Our 100 Favorite Books

Gayle and Nicole just recorded the 100th episode of The Readerly Report podcast! To honor the occasion, we pulled together a list of our 100 favorite books since we started podcasting (or that we’ve discussed on the show). Some of these have gotten a lot of airtime, while others haven’t been discussed much at all. We hope you find some new favorites on this list!

Here are our lists, in no particular order. We’ve separated out the books that made both lists.

Books That Made Both Lists

1. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
2. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
3. Becoming by Michelle Obama
4. The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve
5. The Risen by Ron Rash

Gayle’s Top Books

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
3. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
4. Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh
5. We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
6. City of Thieves by David Benioff
7. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
8. Days of Awe by Lauren Fox
9. Every Day by David Levithan
10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
11. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
12. Gig by John Bowe and Marisa Bowe
13. Open by Andre Agassi
14. Room by Emma Donoghue
15. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
16. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
17. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
18. Under The Influence by Joyce Maynard
19. You Know When The Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
20. Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen
21. You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld
22. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
23. The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal
24. The Last September by Nina de Gramont
25. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
26. Three Junes by Julia Glass
27. Still Alice by Lisa Genova
28. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
29. A Friend Of The Family by Lauren Grodstein
30. Waiting For Eden by Elliot Ackerman
31. Not Dead Yet by Phil Collins
32. Early Warning by Jane Smiley
33. Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny
34. Small Mercies by Eddie Joyce
35. The Sweetheart Deal by Polly Dugan
36. Best Boy by Eli Gottlieb
37. The Blessings by Elise Juska
38. Redeployment by Phil Klay
39. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
40. The Condition by Jennifer Haigh
41. Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok
42. Faith by Jennifer Haigh
43. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
44. Labor Day by Joyce Maynard
45. Cost by Roxana Robinson
46. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
47. Little Children by Tom Perrotta
48. The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

Nicole’s Top Books

1. The Witch Elm by Tana French
2. Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
3. Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney
4. Real American by Julie Lythcott-Haims
5. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
6. The Futilitarians by Anne Giseleson
7. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
8. Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
9. The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwan
10. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
11. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
12. A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles
13. The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn
14. Swing Time by Zadie Smith
15. American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
16. Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
17. Between The World And Me by Ta-Nahesi Coates
18. All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker
19. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
20. Siracusa by Delia Ephron
21. A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
22. Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
23. All At Sea by Decca Aitkenhead
24. My (Part-time) Paris Life by Lisa Anselmo
25. The Travelers by Regina Porter
26. Black Is The Body by Emily Bernard
27. Red At The Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
28. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
29. There, There by Tommy Orange
30. Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich
31. Fruit Of The Drunken Tree by Ingrid Contreras Rojas
32. Golden Child by Claire Adam
33. Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase
34. The Seven 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
35. The Two Lila Bennetts by Liz Fenton
36. Good Talk by Mira Jacob
37. Killing It: An Education by Camas Davis
38. The Paris Wife by Paula McClain
39. More Than Enough by Elaine Welteroth
40. The Muse by Jessie Burton
41. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
42. All Happy Families by Jean McCulloch
43. The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya
44. No One Is Coming To Save Us by Stephanie Powell
45. Devotion by Madeline Stevens
46. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
47. Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee