BOOK LISTS
At the heart of my teaching and writing practice is “Read One Hundred Books: Write One,” which was the motto of my MFA in Writing and Literature in Fiction program at Bennington College. The approach is annotative, rather than a book report approach, for exploring and contrasting specific craft examples within books by masterful authors and distilling lessons from them. Below are lists of books referenced in courses and workshops. It’s not essential to read the books in order to benefit from the courses. I reference key passages in my teaching, pdfs, and blog posts. However, the more you read, the more you’ll gain.
The Master Craft Juggling Framework
My Master Craft Juggling framework includes nine groups of elements. The online course Writing Fiction: Nine Ways to Mastery and the in-person Read to Write Books course are organized in sessions according to these nine groups or chapters. The ambitious list is why these courses have been called a “mini-MFA.”
1 ~ Gatekeepers & Story Seeds
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
The Quiet American, Graham Greene
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner
Selected Stories, Alice Munro
A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
2 ~ Voice, Style & POV
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
The Middleman & Other Stories, Baharati Murkherjee
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Bell Canto, Ann Patchett
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Bachman
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Atonement, Ian McEwan
3 ~ Character
Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, Richard Yates
How to Make an American Quilt, Whitney Otto
The Country Life, Rachel Cusk
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
4 ~ Place
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
Of the Farm & Pigeon Feathers, John Updike
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Dubliners, James Joyces
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
5 ~ Tension
Felicia’s Journey, William Trevor
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante
6 ~ Time & Consciousness
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Lorrie Moore
Lie Down in Darkness, William Styron
Larry’s Party, Carol Shields
A Country Life, Rachel Cusk
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
Tinkers, Paul Harding
7 ~ Love & Other Emotions
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Jasmine, Baharati Mukherjee
Selected Stories, Alice Munro
A Passage to India, E.M Forster
Bell Canto, Ann Patchett
Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante
8 ~ Image & the Senses
Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M Coetzee
A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Our Ancestors: Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
9 ~ Theme & Gestalt
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Passage to India, E.M. Forster
Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M Coetzee
Human Stain, Philip Roth
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
FIRST PERSON: MEMOIR & NARRATIVE NONFICTION
Participants in First Person: Memoir & Narrative Nonfiction read as many books from the list as they wish. As the course progresses, participants may want to add books that speak to their specific concerns and interests.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, Bill Bryson
An American Childhood, Annie Dillard
The Liars’ Club: A Memoir, Mary Karr
On Writing, Stephen King
Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World, Michael Pollan
Ruined by Reading, Lynne Sharon Schwartz
PRIZEWINNERS
Tinkers, Paul Harding
ADS are placed by Google and are not endorsed by Read to Write Books.
Read to Write Books 