni Morrison – 7
Ann Patchett – 6
Sharon Kay Penman – 12
Marcel Proust – 7 (if you count all of the In Remembrance of Lost Time separately)
Barbara Pym – 10 (read Excellent Women twice)
Dorothy Richardson – 13 (books of the Pilgrimage series)
J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith – 12
C.J. Sansom – 7
Josephine Tey – 6
Anthony Trollope – 23 (2 rereads)
Ruth Ware – 7
Edith Wharton – 9 (reread Age of Innocence)
Jacqueline Winspear – 12
Virginia Woolf – 11 (reread To the Lighthouse)
Emile Zola – 13

>144 japaul22: this is beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

>144 japaul22: my response

ten or more
Author - read - reread - 1st - last
William Shakespeare - 36 - 2 - 2002 - 2022
Edith Wharton - 26 - 0 - 2021 - 2025
Vladimir Nabokov - 19 - 0 - 2020 - 2021
Terry Pratchett - 18 - 0 - 1999 - 2024
William Faulkner - 17 - 0 - 2023 - 2025
Robert Jordan - 15 - 0 - 1991 - 2013 (Wheel of Time series)
Larry D. Thomas - 14 - 0 - 2004 - 2016 (Texas Poet Laureate and once my neighbor)
Willa Cather - 14 - 1 - 2019 - 2021
Cormac McCarthy - 12 - 0 - 2008 - 2023
Gabriel García Márquez - 12 - 0 - 2018 - 2018
Toni Morrison - 12 - 0 - 2013 - 2015
James Baldwin - 11 - 0 - 2019 - 2019
Keiji Nakazawa - 10 - 0 - 2009 - 2012 (Barefoot Gen series)

six to eight
Author - read - reread - 1st - last
Bill Bryson - 8 - 0 - 2003 - 2017
Chaim Potok - 8 - 1 - 1999 - 2014
Robert Alter - 8 - 0 - 2012 - 2014
Ann Pratchett - 7 - 0 - 2007 - 2024
Art Spiegelman - 7 - 4 - 1999 - 2022 (Maus - reread it twice)
C. S. Lewis - 7 - 0 - 2006 - 2006 (Narnia series)
J. K. Rowling - 7 - 0 - 2001 - 2007 (Harry Potter series)
J. R. R. Tolkien - 7 - 3 - 1991 - 2002 (Hobbit and LOR twice)
Margaret Atwood - 7 - 1 - 2003 - 2026
Hilary Mantel - 6 - 1 - 2010 - 2024
Thomas Pynchon - 6 - 0 - 2016 - 2017

five
Author - read - reread - 1st - last
Aeschylus - 5 - 1 - 2016 - 2016 (multiple plays per volume)
Ali Smith - 5 - 0 - 2019 - 2021
G R Grove - 5 - 1 - 2009 - 2012
Malcolm Gladwell - 5 - 0 - 2015 - 2015
Marilynne Robinson - 5 - 1 - 2005 - 2025
Muriel Spark - 5 - 0 - 2021 - 2025
Richard Wright - 5 - 0 - 2022 - 2023
Valeria Luiselli - 5 - 2 - 2019 - 2022
Virgil - 5 - 2 - 2016 - 2017
Virginia Woolf - 5 - 0 - 2018 - 2026

four
Author - read - reread - 1st - last
Abdulrazak Gurnah - 4 - 0 - 2021 - 2025
Amos Oz - 4 - 0 - 2013 - 2022
Dante Alighieri - 4 - 0 - 2019 - 2020
Donigan Merritt - 4 - 0 - 2008 - 2012
Elena Ferrante - 4 - 0 - 2016 - 2017 (Neapolitan Quartet)
Elizabeth Strout - 4 - 0 - 2008 - 2022
Euripides - 4 - 1 - 2016 - 2016 (multiple plays per volume)
Fyodor Dostoevsky - 4 - 0 - 2002 - 2010
Han Kang - 4 - 0 - 2024 - 2024
Herta Müller - 4 - 0 - 2010 - 2023
John McPhee - 4 - 0 - 1995 - 2024
Michael Crichton - 4 - 0 - 1993 - 1994
Raymond E. Feist - 4 - 0 - 1992 - 1992
Salman Rushdie - 4 - 0 - 2019 - 2026
Uwe Johnson - 4 - 0 - 2022 - 2022 (Anniversaries Quartet)

>146 dchaikin: Great list, Dan! I'm not surprised you have so many repeat authors - you're a very thorough reader. I don't think I knew Edith Wharton and Nabokov had so many books!

>147 japaul22: me neither! 🙂 Especially Wharton. I was surprised when i started counting them up late last year.

The International Booker Prize 2026 Shortlist:

The Nights are Quiet In Tehran by Shida Bazyar, Translated by Ruth Martin

She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, Translated by Izidora Angel

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, Translated by Ross Benjamin

On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, Translated by Padma Viswanathan

The Witch by Marie NDiaye, Translated by Jordan Stump

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, Translated by Lin King

>149 dchaikin: I’ve only read two. I have read four that didn’t make it. And I’m reading two now that didn’t make it. And my next planned book didn’t make it. So, I will read all seven books that did not make the short list before I read my next shortlisted book…

I liked the two i’ve read. The Director is fantastic. And On Earth As It Is Beneath and a really fun book.

Had to have a go at the most read author list since I've been on LT:

Ian McEwan (16 + 1 on the TBR I'll get to soon)
Lionel Shriver (9)
Karl Ove Knausgaard (8)
John Updike (7)
Thomas Hardy (7)
Esther Freud (6)
Alan Hollinghurst (6)
Richard Yates (5)
Hilary Mantel (5)
Kent Haruf (5)

I've probably got more at 5, and definitely loads where I've read 4, but I'll stop it there.

It's interesting, as I don't think it's in order of my favourite authors my any means, and there are quite a few authors who I'm sure would make it into my top read list if I just would get back around to reading them (e.g. Dickens). I'm very surprised I've read 9 Shriver books - I didn't realise I was such a fan...

This has been a good kick up the backside for me to revisit some authors who don't feature here (and others who do) where I've still got many of their books to read. Stop getting distracted by shiny new books, Alison.

>151 AlisonY: Thanks for sharing! Many of those are definitely authors that I think of when I think of your reading.

>151 AlisonY: Obviously not a series reader. Interesting list! :)

That made me look at my list and here is the top 7 of non-series writers (or relatively non-series anyway):

Octavia E. Butler (12) (should count as 14 as I read an omnibus for 3 books)
Sebastian Barry (10)
Peter Temple (9)
Edward St. Aubyn (7)
Javier Cercas (5) - the first one on the list that has no boost from series at all
Adrian Tchaikovsky (5) - no series boost either surprisingly. Need to get to his #2 in a series books I guess
Percival Everett (4) - no series

Both Butler and Temple have 1 book remaining for me to read before I am done with all of their works and I have only one left by St. Aubyn but he is still writing. The other 4 have more books left for me to read (and I should go do that).

Just for comparison of scale, here is my absolute top 7:

Erle Stanley Gardner (102)
Robert B. Parker (67)
J. D. Robb (48) (aka Nora Roberts)
C. J. Cherryh (36)
Donna Leon (34)
C. J. Box (33)
Rex Stout (29)

Too the best of my knowledge, these are my most popular authors since Jan 2009 (except I seem to be missing Sep 2022?)

