Scottish novelist, painter, and polymath. Best known for Lanark and Poor Things — both of which rewrote what a novel could be.

The voice of the Jazz Age. The Great Gatsby is one of the most read and most misread novels in the American canon.

Nobel laureate and author of Lord of the Flies — a novel about what happens to boys, and people, when the rules are taken away.

Modernist giant. Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One's Own. Nobody before or since has written the inside of a mind quite like this.

The poet of solitude, longing, and becoming. Letters to a Young Poet is one of the most re-read books on this shelf — for good reason.

Psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man's Search for Meaning — a book about finding purpose in the most extreme circumstances imaginable.

Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. Meditations was written for no one but himself — which is exactly why it has been read by everyone for two thousand years.

Author of The Power of Now and A New Earth. Whether or not you agree with him, he articulates something about presence and attention that is worth sitting with.

Stanford psychologist and author of Mindset. Her research on fixed vs. growth mindsets is one of the most practically useful ideas in modern psychology.

Belgian-American psychotherapist and the most compelling writer on desire and modern love. Mating in Captivity is the one to start with.

Author of The War of Art — a book about the internal resistance that keeps people from doing their best work, and what to do about it.

The father of Gonzo journalism. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is less about drugs than it is about America eating its own mythology.

Chef, storyteller, and the best food writer of his generation. Kitchen Confidential is about kitchens the way All Quiet on the Western Front is about war.

Documentary filmmaker and author of Gotta Get Theroux This. He is good at sitting with people who make you uncomfortable until they start making sense.

Lawyer, former First Lady, and author of Becoming — one of the best-selling memoirs ever written. Lucid, warm, and more honest than the genre usually allows.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and author of I Am Malala. A book about education, courage, and what it costs to speak when silence is safer.

Media icon and the person who has sent more people to bookshops than any literary prize. Her own writing is candid and worth reading on its own terms.

Italian chemist and Holocaust survivor whose writing transformed testimony into literature. If This Is a Man is one of the most important books of the twentieth century.

Psychologist and Holocaust survivor. The Choice is one of the most quietly devastating and ultimately hopeful books on this shelf — about freedom, forgiveness, and what we carry.

British philosopher who made Eastern thought legible to Western readers. The Way of Zen and The Wisdom of Insecurity remain as urgent as ever.

American satirist and humanist. Slaughterhouse-Five is about Dresden, time, and the absurdity of war — told in the only way the story could be told.

Canadian novelist, poet, and literary force. The Handmaid's Tale has never stopped being relevant — and her range across five decades goes far beyond it.