The Book of Why (24 page)
In my writing office at home, I reserve one shelf for my favorites, the books I come back to over and over. If I were forced to choose one favorite book, it would probably be
Jesus' Son
by Denis Johnson or
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf.
Here are my top 25 in chronological order:
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf (1927)
All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren (1946)
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams (1947)
Rabbit, Run
by John Updike (1960)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
by Edward Albee (1962)
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath (1963)
A Sport and a Pastime
by James Salter (1967)
Deliverance
by James Dickey (1970)
'Salem's Lot
by Stephen King (1975)
Sophie's Choice
by William Styron (1979)
Black Tickets
by Jayne Anne Phillips (1979)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
by Cameron Crowe (1981)
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro (1988)
Where I'm Calling From
by Raymond Carver (1988)
Affliction
by Russell Banks (1989)
The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien (1990)
The Journals of John Cheever
(1991)
The Wild Iris
by Louise Glück (1992)
Jesus' Son
by Denis Johnson (1992)
Blindness
by José Saramago (1995)
A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates
by Blake Bailey (2003)
Doubt
by John Patrick Shanley (2005)
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Canada
by Richard Ford (2012)
The Patrick Melrose Novels
by Edward St. Aubyn (2012)
Taking the Leap
by Pema Chödrön
When Things Fall Apart
by Pema Chödrön
The Wisdom of No Escape
by Pema Chödrön
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
by Deepak Chopra
Your Sacred Self
by Wayne Dyer
Writing Down the Bones
by Natalie Goldberg
The Miracle of Mindfulness
by Thich Nhat Hanh
Ten Poems to Change Your Life
by Roger Housden
A Path with Heart
by Jack Kornfield
Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
On Writer's Block
by Victoria Nelson
New and Selected Poems, Volumes One and Two
by Mary Oliver
The Five Things We Cannot Change
by David Richo
How to Be an Adult in Relationships
by David Richo
Congratulations, by the way
by George Saunders
The Grace in Dying
by Kathleen Dowling Singh
A New Earth
by Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now
by Eckhart Tolle
This Is Water
by David Foster Wallace
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us at
hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, p or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2013 by Nicholas Montemarano
Cover design by Matt Tanner; cover art © Jeren (France)/Getty Images
Cover © 2014 by Hachette Book Group
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
littlebrown.com
twitter.com/littlebrown
facebook.com/littlebrownandcompany
First ebook edition: January 2013
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
ISBN 978-0-316-18848-7
E3