Shakespeare, William 16 (half of these were a re-read of the history plays inspired by the BBC's Hollow Crown series)
Gaiman, Neil - 15 (Sandman)
Wells, Martha - 8
Dickens, Charles - 7
Wharton, Edith - 7
Woolf, Virginia - 7
Eliot, George - 6
Jemisin, N. K. - 6
Mishima, Yukio - 6
Murdoch, Iris - 6
Proust, Marcel - 6

I've only been tracking my reading here for a bit more than three years, but in that time, the following authors have popped up more than once:

5: Seanan McGuire
4: Isaac Asimov, Benjamin Stevenson
3: John Scalzi, Brendan Slocumb, Connie Willis
2: Charlie Jane Anders, Ted Chiang, Alonso Duralde, Robert A. Heinlein, Zenna Henderson, P. D. James, T. Kingfisher, Fritz Leiber, Elinor Lipman, Arkady Martine, Helen McCloy, Clifford D. Simak, Emily St. James, Antti Tuomainen, Katharine Weber, Martha Wells

I also read a lot of anthologies, which are a bit trickier to count, because editors often work in collaboration with different people for each book, but the leading editors are:

10: Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg (as a team for all ten)
3: Jonathan Strahan
2: Martin Edwards, David G. Hartwell, Jim Huang (a pair of edited collections of short essays rather than stories)

Literature quoted or referenced in On Lighthouses, copied from the bibliography

The Seafarer, an anonymous Anglo Saxon poem
The Iliad
"El faro" by Juan José Arreola
Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
"Eduard Fuchs: Collector and Historian" by Walter Benjamin
Cataract by John Berger
"The Fog Horn" by Ray Bradbury
Watermark by Joseph Brodsky
Plainwater by Anne Carson
"Soliloquio del farero" by Luis Cernuda
El miedo en el occidente: Siglos XIV-XVIII by Jean Delumeau
"Farther Away" by Jonathan Franzen, published in the New Yorker
Montauk by Max Frisch
"El faro" by José Gorostiza, from the series Dibujos sobre un puerto
Basenji and El faro por dentro by Menchu Gutiérrez
History of the Roman Empire since the Death of Marcus Aurelius by Herodian
The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare
Ulysses by James Joyce
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
La Mer by Jules Michelet
Book iii, chapter iii of Montaigne's Essays
El faro del fin del Hudson by Antonio Muñoz Molina
Natural History by Pliny the Elder
"The Light-house" by Edgar Allan Poe
Butes by Pascal Quignard
Northern Lights: Or, a Voyage in the Lighthouse Yacht to Nova Zembla and the Lord Knows Where in the Summer of 1814 by Sir Walter Scott
Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Jules Verne
"From Montauk Point" by Walt Whitman
Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

By Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse and The Diaries, except for the quotation "Twere now to die, 'twere now to be most happy," which can be found in Mrs. Dalloway, and is originally taken from Othello

and finally "Grace Darling" by William Wordsworth

But there were many more books discussed. For example, The Decay of the Angel.

>156 ELiz_M: that sounds like a very interesting book!

This list printed in the back of Michael Chabon's The Final Solution
Michael Chabon's Top Ten Favorite "Genre" Writers

1. Raymond Chandler
   
2. Michael Moorcock
   
3. H. P. Lovecraft
   
4. Ursula K. Le Guin
   
5. Alan Furst
   
6. Fritz Leiber
   
7. Ross Thomas
   
8. Robert E. Howard
   
9. Stephen King
   
10. Leigh Brackett
    

I think the mix is interesting: pulps, new wave SF, horror, spy novels.

Le Guin would be on my list. Would any of these authors be on yours?

>158 rhondak101book: I've only ever heard of 4 of those, and of those 4, I've read Stephen King. Forty years ago I used to read everything by him, but haven't picked one up since the early 90s. I guess my answer is "no". Are they all from the US?

>159 Nickelini: I think all are from the U.S. except for Michael Moorcock who is British. I had never heard of Thomas or Furst. They wrote spy novels.

Having a go at my own most read author list since joining LT:

Emile Zola - 21
Ismail Kadare - 9
Wilkie Collins - 9
John Banville - 7
Ha Jin - 6
Walter Scott - 6
Hilary Mantel - 6
Mo Jan - 5
Tove Jansson - 5

There are other authors like Robert Stone, Philip Caputo, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Janette Turner Hospital, Charles Dickens, and T C Boyle who would definitely be in the higher ranges, but haven't been read in great numbers in my LT life.

>161 SassyLassy: I immediately scanned your list for Sir Walter Scott. I should finally read him. A Jane Austen lover.

Really enjoyed perusing others most-read lists - here's mine since joining LT and keeping good track...

Big focus on series reading, obviously!

Robert Jordan - 15 (including re-reads to finally finish The Wheel of Time)
Jim Butcher - 15
Stephen King - 14 (didn't realize I had read as much King recently, but this included re-reads to finally finish The Dark Tower)
Charlaine Harris - 13
J. K. Rowling/James Galbraith - 12
Iain M. Banks (sci-fi)/Iain Banks (other) - 8
David Baldacci - 6
Kazuo Ishiguro - 4
Angela Carter - 4
Jacqueline Carey - 4
Justin Cronin - 4
Antonia White - 4
Dorothy Richardson - 4
Margaret Atwood - 4
Jo Nesbo - 4

And a reminder to myself to read more Le Guin!

Dublin Literary Award shortlist

Ali Smith
Gliff

Magdalena Blažević
In Late Summer

Brigitte Giraud
Live Fast

Laurent Binet
Perspective(s)

Ocean Vuong
The Emperor of Gladness

Éric Chacour
What I Know About You

https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/the-library/books/?load_mode=link-load&list_t...

How is everybody coming up with their "authors read" lists? Is there some counter on LT I don't know about or are folks just eyeballing their own yearly reading lists?

>165 rocketjk: In your catalog, look at the top bar. There is a drop down that usually says “tags”. Pull that - Authors is another option there. :)

There are other ways of course but that’s probably the easiest.

PS: Then click on List to get back to the usual display.

>166 AnnieMod: ooh, that’s cool. (I used my own excel sheet.)

>165 rocketjk: I have an excel spreadsheet with all my books read from 2008-2025. I sorted by author and looked for most repeats.

>167 dchaikin: LT has a lot of hidden nooks and crannies. :) The new-ish Charts and Graphs ( https://www.librarything.com/stats/MEMBERNAME/overview ) had kinda overshadowed most of the catalog actions but there are still things only in the catalog :)

>166 AnnieMod: Thanks, Annie. I didn't know how people were coming up with these lists. Here's mine:

Haruki Murakami: 15 (I devoured his books in the 2000s but haven't read anything by him in a decade or more)
James Baldwin: 13
Mario Vargas Llosa:12
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o: 12
Salman Rushdie: 11
José Saramago: 9
Amos Oz: 9
Abdulrazak Gurnah: 8
Caryl Phillips: 8
Javier Cercas: 7
Ian McEwan:7
Annie Ernaux: 7
J.M. Coetzee: 7

>166 AnnieMod: Thanks for sharing that! I can see that it shows me how many books I have per author - is there a way to show the books read per author?

>171 LisaMorr: Depends on how you record that.

I have a Read collection so if I select the collection and go to Authors, it gives me exactly what I need (part of why I have both a tag and a collection - they are useful in their own ways and in different places).

Looking at your library, you seem to be using a tag. So easiest way? Create a Read collection, use Power Edit to add all the books from your read tag into it and then look at the authors tab again.

>172 AnnieMod: That's what I was thinking of when I saw your first comment - I might as well do that, since it's pretty easy with power edit. Thank you!

>166 AnnieMod: After you choose "authors" you might also need to select "count" (rather than displaying as a-z).

Thanks, Annie -- that was way easier than the manual count I did. And a different list, as it is as close to an "all-time" list as I will get, rather than my list above in >154 ELiz_M: which is only from when I started reliably recording read dates in 2009.

