These are the ones I remember from the last few years, anyway!
If you don’t see your book on the list, don’t let that deter you. I’m a fast read, so if you let me know of the book you’re writing about, and I haven’t read it, I’ll simply read it!
Literary essays aren’t about books, alone. It’s a good thing that I teach short story classes as well as poetry. I’m also very familiar with a vast array of plays (the dreaded Shakespeare is my jam), having studied theatre and performing arts in my acting days. Heck, if you’re writing about a movie script, I can help there, too, because I have a Master’s in screenwriting!
I’m all about story.
I won’t let you down.
Anywho, here’s the list:
After – Francine Prose
A Great and Terrible Beauty – Libba Bray
A Handful of Time – Kit Pearson
Airborn – Kenneth Oppel
Among the Hidden – Margaret Peterson Haddix
And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L ‘Engle
Because of Anya – Margaret Peterson Haddix
Birdland– Tracy Mack
Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson
Black Rain – Masuji Ibuse
Blue Wolf – Catherine Creedon
Chasing Vermeer – Blue Balliett Candor – Pam Bachorz
Crabbe – William Bell
Dust – Arthur Slade
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Frankenstein – Mary Shelly
Finding Violet Park – Jenny Valentine
Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
Hatchet – Gary Paulson
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Hold Fast – Kevin Major
Holes – Louis Sachar
Howl’s Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones
I am Legend – Richard Matheson
Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer
Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell
Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
Kira-Kira – Cynthia Kadohata
Left for Dead – Pete Nelson
Lesia’s Dream – Laura Langston
Little Brother – Cory Doctorow
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Mary Reilly – Valerie Martin
Maus – Art Spiegelman
Mrs. Frisbe and the Rats of NIHM – Robert C. O’Brian
Night – Elie Wiesel
Nine Stories – J.D. Salinger
Obasan – Joy Kogawa
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
One Good Story, That One – Thomas King
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Mildred D. Taylor
Rumble Fish – S.E. Hinton
Silverwing – Kenneth Oppel
Skin and other Stories – Roald Dahl
Smoke and Mirrors – Lesley Choyce
So Long, See you Tomorrow – William Keepers Maxwell Jr.
The African Queen – C.S. Forester
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
The Blue Helmet – William Bell
The Boat – Nam Lee
The Bone Collector’s Son – Paul Yee
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Call of the Wild – Jack London
The Crossing – Cormac McCarthy
The Colour of Water – James McBride
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
The Devil and Miss Prim – Paulo Coelho
The First Stone – Don Aker
The Giver – Lois Lowry
The Great Good Thing – Roderick Townley
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Neverending Story – Michael Ende
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Outsiders – S.E. Hinton
The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
The Tiger Rising – Kate DiCamillo
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
The White Mountains – John Christopher
The Witches – Roald Dahl
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More – Roald Dahl
To be a Slave – Julius Lester
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Touching the Void – Joe Simpson
Tuck Everlasting – Natalie Babbitt
Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
Watership Down – Richard Adams