Looking for something new to read? These are some of my top book recommendations. I could (and have with several) re-read any of the books on the list. Planning to purchase the book? Want to support small business and my favorite local bookstore, Pop! Art Books Culture? Check back frequently as I plan to add links for each book. Thank you for keeping brick and mortar used bookstores a thing!
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🎧 – audiobook was excellent
❤️🔥 – romance
🪷 – easy/light read
🌌 – thought-provoking
🦄 – fantastical
🕵️ – kind of self-explanatory…
🫶 – marketing and business
📝 – craft study
🪅 – isn’t is so much fun to hit a piñata and watch candy spill out?! That’s what it’s like reading these books
🙊 – mild adult themes (i.e. violence, sexual content)
🙈 – heavy adult themes (i.e. gruesome detail , violent crimes)
🙀 – Not for the faint of heart
☠️ – REALLY not for the faint of heart
Fiction
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum 🙀
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple 🪷
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 🌌
99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne ❤️🔥
The Endless Beach by Jenny Colgan 🪷
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty 🙊
A Man Called Ove by Fedrik Backman 🌌
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid 🪷 🎧
The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 🦄
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal 🌌
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison & Robert Haller 🌌
The Help by Kathryn Stockett 🌌 🎧
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ❤️🔥
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk 🙈
Short Fiction
Shine by Jodi Picoult 🌌 🪷
You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld (collection) 🪷
Birds and Birthdays by Chris Barzak (collection) 🦄
The Pearl by John Steinbeck 🌌 🪷
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (collection) 🙈
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 🦄 🌌
Nonfiction
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara 🙀
The Tender Bar by JR Moehringer 🌌 📝
A Girl and 5 Brave Horses by Sonora Carver as told to Elizabeth Land 🌌
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 🙀
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott 📝
Cats on Film by Anne Billson 🪅
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay (essay collection) 🪷 🌌
Self-Help
The Seven Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today by the Gang 🪅
Deep Work by Cal Newport 🫶
Just Write by James Scott Bell 📝
Hooked by Nir Eyal 🫶
The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White 📝
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz 📝 🫶
Collections / Series
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Mayer 🦄
- Cinder
- Scarlet
- Cress
- Winter
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 🦄
- The Hobbit (optional)
- The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King
Stephen King
On Writing 📝
1922 🙈
Mr. Mercedes 🕵️ 🎧
The Outsider 🙀
The Dark Tower 🦄 🙈
- The Gunslinger
- The Drawing of the Three
- The Wastelands
- Wizard and Glass
- The Wind Through the Keyhole
- Wolves of the Calla
- The Song of Susannah
- The Dark Tower
- Charlie the Choo-Choo by Beryl Evans (bonus)
Danny Torrance
- The Shining 🙀
- Doctor Sleep 🙀 🎧
Poetry
(Disclaimer: I didn’t categorize any of these chapbooks because poetry can be extremely subjective and,
while I may think of it one way, you may think of it in a completely different way than I do. Happy Reading!)
Here, We Bury the Hearts by Dom Fonce
The Lives We Live In Houses by Pauletta Hansel
The Parting Present / Lo Que Se Irá by Manuel Iris
Dear Youngstown by Karen Schubert
Luz Bones by Myrna Stone
🚸Children’s Lit 🚸
P is for Pterodactyl by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter
Ellen and the Goldfish by John Himmelman
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