>174 ELiz_M: Ah, yes, I've moved my to Count so very long that I had forgotten that it is not the default :) You also can do combined vs variants on the author names (useful if you want to track pseudonyms usage or even language difference sometimes but for this you really want combined) :)

If your library is only books you had read or you have a Read collection, then yeah - it will get you that. :)

>171 LisaMorr: & >172 AnnieMod: Ah, OK. This doesn't help me, then, as I don't have a "Read" collection or tag. All I'm seeing in the author drop down is how many books I have in my library by each other, not how many I've read. I was wondering how the software could know that, but I was hoping against hope there was something I wasn't thinking of (which is usually the case).

Given all that, I'd have to assume that my most read authors over my LT years, starting in 2008, would be Joseph Conrad, for whom I did a chronological 2-per-year novel read through, and Isaac Singer, who I'm doing a similar read through for now. Philip Roth is probably high on my list, too. Other than that, I'd have to look through the lists on my yearly 50 Books group threads, which I'm probably not doing. Carry on, all!

>176 rocketjk: Sorry. LT had not invented some kind of a magical way to know what to count where :(

How do you know that you had read a book? You can user Power edit on the result of a complex search so if you share how you know you had read a book in LT, I’ll be happy to help building a search?

>177 AnnieMod: I know what you mean about magical counting. Without having a "read" tag, how would the site know what I've read? I was just wondering how other people were figuring it out. The "read" tag make sense, though. Thanks for your offer. I'm not sure it's worth the effort but what I could say I can say is, other than by using my feeble memory, one could find all the books I've read by going to my 50 Books Challenge group thread (https://www.librarything.com/topic/377604) the top post of which includes a list of the books I've read do far this year and links to the similar lists for every year previous going back to 2008. If there were a relatively easy way to transfer those titles and authors' names into a spread sheet, then it would be a simple job to sort everything by author. If anyone knows of such a transfer methodology please let me know and I will create the spreadsheet myself. Cheers!

>178 rocketjk: Jerry, I searched my catalogue by author, arranged them in order of the books of theirs that were in my library, including books that I had borrowed, then counted those books I had rated as ones that I had read. It's entirely possible that there are a tiny number of books that I didn't rate—LibraryThing tells me that I haven't read Kafka By the Shore by Haruki Murakami, but I thought I had—but this method was otherwise completely accurate.

>178 rocketjk: if you create a list on LT, there is a « magic » button that brings up a window where you can paste a list of books. I used it recently and it seemed to work pretty well. Not sure if a list would be useful for your purpose though. I’m not that familiar with the feature.

I am afraid I made my list before this helpful info on how to find the numbers, so I used the very unscientific method of going to my author cloud, clicking on the largest names, and counting from there. I also slightly arbitrarily decided to divide my list not just into "series authors" and others, but also by when I last read them, as there are quite a few authors that I would put among my favourites who I haven't actually read in the last 5 years.

Read within the last 5 years:
Hilary Mantel - 10 (including two readings of Wolf Hall)
Ali Smith - 9
Penelope Fitzgerald - 8
Margaret Atwood - 8
Jane Austen - 7
Jeanette Winterson - 6
Sarah Hall - 6 (though I have only really liked one of these, The Electric Michaelangelo - but it was the first of hers that I read so I still think of her as an author I like)
Jennifer Egan - 5
Ann Patchett - 5
Muriel Spark - 5
Elizabeth Taylor - 5
Anita Brookner - 5
Julian Barnes - 5

and series authors:
Ian Rankin - 13
Reginald Hill - 10
Jodi Taylor - 8
Tana French - 7
Harry Bingham - 6
Jane Harper - 5
Ann Leckie - 5
Mary Stewart - 5

Most recently read in 2020 or earlier:
Nicola Barker - 7 - 2019
Diana Athill - 6 - 2019
Neil Gaiman - 6 - 2016
Robert Edric - 5 - 2019
Michael Frayn - 5 - 2017
Connie Willis - 5 - 2019
Linda Grant - 5 - 2018
Haruki Murakami - 5 - 2018

and series authors:
Bernard Cornwell - 7 - 2018
Colin Cotterill - 5 - 2018
Jo Walton - 5 - 2016
Ben Aaronovitch - 5 - 2020
Laurie R King - 5 - 2020

With the exception of Laurie R King and Sarah Hall I think this is a pretty good list of the authors that I like best, although of course there are some who are less prolific who I also enjoy.

I'm struck by the rather small number of men on the list, especially if you leave out the series authors - only Julian Barnes from the first list! There are some others of course who are close, eg I have read five Andrew Miller books and would call him a favourite author, but three of these I read before joining LT.

>180 FlorenceArt: Not really - there is no path from List to the catalog and counting in a list is not very easy either.

>178 rocketjk:
A bit of regex and splitting should be able to get a spreadsheet out of straight list. Will look at it later today and see if I can get you a list :)

>178 rocketjk: Here are some values for you:

Joseph Conrad 13
Philip Kerr 10
Jasper Fforde 8
Richard Stark 8
Don Tracy 7
Isaac Bashevis Singer 7
Philip Roth 5
Mary Roach 5
Larry McMurtry 5
William G. Tapply 5
John D. MacDonald 5
Richard North Patterson 4
William Faulkner 4
Earl Derr Biggers 4
C.P. Snow 4
Väinö Linna 4
Timothy Fuller 4

I may have fumbled some on the copying and cleaning but this is close to the truth. Drop me a note with your mail if you want to spreadsheet so you can clean it some more and do more with it if you want:)

>181 wandering_star: where should i start with Nicola Barker?

>184 dchaikin: Oh good question! I think it has to be Darkmans, even though it's such a brick - it's the one where her very distinctive style (which I love) is best matched with the content of the story.

>185 wandering_star: thanks!

My list of most read authors looks like this:
Amelie Nothomb - 24
Jules Verne -18
Emile Zola - 12
Aki Shimazaki - 10
Victor Hugo - 9
Stefan Zweig - 8
-- as I'm trying to read all of their works, Verne and Zola will keep going up; Shimazaki has two more 5-book series that I want to read which will increase her numbers as well; Hugo, other than his plays I'm reaching the end of his main oeuvres; I'm probably going to quit reading Nothomb once I've read the last three books on my physical TBR

Alexandre Dumas - 6
Shusaku Endo - 6
Otsuichi - 6
Akira Yoshimura - 6
Kenzaburo Oe - 6
Kobo Abe - 6
Margaret Atwood - 6
-- I feel like Dumas books should count double with the page count, lol; Yoshimura has so many works that haven't been translated yet so once I start reading him in Japanese that number should go up

Isabel Allende - 5
Haruki Murakami - 5
-- pretty much done with these two so don't see these going up any more

Ryu Murakami - 4
Yasushi Inoue - 4
Honore de Balzac - 4
Yukio Mishima - 4
-- love 'the other' Murakami and have more of his works to read; once I'm done with Zola I'll probably start focusing on Balzac; and I have many more Mishima to read

Here's my list of most-read authors in the last ten years:
Riad Sattouf (8)
Léonora Miano (8)
Virginie Despentes (6)
Zerocalcare (6)
Chingiz Aitmatov (6)
Catherine Meurisse (6)
Grégory Jarry (5)
Annie Ernaux (5)
Moussa Konaté (5)
Scholastique Mukasonga (5)

Nearly half of these authors are graphic artists. I don't actually read a lot of graphic works, but when I find an artist I like, I don't think twice about borrowing their books: they're quick to read and they fit nicely between two heftier volumes. There is however a shocking number of series and writers I mean to read more of, but haven't gotten round to... I am not much of a completist, or even a series reader compared to some of you! (At least in the last 15 years: I wasn't such a butterfly before that, and read a lot of Anthony Trollope, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler, for example.)

