In the order that they were read and reviewed (which means you can find reviews for ALL these titles on this blog), here are our lists of The Starving Artist’s Recommended Reading. For your convenience, they are broken down into genres. Books recommended with reservations are in parenthesis, and we suggest you read the review before choosing.

LITERARY AND GENERAL FICTION

• The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
• One hundred years of solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• White Teeth, Zadie Smith
• A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
• Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, Tom Stoppard
• The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• (Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout)
• (The Turner House, Angela Flournoy)
• Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
• (The Stranger, Albert Camus)
• The Pearl, John Steinbeck
• Animal Farm, George Orwell
• The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
• Big Fish, Daniel Wallace

CLASSICS (app. pre-1900)

• Emma, Jane Austen
• Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
• The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
• Old Goriot, Honore de Balzac
• Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
• A Man Could Stand Up– (from the Parade’s End quartet), Ford Maddox Ford
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
• Shirley, Charlotte Bronte
  
• The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volumes 1 and 2, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
• Villette, Charlotte Bronte
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
• Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
• The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

CHILDRENS through MIDDLE GRADES

• The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne
• Pipi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren
• Matilda, Roald Dahl
• My Teacher is an Alien, Bruce Coville
• Tales From the Hood (from Sisters Grimm series), Michael Buckley
• Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
• Clarice Bean, (trilogy), Lauren Child
• The Magical Fruit (from the Doctor Proctor series), Jo Nesbo
• A Snicker of Magic, Natalie Lloyd
• Smile and Sisters, Raina Telgemeier, as well as the Graphix Baby-Sitters Club series
• Ruby Redfort (series), Lauren Child
• Ramona (series), Beverly Cleary
• Henry Huggins and the Clubhouse, Beverly Cleary
• Socks, Beverly Cleary
• Frog and Toad (series), Arnold Lobel
• Mouse Tales, Arnold Lobel (and Mouse Soup)
• Dear Mr. Henshaw, Beverly Cleary
• The BFG, Roald Dahl
• Holes, Louis Sachar
• The Lemonade War, Jacqueline Davies
• (Frindle, Andrew Clements)
• Half Magic, Edward Eager
• (Roscoe Riley Rules (series), Katherine Applegate)
• Homer Price, Robert McCloskey
• Ghosts, Raina Telgemeier
• Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel, Mariah Marsden and Brenna Thummler
• Little Book for Boys, M.L. Stratton
• (Fablehaven (5-book series), Brandon Mull)
• How to Train Your Dragon (12-book series), Cressida Cowell
• Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl

YA (starting with the tweens for some books)

• Anne of Green Gables (series), L. M. Montgomery
• Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery
• Rilla of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery
• Harry Potter (series), J. K. Rowling
• Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
• (Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children (trilogy), Ransom Riggs)
• Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children: the Graphic Novel, Cassandra Jean
• When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
• (I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith)
• Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
• Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
• The Giver, Lois Lowry
• The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• (The Book Thief, Markus Zusak)

PICTURE BOOKS

• The Sesame Street Bedtime Storybook
• Mouse Tales, Arnold Lobel (and Mouse Soup)
• Uncle Elephant, Arnold Lobel
• Grasshopper on the Road, Arnold Lobel
• The Random House Book of Poetry for Children
• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Mo Willems
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
• The Jesus Storybook Bible
• Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey
• The Book with No Pictures, B.J. Novak
• Fables, Arnold Lobel
• (On Market Street, Arnold and Anita Lobel)
• Ming Ho Moves the Mountain, Arnold Lobel
• The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments, Arnold Lobel
• Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
• Little Bear, Else Holmelund Minarik
• Alligators All Around, Maurice Sendak
• Chicken Soup with Rice, Maurice Sendak
• The X-Files: Earth Children Are Weird, Kim Smith
• The Usborne Children’s Encyclopedia, Jane Eliot and Colin King
• Almost anything Chris Van Allsburg, including but not limited to Jumanji, Zathura, The Polar Express, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, Zephyr, The Z Was Zapped, and Two Bad Ants

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

• The Once and Future King, T. H. White
• The Book of Merlyn, T. H. White
• Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis
• Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
• The Giver, Lois Lowry
• (Stewart’s Arthur (trilogy), Mary Stewart)
• Anthem, Ayn Rand
• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
• The Princess Bride, William Goldman

WORLD LITERATURE (NON-ENGLISH-SPEAKING, MAINLY TRANSLATIONS) AND TRAVEL

• (Three Sisters, Bi Feiyu (first two sections, only)), China
• Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Fuschia Dunlop, China
• China Survival Guide, Larry and Qin Herzberg, China
• Point It, Dieter Graf, World
• Mandarin Phrasebook and Dictionary, Lonely Planet, China

GRAPHIC NOVELS

• Smile and Sisters, Raina Telgemeier, as well as the Graphix Baby-Sitters club series
• Ghosts, Raina Telgemeier
• Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel, Mariah Marsden and Brenna Thummler

NON-FICTION, SCIENCE, AND HISTORY

• A Night to Remember, Walter Lord
• No Pretty Pictures, Anita Lobel
• The Big Bad Book of Beasts and The Big Bad Book of Botany, Michael Largo
• The Geography Coloring Book, Wynn Kapit

WRITING AND PUBLISHING

• Self-Printed, Catherine Ryan Howard
• On Writing, Stephen King
• Secrets of Ebook Publishing Success, Mark Coker
• APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch

SELF-HELP AND RELIGION