If you want to read more this year, please keep reading.
This is the Ultimate Book List for the year. Great writers love to read, so I reached out to some of my writer friends to see what they are reading right now. It was a real challenge for them to choose just one book for each category. The Ultimate Book list includes:
113 reading recommendations and then some
- 27 awesome blogs
- 26 books that writers are reading right now
- 26 of their all time favorites
- 20 books they’ve written
- 10 great book lists
- 4 books I’ve written
- 10 books I am excited to read in 2013
Let the reading recommendations begin …
The Ultimate List of What Writers Read
I asked my writer friends to provide: 1. the name of the book they are reading right now, or what they read most recently and 2. one of their all time favorite books.
Dusti Arab from dustiarab.com and author of The Minimalist Mom
- A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams
by Michael Pollan
- Chocolat
by Joanne Harris
Leo Babauta from Zen Habits and author of 52 Changes
- Don Quixote
by Miguel De Cervantes
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Joshua Becker from Becoming Minimalist and author of Living With Less
- More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity
Jeff Shinabarger
- The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
by Shane Claiborne
Dave Bruno from Guy Named Dave and author of The 100 Thing Challenge
- America: A Narrative History
by George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi
- Godric by Frederick Buechner.
Satya Colombo from satyacolombo.com and author of Flow
- Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams & David Carson
- Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Arvind Devalia from Make it Happen and author of Get the Life You Love and Live It
- Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds
by Ping Fu
- The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho
Ali Edwards from aliedwards.com and author of Life Artist
- Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
by Elizabeth Lesser
- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
Diane Elkins from Positive Workspace
- The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Matt Frazier from No Meat Athlete and author of Marathon Roadmap
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas Hofstadter
Karol Gajda from karol.gajda.com and author of Luxury of Less
- Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Book of Five Rings
by Miyamoto Musashi
Jolie Guillebeau from jolieguillebeau.com and author of Beauty Everywhere
- Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Faith Janes from Minimalist at Home and author of Family Sized Minimalism
- The Barefoot Executive by Carrie Wilkerson
- One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life
by Kerry & Chris Shook
Rachel Jonat from The Minimalist Mom and author of The Minimalist Mom’s Guide to Baby’s First Year
- Moranthology
by Caitlan Moran
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
Heidi Larsen from Foodiecrush and author of Foodiecrush Magazine
- Bossypants
by Tina Fey
- Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jonathan Mead from Paid to Exist and author of Reclaim Your Dreams
- The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
- Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Joshua Fields Millburn from The Minimalists and author of As a Decade Fades
- This Is How You Lose Her
by Junot Diaz
- The Pale King
by David Foster Wallace
Andrew Odom from Tiny Revolution
- Apartment Therapy’s Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces
- Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier
Sandra Pawula from Always Well Within
- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
by Cheryl Strayed
- The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche
Amanda Schoonover from A Thrifty Hippie
- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
- The Shack
William P. Young
Victoria Smith from Corbae Cafe
- The Writing Diet
by Julia Cameron,
- This Time I Dance! by Tama Kieves
Tammy Strobel from Rowdy Kittens and author of You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap)
- Fifty Shades Trilogy: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
- This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart
by Susannah Conway.
Betsy Talbot from Married with Luggage and author of Getting Rid of It
- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
by Joshua Foer
- Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
Mohamed Tohami from Midway Simplicity and author of Midway Simplicity
- The 52-Week Life Passion Project
by Barrie Davenport
- Awaken the Giant Within
by Tony Robbins
Robert Wall from Untitled Minimalism and author of Harmonizing Hobbies
- Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success
by Ken Segall
- The Warrior Ethos
by Steven Pressfield
Leslie Webster from A Simple Life Afloat
- A Wanted Man by Lee Child
- The Lone Pilgrim
by Laurie Colwin
Beverly Army Williams from Pomo Golightly
- Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
- Suite Francaise
by Irene Nemirovsky
Nina Yau from ninayau.com and author of Truth
- Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
The Ultimate List of Book Lists
- 100 Notable Books by the New York Times
- Huff Post Editor’s Best Book Choices
- The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
- If you want to lead, read these 10 books
- Perfect Books by Leo Babauta
- The Best Books of 2012 by Oprah Winfrey
- Amazon’s Best Sellers of 2012
- Books that will inspire you by Tammy Strobel
- Best Books of 2012 by npr
- Best Kindle Books to Inspire Simplicity
10 Books I Want to Read in 2013
- The Culture of Make Believe
by Derrick Jensen
- No Place Like Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments
by Brooke Berman
- A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller
by Francis Mayes
- Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
- Love, Loss, and What I Wore
by Ilene Beckerman
- The Practice of the Presence of God Brother Lawerence
- On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal
By Mary Taylor Simeti
- Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
- Shout Her Lovely Name
by Natalie Serber
- Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
A List of Books I Wrote
- Simple Ways to Be More with Less
- Living in the Land of Enough
- Clutterfree
- Mini-missions for Simplicity
For other books I recommend, you can visit Courtney’s Reading List.
I hope this list will help you get lost in a good novel, discover a new author, find a new blog you love and perhaps improve your writing or encourage you to write your own book.
Please comment with what you are reading now and your all time favorite book to continue the Ultimate Book List.