Keeping in mind that my "read" collection goes back to before I joined LibraryThing, as I add anything I find a record of having read to the best of my abilities, My most read authors list:

Agatha Christie (76)
Margery Allingham (17)
Jim Butcher (15)
Neil Gaiman (14)
Louise Penny (13)
Dorothy L. Sayers (13)
Ian Fleming (12)
Greg Rucka (12)
Anthony Horowitz (11)
Tamora Pierce (11)
Ben Aaronovitch (9)

>183 AnnieMod: Thanks so much for taking the time to do all that, Annie! Much appreciated. I'll be shooting you a PM shortly to get that spreadsheet.

Other than Conrad, Singer, Roth and Roach, I think every name on my list represents a series (assuming trilogies are considered series). Even my four Faulkners represent the Scopes trilogy, with the first novel in the trilogy read twice. My McMurtry reading has been comprised so far of the wonderful Thalia, Texas series that begins with The Last Picture Show. Väinö Linna's four are comprised of his Under the North Star trilogy plus his superb war novel, The Unknown Soldier.

Cheers! And thanks again.

I don't have a list of top read authors, and it would be tedious to compile one. But my top few, I think, would be
Alexander McCall Smith - 25 books
Rita Mae Brown - 17
Nancy Atherton - at least 14
Diana Gabaldon - 12 (more if you count the short stories separately...)
Donna Andrews - 11
Rhys Bowen - 11

Charles Dickens comes in at around 6, plus a number of short stories.

If I add books read as a child, Beverly Cleary and Carolyn Haywood would be up there. Also I think I read everything Jean Plaidy ever wrote....

>115 markon: Wow, I love the list of books by women authors from Africa. I have only read three of the books, and books by an additional four authors from the list. Clearly I have my work cut out. Did anyone make a text list, per chance?

And now I'm toddling off to create my most read authors list, of course!

Here are my most read authors. A couple of discoveries: only one nonfiction author made the list, Ben Mcintyre; the authors were split fairly evenly by gender; and the 28 authors were from 9 different countries.

Jacqueline Winspear 19
Emile Zola 9
Fredrik Backman 9
Diana Gabaldon 9
D. E. Stevenson 7
Martha Wells 7
Connie Willis 7
J.K. Rowling 7
John Scalzi 7
Jane Austen 6
Emma Donoghue 6
Geraldine Brooks 6
Helen Wells 6
Mary Doria Russell 5
Daniel Silva 5
Barbara Kingsolver 5
Seanan McGuire 5
Jane Gardam 4
Arnošt Lustig 4
Charles Dickens 4
Roy Jacobsen 4
Alina Bronsky 4
Philippe Claudel 4
Jose Saramago 4
Ben Macintyre 4
J.R.R. Tolkien 4
Neal Stephenson 4
Annika Thor 4

>193 labfs39: so interesting! And so fun what >144 japaul22: started.

Here's my list, which I've doctored a bit. This is the list of authors of whom I've read at least 4 books in the last ten years. I've put in the total books read and then ones I've read "recently."

William Shakespeare 20 (12 since 2016)
Leo Tolstoy 11 (11 since 2016)
Ali Smith 9 (9 since 2016)
Elizabeth Strout 9 (9 since 2016)
Samuel Beckett 8 (8 since 2016)
Margaret Atwood 11 (7 since 2016)
Elizabeth Jane Howard 7 (7 since 2016)
Isaac Asimov 7 (6 since 2016)
Georgette Heyer 7 (6 since 2016)
Nikolai Gogol 7 (6 since 2016)
Anthony Trollope 6 (6 since 2016)
George Bernard Shaw 9 (5 since 2016)
George Eliot 6 (5 since 2016)
Edith Wharton 5 (5 since 2016)
N. K. Jemisin 5 (5 since 2016)
Karl Marx 5 (5 since 2016)
Charles Portis 5 (5 since 2016)
Charles Dickens 8 (4 since 2016)
William Maxwell 6 (4 since 2016)
Toni Morrison 6 (4 since 2016)
Thomas Mann 5 (4 since 2016)
Willa Cather 4 (4 since 2016)
Anton Chekhov 4 (4 since 2016)
Fyodor Dostoevsky 4 (4 since 2016)
Herman Melville 4 (4 since 2016)
Wallace Stegner 4 (4 since 2016)
Ivan Turgenev 4 (4 since 2016)

>195 aprille: fun stuff. I like seeing the split for the past decade. My first thought is to wonder what Morrisons you read, and when. 🙂

I jumped on this when the OP came up with the idea, but posted it on my own thread before everyone started posting here. So very interesting how different our lists all are, and how many top read authors on other's lists who I've never even heard of!

Here was my list from March 30:

I've made a list of my most read authors (5 or more books) since I joined LibraryThing in 2007.

Kate Atkinson (UK) - 5 books, read between 2013 - 2017
Margaret Atwood (Canada) - 14 books, read between 2007 - 2022
Jane Austen (UK) - 8 (P&P 2x) books, read between 2007 - 2024
Douglas Coupland (Canada) - 10 books, read between 2007 - 2016
Charles Dickens (UK) - 6 books, read between 2008 - 2015
Helen Fielding (UK) - 6 books (Bidget Jone's Diary 2x), read between 2015 - 2023
Ian McEwan (UK) - 9 books, read between 2007 - 2021
Heather O'Neill (Canada) - 5 books, read between 2011 - 2024
Salman Rushdie (UK-India) - 5 books, read between 2007 - 2021
William Shakespeare (England) - 8 books (plays), read between 2008 - 2016
Ali Smith (UK) - 5 books, read between 2009 - 2022
John Sutherland (UK) - 5 books, read between 2012 - 2016
Roma Tearne (UK-Sri Lanka) - 5 books, read between 2007 - 2012
Mariam Toews (Canada) - 5 books, 2014 - 2025
Virginia Woolf (UK) - 12 books (Jacob's Room 2x), read between 2008 - 2021
John Wyndham (UK) - 5 books, read between 2009 - 2022

I included the reading span because there are many that I haven't read in a decade. I've always read a variety of authors and rarely read series. Since 2016, my life changed and I cut way back on my reading, so I think this is reflected here.

Shakespeare is on the list because I was still in university when I joined LT, and I took a Shakespeare course in 2008. I read 6 plays for that class, and then read MacBeth and Othello when my daughters read those in high school.

List of Hugo awards finalists:
https://www.lacon.org/hugofinalists/

Best Novel

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape)
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor (William Morrow; Gollancz)
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK; Orbit US)
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Tor US; Tor UK)
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Tor US; Orbit UK)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Orbit US; Hodderscape)

Best Novella

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (Tordotcom)
Cinder House by Freya Marske (Tordotcom; Tor UK)
Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite (Tordotcom)
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom; Arcadia UK)
The Summer War by Naomi Novik (Del Rey US; Del Rey UK)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (Nightfire; Titan UK)

Best Novelette

“Kaiju Agonistes” by Scott Lynch (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 62)
“Never Eaten Vegetables” by H.H. Pak (Clarkesworld, Issue 220)
“Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells (Reactor, July 10, 2025)
“The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For” by Cameron Reed (Reactor, April 2, 2025)
“The Millay Illusion” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 67)
“When He Calls Your Name” by Catherynne M. Valente (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 65)

Best Short Story

“10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 63)
“In My Country” by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld, Issue 223)
“Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots, May 16, 2025)
“Missing Helen” by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld, Issue 226)
“Six People to Revise You” by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 62)
“Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld, Issue 229)

Best Series

Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett (Del Rey US; Orbit UK)
October Daye by Seanan McGuire (Tor US; DAW)
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (Tor US; Tor UK)
The Chronicles of Osreth by Katherine Addison (Tor US; Solaris UK; Subterranean)
The Craft Wars by Max Gladstone (Tor; Tordotcom)
White Space by Elizabeth Bear (Saga Press; Gollancz)

An interesting exercise! My list of most read authors (4 or more), since joining LT in 2008. Those include rereads (eg all the Austens!) but no book is counted more than once (eg Mrs Dalloway read 4 times but only counted once).
All British/Irish unless otherwise stated. Figures in brackets are the number of non-fiction books included.
Of the 32, 9 (just over one quarter) are pre-WW2, mostly 19thC. There are 18 women and 14 men.

