20 books from Stephen King's reading list in On Writing

the appendix in On Writing lists 96 books, alphabetical by author. these are 20 of them

Never miss an update

This list changes over time. Get a short email when it does.

At most one short email a week. Unfollow in one click.

A Death in the Family - James Agee

Regeneration - Pat Barker

first of a WWI trilogy, King listed all three. start here

The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

everyone gets assigned this one in school, for the wrong reasons

Underworld - Don DeLillo

830 pages, apparently read while King was writing this very book

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg

biggest "wait, this was on King's list?" pick for me. glad it was

The Liars' Club - Mary Karr

memoir, and a rough one

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer

nonfiction, the 1996 Everest disaster

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

The Ignored - Bentley Little

the one nobody's heard of on this whole list. horror, went out of print for years, worth tracking down

Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

read it before the movie takes over your mental images

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling

King's appendix actually lists all three Potter books out at the time, this is just one of them

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

no lore exam required, just one of the best opening lines around

Hocus Pocus - Kurt Vonnegut

Or start a list of your own. Free, it takes a minute.

Related lists