Fourteen novels that moved something in me — the books I actually hand people when they ask what to read next. A mix of literary fiction, sci-fi, and a few I return to more than once.
McMurtry's 1985 epic of a cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana, following retired Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call on one last long journey. Eight hundred pages long, often cited as the great American Western even though McMurtry set out to dismantle the myth. Won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted into the acclaimed 1989 CBS miniseries.
Barbara Kingsolver's 2022 transposition of Dickens's David Copperfield from Victorian England to the mountains of southern Appalachia during the opioid epidemic. Narrated in the voice of a red-haired boy born to a teenage single mother in a trailer, tracking his passage through foster care, high-school football, injury, and addiction. Co-winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2023 Women's Prize.
John Williams's 1965 novel of an ordinary academic life: a Missouri farm boy who becomes a professor of English literature, endures a failing marriage, a long departmental feud, and the quiet accumulations of disappointment. Neglected for decades, then rediscovered after a 2003 New York Review Books reissue. Frequently cited by contemporary writers as a model of plain, precise American prose.
Steinbeck's 1952 family saga, set in California's Salinas Valley across two generations of the Trask and Hamilton families. A loose retelling of the Cain and Abel story, shaped by Steinbeck's own family history and his reading of Genesis. Steinbeck considered it his finest work and wrote to his editor that everything else had been preparation for it. Adapted into the 1955 Elia Kazan film starring James Dean.
James Baldwin's 1956 second novel, set in Paris — a first-person confession narrated by David, a young American engaged to be married, who during his fiancée's absence begins an affair with an Italian bartender named Giovanni. Published despite Baldwin's American editor reportedly urging him to burn it, because of its subject matter and its all-white cast of characters. A foundational text of American queer literature.
Andy Weir's 2021 novel — his third — opens with an astronaut waking alone in deep space with no memory of who he is or why he's there. The plot turns on a microbe consuming the sun's energy and a mission to find an alternative, and on an unexpected interspecies friendship at its core. Adapted into the March 2026 Ryan Gosling film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
Michael Crichton's 1990 techno-thriller about a billionaire's attempt to clone dinosaurs from amber-preserved DNA and open a theme park off the coast of Costa Rica. Beneath the set pieces, a serious argument about chaos theory, corporate hubris, and the ethics of biotechnology. Adapted into Spielberg's 1993 film.
Pierce Brown's 2014 debut, the first of what is now a seven-book series. Set on a terraformed Mars governed by a color-coded caste system, the novel follows Darrow, a lowly Red miner whose wife is executed by the ruling Gold class. He undergoes genetic reconstruction to infiltrate their academy. Often described as The Hunger Games for readers who grew up on Roman history.
Frank Herbert's 1965 novel of ecology, religion, and imperial politics on the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of a spice that makes interstellar travel possible. Winner of the first Nebula Award and a co-winner of the Hugo. The foundational text of modern science fiction; adapted into David Lynch's 1984 film and Denis Villeneuve's two-part 2021 / 2024 adaptation.
Christopher Ruocchio's 2018 debut, the first book of The Sun Eater series. A far-future space opera told in the memoir voice of Hadrian Marlowe, a disgraced nobleman awaiting execution. The series blends Gene Wolfe's literary science fiction with the operatic scale of Dune and Warhammer 40,000. Frequently recommended as the next stop after readers finish Herbert.
Stephen King's 1986 novel about seven children in Derry, Maine, who in the summer of 1958 confront an ancient evil that takes the shape of their fears — most famously as the clown Pennywise. The book alternates between 1958 and 1985, when the seven return as adults to finish what they started. Over 1,100 pages, and widely considered King's defining novel about childhood, memory, and the places small towns hide.
Susanna Clarke's 2020 novel, her first since Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Its narrator lives alone in an infinite house of statues, halls, and tides, his memory and sense of what is real slowly unraveling as the book unfolds. Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Taylor Jenkins Reid's 2025 historical romance set at NASA in the early 1980s. Follows Joan Goodwin, a Rice University astronomy professor selected into the second cohort of female astronauts, through training, a secret relationship with a fellow candidate, and a Space Shuttle disaster. A New York Times bestseller, published by Ballantine. Part of Reid's loose shared universe alongside Daisy Jones and Evelyn Hugo.
Gabrielle Zevin's 2014 novel about a widowed, misanthropic bookshop owner on a fictional New England island whose life is upended when an abandoned baby turns up in the aisles of his shop. Each chapter opens with A.J.'s brief notes on a short story. A word-of-mouth indie-bookstore favorite that sold over two million copies, adapted into a 2022 film.