George Simenon (Belgium) - 37
Virginia Woolf - 12 (1)
Charles Dickens - 10
Muriel Spark - 9
Donna Leon (USA) - 8
Patrick O'Brian - 8
Jane Austen - 6
JL Carr - 6
Penelope Fitzgerald - 6
Claire Tomalin - 6 (6)
Tracy Chevalier (USA) - 5
Susan Hill - 5 (2)
W Somerset Maugham - 5
Elizabeth Taylor - 5
Emile Zola (France) - 5
Simon Armitage - 4 (2)
Beryl Bainbridge - 4
Pat Barker - 4
HE Bates - 4 (2)
Sarah Dunant - 4
George Eliot - 4
Elizabeth Gaskell - 4
Melissa Harrison - 4 (2)
Barbara Kingsolver (USA) - 4
John Le Carre - 4
Henning Mankell (Sweden) - 4
Hilary Mantel - 4
Andrew Miller - 4
Stephen Moss - 4 (4)
Anthony Trollope - 4
Connie Willis (USA) - 4

I've read 3 books from each of another 26 authors, the following consisting entirely of non-fiction
Ned Boulting (cycling)
Mark Cocker (ornithology)
Laura Cumming (art and memoir)
Max Hastings (military history)
Jan Morris (places)

>199 Willoyd:
I never noticed George Simenon was Belgian. Always assumed the author was French. Oops.

>199 Willoyd: i didn’t know you were such a Woolf reader. Or Spark. Or Beryl Bainbridge. Lots of Penny Fitzgerald too.

>198 FlorenceArt: I've only read one of the books on this list (A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett) which was really good. I'm probably going to read the Adrian Tchaikovsky book, but based on past books I won't be reading the T Kingfisher or Naomi Novik books. Interesting list.

>202 rasdhar: I've read The Incandescent and The Summer War. Of the series I read Emily Wilde, October Daye and The Chronicles of Osreth. I did not submit any nominations but I fully agree with the last one. I liked all the nominees I read, but to me Osreth is special.

>198 FlorenceArt:, >202 rasdhar: I liked Death of the author a lot, but I didn't finish Incandescent or The raven scholar. Guess schoolmance books aren't my cuppa. That's all I've read at this point. I've read and liked Tchaikovvsky & Bennett, but I don't know if I'll get to these.

My most read that I’ve catalogued in LT
Ian MccEwan 7
Julian Barnes 9
Doris Lessing 8
Margaret Atwood 6
Roddy Doyle 6
John Banville 6
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 5
Kate Atkinson 4 but probably there will be no more
Paul Auster 4
Kevin Barry 4
William Boyd 4
JM Coetzee 4
George Sanders 4
Edith Wharton 4

This doesn’t include writers such as Austen, Zola, Hardy or series such as books by Pat Barker and Asimov which I read earlier

>198 FlorenceArt: That Best Novel slate really shows just how much fantasy and horror have taken over what was once purely an SF award; I'd say that only the Okorafor and Tchakovsky are SF novels. Bennett is horror and the other three are fantasy. Not that I have anything against those genres, mind you (though horror doesn't generally ring my personal bells), but I do miss the days when one could count on the Hugo/Nebula lists as a recommendation of good SF.

Pulitzer 2026

Fiction
Angel Down, by Daniel Kraus (Atria Books) - A breathless novel of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence.
FINALISTS:
Audition, by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead Books)
Stag Dance: A Quartet, by Torrey Peters (Random House)

History
We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, by Jill Lepore (Liveright)
A lively and engaging narrative that investigates why the Constitution is so difficult to amend, including a review of noteworthy failed amendments proposed by marginalized groups.
FINALISTS:
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, by Scott Anderson (Doubleday)
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and The Remaking of the American City, by Bench Ansfield (W.W. Norton & Company)

Biography
Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution, by Amanda Vaill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
A lively and detailed biography of two daughters of wealthy and influential Dutch landowners who colored our nation’s history, using present tense to tell their story and past tense to chronicle the dramatic sweep of the American Revolution.
FINALISTS:
True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, by Lance Richardson (Pantheon)
The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford, by James McWilliams (University of Arkansas Press)

Memoir and autobiography
Things in Nature Merely Grow, by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
A writer’s deeply moving and revelatory account of losing her younger son to suicide a little more than six years after her older son died in the same manner, an austere and defiant memoir of acceptance that focuses on facts, language and the persistence of life.
FINALISTS:
Clam Down: A Metamorphosis, by Anelise Chen (One World)
Bibliophobia: A Memoir, by Sarah Chihaya (Random House)
I'll Tell You When I'm Home: A Memoir, by Hala Alyan (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)

Poetry
Ars Poeticas, by Juliana Spahr (Wesleyan University Press)
A collection in which the poet takes stock of her personal disillusionment, which she uses to interrogate her relationship to her art form, community and politics.
FINALISTS:
I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always, by Douglas Kearney (Wave Books)
The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems, by Patricia Smith (Scribner)

General Nonfiction
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, by Brian Goldstone (Crown)
A feat of reportage, analysis and storytelling focusing on the issues that have created a national crisis of family homelessness among the so-called working poor.
FINALISTS:
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children, by Haley Cohen Gilliland (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church, by Kevin Sack (Crown)

A list to chew on

From The Guardian

The greatest literature ever published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels...

>208 dchaikin: I think I have read 59 of those, but the titles are so well known that it is easy to get confused as to whether in a life time of reading that you have actually read all those that you think you have. Most of them I read before the existence of LibraryThing.

>208 dchaikin: I clocked in at 49.

>208 dchaikin: Around 70 — 58 in my LT catalogue, others read back in the mists of time so, like Bas, I can’t always be quite sure whether I read that one or another by the same author.

Among the unread ones, Pedro Páramo, Life and fate and The known world are the only ones that weren’t on my radar one way or another. To be followed up…

>209 baswood: I felt the same way when going through the list. Some also have been made into films I’ve seen. I clocked in at 51, though when I first read the list I felt. I’d read 90% of them.

>211 thorold: I’m a fan of The Known World and it’s oddly humble author who refuses to write full time.

>209 baswood: >210 labfs39: >211 thorold: >212 kjuliff: and anyone else - any thoughts on what is missing? I noted Possession by AS Byatt and anything by Iris Murdoch or Camus. I’ve also read comments about the lack of post-modern novels, or any novels that are experimental in style… Invisible Cities being an exception of sorts

>214 dchaikin: I noticed that Maggie O’Farrell was one of the writers who was on the voter panel. I’ve read a few of her books but I don’t think she’s up there with Rushdie and McEwan. I’d be interested in knowing the age range and average age of the voters.

Only 33 for me. Too much time reading obscure histories, I guess.

I think I’ve read 80 of those. Lots of my favorites.

>214 dchaikin: As I commented in another thread, all the French classics other than Proust and Flaubert are missing. Similarly for German, which does only slightly better with Mann, Musil, Kafka and Sebald.

>215 kjuliff: there’s a link on the page about the contributors. There were 172 authors and critics. There is also a link where you can offer your top three.

>219 dchaikin: Thanks - I’ll go back and look. I did see a sample. What did you think of the list of writers that voted?

>220 kjuliff: they don’t name names. Not that i saw. Probably they aren’t writing experimental fiction. 🙂 Or in French or German.

>211 thorold: Life and Fate is a chunkster, but I really liked it.

>221 dchaikin: I read that Salman Rushdie, Anne Enright, Yiyun Li, Elif Shafak, Ian McEwan, Maggie O’Farrell, Colm Tóibín, Lorrie Moore, Katherine Rundell were some in Who’s in, who’s out, and how many have you read? The story behind our 100 best novels list. But I may have misunderstood as the article drift around a bit..

>211 thorold: Pedro Paramo must have gotten a new translation, it's been popping up in quite a few places on social media and bookstore displays. I read it a while back and while I don't exactly remember it, have fond feelings towards it.

>224 ELiz_M: It definitely sounds like something I ought to have read: I’ve read several other “road to Gabriel García Márquez” novels in the last few years, but somehow missed that one.

>214 dchaikin: "and anyone else - any thoughts on what is missing?"

I could see adding Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Tevye's Daughters by Sholom Aleichem. Possibly The Slave or some other work by Isaac Singer. I was surprised not to see All Quiet on the Western Front on the list. Also, a dark horse candidate: All For Nothing by Walker Kemposwki. Finally, The Human Stain or American Pastoral by Philip Roth.

I've read eighty of them. I think that the way the list was compiled, asking lots of people to pick their top ten, led to a couple authors being overrepresented. I think there's four Dickens novels, for example. I can see people looking at their list and saying to themselves, "I need a Dickens on there" and picking different favorites. I think Woolf also had four. I would have liked to have seen All the King's Men listed, and I also love So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. Also, I have to confess, I was kind of pleased that Updike didn't make the cut.

It's so unsurprising a list that you'd almost think the participants were asked "list the novels you think everyone else will choose" instead of "list your own choices."

>227 aprille: "I would have liked to have seen All the King's Men listed"

Yes, I thought of this book, too.

>227 aprille: maybe. All the Kings Men is really powerful

>227 aprille: I agree that having everyone pick their top ten just makes for a kind of boring, predictable list. I would have picked a lot of the same books if I'd been ask, but I prefer lists that introduce me to new books, authors, and genres. I don't think there's a single book on that list that I hadn't heard of already and either read, decided it wasn't for me, or already intended to get to some day.

>231 japaul22: interesting criticism. Now I want to ask everyone, what did you learn from the list? 🙂

ok, new to me:

#19 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne 1759 - while I know this title, I did not imagine it was a top-20 all time book
#52 The Golden Bowl by Henry James 1904
#53 The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard 1980 - never heard of this author
#61 The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald 1995
#77 The Rainbow by DH Lawrence 1915
#82 The End of the Affair by Graham Greene 1951
#92 Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert 1869
#96 Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo 1955 - never heard of this author
#99 The Go-Between by LP Hartley 1953

>233 dchaikin: Of those I’ve read The Rainbow
The End of the Affair and
The Transit of Venus

I recently started The Go-between but it is too close to McEwan’s Atonement which McEwan described as an act of homage to The Go-Between. I am no longer sure if I read the original story.

>233 dchaikin:, >234 kjuliff:
I was surprised to see The Rainbow on that list. I thought that book needed to be cut in half as it would have been a delicious slightly bigger book than a novella, instead of the 400 page excess it was. I much preferred Lady Chatterley's Lover that didn't make it to this list.

In any case, as everyone else mentioned, this list is pretty much useless as there are too many books from the world that have been published in English, and to end up with 100 books mostly from England and the US is pretty uninspiring.

It'd be better if they created lists like Best books of the Asian continent, African continent, Latin America, etc...

>233 dchaikin: Tristram Shandy gets onto those lists because it’s an early example of a novel that breaks all the rules of novels, so you can cite it as 18th century experimental fiction or ahead-of-its-time postmodern. And hence it gets on college reading lists and young novelists claim it as inspiration. Plus it’s actually great fun to read.
No-one ever lists Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr, which is even more whacko, because you only get to read that at college if you’re studying German.

The go-between is a good novel, but I would have said too provincial to be on any list that looks beyond the British Isles.

The rings of Saturn is provincial too, but Sebald turns local quirks of a small corner of England into something global.

>236 thorold: thanks for all that

>236 thorold: I have to speak up for a fellow Australian. Shirley Hazard is far from provincial and is not English.
The Transit of Venus is one of the great English-language novels of the twentieth century. It’s difficult to make such a straight, simple claim without wanting to modify or amplify it, but it is. It is greater than any novel by Don DeLillo. It is greater than any work by Alice Munro or Thomas Pynchon. No disrespect to those three indisputable geniuses, or to anyone else whose books have been tagged, however deservedly, with the word masterpiece, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a better novel than Shirley’s. - Matthew Specktor, The Paris Review. Just one of many accolades.

I think we also need to bear in mind that The Guardian is an English newspaper catering to a largely English-speaking readership, and many great books from all over the world have been published in English.

>208 dchaikin:
Have read 39. I will say that there are two that I can't remember if I read in college (Mrs Dalloway, The Trial), and four that I abandoned for different reasons (White Teeth,A Fine Balance, Wolf Hall, and Beloved).

Pedro Paramo has one of my favorite opening lines, translated in English as : "I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there."

(I still think "mi padre, un tal Pedro Paramo" should've been something like "my father, a certain Pedro Paramo" or "my father, some person named Pedro Paramo".)

I am really enjoying browsing the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize longlists every year, they're always quite long and full of interesting books that I don't see discussed much elsewhere. Here is the 2026 Longlist
https://occt.web.ox.ac.uk/oxford-weidenfeld-prize-2026

Andrey Kurkov, The Stolen Heart: The Kyiv Mysteries (MacLehose Press) translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk
Carlos Manuel Álvarez, False War (Fitzcarraldo) translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
Dante Alighieri, Paradiso (New York Review of Books) translated from the Italian by D.M. Black
Elena Fischer, Paradise Garden (The Indigo Press) translated from the German by Alexandra Roesch
Fernando Pessoa, Fower Pessoas (Carcanet) translated from the Portuguese by Colin Bramwell
Hilda Hilst, The Obscene Madame D. (Pushkin Press) translated from the Portuguese by Nathanaël Araujo and Rachel Gontijo Araujo
Irma Pineda, Stolen Flower (Yale University Press) translated from the Didxazá (Isthmus Zapotec) and Spanish by Wendy Call
Ivan V. Lalic, The Taste of Lightning (Bloodaxe Books) translated from the Serbian by Francis R. Jones
J.M.G. Le Clézio, On the Wrong Side: Stories of the Rejected (Seagull Books) translated from the French by Teresa Lavendar Fagan
Markus Werner, The Frog in the Throat (New York Review of Books) translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
Matteo Melchiorre, The Duke (Foundry Editions) translated from the Italian by Antonella Lettieri
Oliver Lovrenski, Back in the Day (Hamish Hamilton) translated from the Norwegian by Nichola Smalley
Raharimanana, Return (Seagull Books) translated from the French by Allison M. Charette
Susanna Bissoli, Struck (Linden Editions) translated from the Italian by Georgia Wall
Tohfat Mouhtare, The Fire Within (Dedalus) translated from the French by Rachael McGill
Yoko Tawada, The Naked Eye (Granta) translated from by German by Susan Bernofsky

>240 rasdhar: i don’t recognize the award. Thanks for sharing

>240 rasdhar: This is a lot more interesting to me than that depressing Guardian list!
I spotted Return by Raharimanana, an author from Madagascar. It has to be the translation of Revenir, one of my favourite books of 2018!

>221 dchaikin: There was a full list, at some point, but I can't find it anymore. This is so frustrating! I remember that the contributors' names were listed in alphabetical order. My impression was that the overwhelming majority were English-speakers and from the US or the UK. Those who didn't write in English, typically lived in the US or the UK. One exception that struck me was David Diop, who is French, and as far as I know, lives in France. He mostly listed African-American authors, as far as I remember...
The word "worldwide" in the headline "as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide" is a bit deceptive.

>243 Dilara86: i appreciate your take in this. This is good criticism. And i think you’re right.

>233 dchaikin: >236 thorold: I can’t say whether Tristram Shandy should be in this list or not, but I did enjoy it very much, for what it’s worth!

I think I read 23 or 24, I kept losing count. I suppose it comes from having read more French classics than those in other languages. That’s my excuse anyway 😉

>208 dchaikin: If my count is correct I've only read 19 of those books, and my list of my 100 favorite novels would consist mainly of translated international literature by critically acclaimed authors, several of whom are Nobel Prize laureates such as Mario Vargas Llosa, José Saramago, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and Naguib Mahfouz. Novels by Javier Cercas, Sarah Moss, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Andrea Levy, Amos Oz, Albert Camus, Jesmyn Ward, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Aminatta Forna and others would also make my Top 100 list.

>240 rasdhar: Thanks, Rasdhar! That's a very interesting list.

>242 Dilara86: I agree completely, Dilara.

>243 Dilara86: At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop was an impressive but very difficult novel to read, givrn its grim main topic.

>243 Dilara86: It looks as though there is no way to get a decent “worldwide” list if you limit it to 100 books, because there are simply too many standard works from the English-speaking world and Western Europe. Unless I’m missing something, there are only three African authors in the Guardian list, and all the Asian-background writers except Arundhati Roy live in Europe or N America. There are no Japanese or Chinese authors in the list (unless you count Ishiguro, who writes in English).

>248 thorold: I asked Gemini’s AI about the actual compilers of the list, and was told only the following were given out. I agree about the limitations of the list and suspect that any non-UK or non-USA voters had read their books in English. I couldn’t see any non-English original language books in the list.

The votes came into me by AI were a sample as per The Guardian.
• Anne Enright
• Colm Tóibín
• Doireann Ní Ghríofa
• Elif Shafak
• Ian McEwan
• Katherine Rundell
• Lorrie Moore
• Maggie O'Farrell
• Naoise Dolan
• Robert McCrum
• Salman Rushdie
• Yiyun Li

>241 dchaikin: It's very new - it was instituted in 2025, I think I'd posted the longlist last year as well, and I read a few books from that list. It's run by the Oxford University's Centre for Comparative Criticism and Translation Research,

How much more interesting it would have been if each of those participants had been asked to choose one book that they think should be included in a list like this, but never is. Give us that list. Anyone who's interested in reading a list like this doesn't need to be told (yet again) how great Tolstoy and Dickens are.

>251 KeithChaffee: that would be fascinating. But would it statically add up? Or be too random?

I wouldn’t try to present a ranked list. Choose 100 critics/writers; give each X words to write about their chosen book; publish those paragraphs as an article.

>251 KeithChaffee: I’m sure I’ve seen versions of this, maybe not with as many as 100 contributors. When I searched for it, I couldn’t find it of course…

The opposite approach would be to grab all these “greatest books” lists commissioned by different people in different parts of the world and do some kind of ranked merge to see what sticks. Inevitably, it turns out that there’s someone out there on the internet who has already done that: https://thegreatestbooks.org/ — looks as though you could have endless fun generating your own lists by varying the input parameters.

>247 kidzdoc: At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop was an impressive but very difficult novel to read, given its grim main topic.
Totally. It's a proof of the author's skill that I read it to the end, because I don't have a lot of forbearance for violence.

>248 thorold: It looks as though there is no way to get a decent “worldwide” list if you limit it to 100 books, because there are simply too many standard works from the English-speaking world and Western Europe.
The Guardian is being a bit ambiguous about what they meant to achieve. If the list is about establishing a canon, which they more or less claim in the headline, I completely agree. They're clearly overselling it. If, as is explained in one of the related articles, they simply aggregated the answers given by the "polled 172 authors, critics and academics" asked "for their top 10 novels of all time, published in English", ranked in order of preference, then they could have achieved a more interesting, and genuinely "worldwide", list by changing the polled sample to include a more geographically and linguistically diverse set of people - and/or by including publishers of translated fiction and academics.
Having said that, I wonder how many respondents gave the answers they gave simply because they interpreted "published in English" as "published originally in English". If not, it would be proof of a terrible level of cultural alienation.

>253 KeithChaffee: I'd read those! But like >254 thorold:, I am pretty sure I have seen something like this, but cannot find it again!

Thank you for the list in >254 thorold:. There is also the Bokklubben World Library of 100 books ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokklubben_World_Library ), which has all the usual suspects, but is a lot more diverse than the Guardian's latest list.

>255 Dilara86: It's a proof of the author's skill that I read it to the end, because I don't have a lot of forbearance for violence.

I agree, Dilara. Because of my career caring for hospitalized children, some of whom were victims of abuse, I find it very difficult to read books about abused children, and to a slightly lesser degree about women who have suffered physical abuse. However, I do recognize the importance of not looking away when children and women are victimized by others.

A callback to the first post in this thread!

>257 wandering_star: 🙂

>257 wandering_star: So nice!

>208 dchaikin:
I've read 47, DNF'd 1, and own a further 16. I was very into this kind of reading 15 to 20 years ago. Now I focus elsewhere, but I might return one day. I don't find the list particularly interesting, as it's more of the same "Top Books" novels that we've been seeing for years. I'm a huge Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf fan, but even I think some of their books could come off and make room for others. And I'll never see why Middlemarch is so often deemed THE best.

But it's a fun diversion.

>257 wandering_star: - :-D

>255 Dilara86: The Bokklubben list sounds very interesting.

Earlier today Gliff by Ali Smith won the Dublin Literary Award (once called the IMPAC. The award is “distinguished by its unique nomination process that involves libraries from cities across the globe. The award recognises a single work of international fiction, whether originally written in English or translated into it”)

>261 FlorenceArt: I think so too.

Here's the Bokklubben list. It skews Nordic, as could be expected, but less so than most lists from the Anglosphere skew English.

Chinua Achebe

1. Things Fall Apart
   Nigeria
   
   Hans Christian Andersen
   
2. Fairy Tales
   Denmark
   
   Jane Austen
   
3. Pride and Prejudice
   England
   
   Honoré de Balzac
   
4. Father Goriot
   France
   
   Samuel Beckett
   
5. The trilogy Molloy, Malone dies, and The unspeakable
   Ireland
   
   Giovanni Boccaccio
   
6. The decameron
   Italy
   
   Jorge Luis Borges
   
7. Ficciones
   Argentina
   
   Emily Brontë
   
8. Wuthering Heights
   England
   
   Albert Camus
   
9. The Stranger
   France
   
   Paul Celan
   
10. Poems
    Romania/France
    
    Louis-Ferdinand Céline
    
11. Journey to the end of the night
    France
    
    Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
    
12. Don Quixote
    Spain
    
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    
13. Canterbury Tales
    England
    
    Joseph Conrad
    
14. Nostromo
    England
    
    Dante Alighieri
    
15. The Divine Comedy
    Italy
    
    Charles Dickens
    
16. Great Expectations
    England
    
    Denis Diderot
    
17. Jacques the Fatalist
    France
    
    Alfred Döblin
    
18. Berlin Alexanderplatz
    Germany
    
    Fyodor Dostoevsky
    
19. Crime and punishment
    
20. The idiot
    
21. The Possessed
    
22. The Brothers Karamazov
    Russia
    
    George Eliot
    
23. Middlemarch
    England
    
    Ralph Ellison
    
24. Invisible Man
    United States
    
    Euripides
    
25. Medea
    Greece
    
    William Faulkner
    
26. Absalom, Absalom!
    
27. The Sound and the Fury
    United States
    
    Gustave Flaubert
    
28. Madame Bovary
    
29. Sentimental Education
    France
    
    Federico García Lorca
    
30. Gypsy Ballads
    Spain
    
    Gabriel García Márquez
    
31. One Hundred Years of Solitude
    
32. Love in the time of cholera
    Colombia
    
    
33. Gilgamesh
    Mesopotamia
    
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    
34. Faust I & II
    Germany
    
    Nikolai Gogol
    
35. Dead Souls
    Russia
    
    Günter Grass
    
36. The Tin Drum
    Germany
    
    João Guimarães Rosa
    
37. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (the only author and work I'd never heard of)
    Brazil
    
    Knut Hamsun
    
38. Hunger
    Norway
    
    Ernest Hemingway
    
39. The Old Man and the Sea
    United States
    
    Homer
    
40. The Iliad
    
41. The Odyssey
    Greece
    
    Henry Ibsen
    
42. A doll's House
    Norway
    
    
43. The Book of Job
    Israel
    
    James Joyce
    
44. Ulysses
    Ireland
    
    Franz Kafka
    
45. Stories
    
46. The Trial
    
47. The Castle
    Czech Republic
    
    Kalidasa
    
48. Shakuntala
    India
    
    Yasunari Kawabata
    
49. The sound of the mountain
    Japan
    
    Nikos Kazantzakis
    
50. Zorba the Greek
    Greece
    
    D.H. Lawrence
    
51. Sons and Lovers
    England
    
    Halldór K. Laxness
    
52. Independent people
    Iceland
    
    Giacomo Leopardi
    
53. Complete poems
    Italy
    
    Doris Lessing
    
54. The Golden Notebook
    England
    
    Astrid Lindgren
    
55. Pippi Longstocking
    Sweden
    
    Lu Xun
    
56. Diary of a Madman
    China
    
    
57. Mahabharata
    India
    
    Naguib Mahfouz
    
58. Children of Gebelawi
    Egypt
    
    Thomas Man
    
59. Buddenbrooks
    
60. The Magic Mountain (the automatic translation was "Trolldom Mountain", which I love!)
    Germany
    
    Herman Melville
    
61. Moby Dick
    United States
    
    Michel de Montaigne
    
62. Essays
    France
    
    Elsa Morante
    
63. History
    Italy
    
    Toni Morrison
    
64. Beloved
    United States
    
    Shikibu Murasaki
    
65. The Tale of Genji
    Japan
    
    Robert Musil
    
66. The man without Qualities
    Austria
    
    Vladimir Nabokov
    
67. Lolita
    Russia/US
    
    
68. Njál's Saga
    Iceland
    
    George Orwell
    
69. 1984
    England
    
    Ovid
    
70. Metamorphoses
    Italy
    
    Fernando Pessoa
    
71. The Book of Disquiet
    Portugal
    
    Edgar Allan Poe
    
72. The Complete Tales
    United States
    
    Marcel Proust
    
73. In Search of Lost Time
    France
    
    Rabelais
    
74. Gargantua and
75. Pantagruel
    France
    
    Juan Rulfo
    
76. Pedro Páramo
    Mexico
    
    Jalal ad-din Rumi
    
77. Masnavi
    Iran
    
    Salman Rushdie
    
78. Midnight's Children
    India/England
    
    Saadi
    
79. Bostan
    Iran
    
    Tayeb Salih
    
80. Season of Migration to the North
    Sudan
    
    José Saramago
    
81. Blindness
    Portugal
    
    William Shakespeare
    
82. Hamlet
    
83. King Lear
    
84. Othello
    England
    
    Sophocles
    
85. Oedipus the King
    Greece
    
    Stendhal
    
86. The Red and the Black
    France
    
    Laurence Sterne
    
87. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
    Ireland
    
    Italo Svevo
    
88. Confessions of Zeno
    Italy
    
    Jonathan Swift
    
89. Gulliver's Travels
    Ireland
    
    Leo Tolstoy
    
90. War and Peace
    
91. Anna Karenina
    
92. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
    Russia
    
    Anton P. Chekhov
    
93. Short stories
    Russia
    
    
94. One thousand and one night
    India/Iran/Irak/Egypt
    
    Mark Twain
    
95. Adventures of Huckleberry Fin
    United States
    
    Valmiki
    
96. Ramayana
    India
    
    Virgil
    
97. Aeneid
    Italy
    
    Walt Whitman
    
98. Leaves of Grass
    United States
    
    Virginia Woolf
    
99. Mrs. Dalloway
    
100. To the lighthouse
     England
     
     Marguerite Yourcenar
     
101. Hadrian's memoirs
     France
     
     

>263 Dilara86: Thanks for copying the list! Some of my all time favorites are there: Voyage au bout de la nuit, Ulysses, Tristram Shandy. Some that I didn’t like too, of course, and many I need to read some time.

>263 Dilara86: what a great project this would be!

>263 Dilara86: I like this list better, although I've read fewer.

I cleaned up the list in >263 Dilara86:. For me, there's a good mix of titles I wishlisted, or was glad to have read, but also a few books I didn't like, or am not interested in... I have read 52 of those works cover to cover, have abandoned 6, and have read parts of another 6. I am a bit sad that neither Emily Dickinson nor Li Qingzhao made the cut. In fact, there aren't many of my personal favourites.

>263 Dilara86: I have read 48 of those - I thought I was doing really well when I went down the list because I have read the top 6. However although I have read number 5 The Trilogy Molloy it was one of my worst reading experiences.

Its fun looking at 'best of' reading lists and when I read a book from a list such as those I tend to be optimistic or worry a little if I do not like it.

The shortlist for the 2026 Royal Society of Literature (RSL) Ondaatje Prize was announced in May, featuring six authors competing for the £10,000 award. The annual prize honors a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry that best evokes the spirit of a place.

The 2026 Shortlist:
A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay
Greyhound by Joanna Pocock
Helm by Sarah Hall
Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet

>269 dchaikin: re the first in the list:
I worried at first that the title would invite a comparison to you-know-who. - Claire Adam, The Guardian 2/13/25

As the book is set in Jamaica, I worried too. But apparently not.

Lit Hub Summer Reading Challenge!!!
https://lithub.com/best-books-reading-challenge-2026/

5/28: Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages:
https://lithub.com/50-great-classic-novels-under-200-pages/

6/11: The Greatest Summer Novels of All Time
https://lithub.com/50-of-the-greatest-summer-novels-of-all-time/

6/25: What the New York Times Missed:
https://lithub.com/what-the-new-york-times-missed-71-more-of-the-best-books-of-t...

7/9: The Best Contemporary Novels Under 200 Pages
https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contemporary-novels-under-200-pages/

8/13: The Greatest Coming-of-Age Novels
https://lithub.com/the-50-greatest-coming-of-age-novels/

9/3: The Best Campus Novels from the Last 100 Years
https://lithub.com/the-60-best-campus-novels-from-the-last-100-years/

BONUS: The Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages
https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contemporary-novels-over-500-pages/