Reading lists
Authors Like
This list of incredible authors is brought to you in case you're facing a reading slump and need to find your next book. I've put together all of these author lists based on my personal reading experiences and which writers I would naturally connect together. They're listed alphabetically below.
A
Adam GrantFor readers who like workplace psychology built around one memorable framework that reframes something familiar.
Adam HigginbothamFor readers who want historical disasters reconstructed in human detail from years of primary sources.
Adrian Nicole LeBlancFor readers drawn to immersive journalism written from years spent inside marginalized lives.
Agatha ChristieFor readers who love a closed circle of suspects and a fair-play puzzle with a reversal.
Akira KurosawaFor readers drawn to the books behind his films.
Alan WattsFor readers who want Eastern philosophy explained with warmth and a sense of humor.
Alasdair GrayFor readers who like strange, formally inventive fiction that mixes gritty realism with the surreal.
Albert CamusFor readers drawn to spare fiction about absurdity, guilt, and living without easy meaning.
Aldous HuxleyFor readers drawn to pleasant control and the right to be unhappy.
Alex BerensonFor readers who want spy thrillers grounded in a reporter's knowledge of real conflicts.
Alexis OkeowoFor readers who want conflict told through a handful of ordinary people rather than experts.
Alice McDermottTen writers to try next, from James Joyce and Betty Smith to Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright, Claire Keegan and Marilynne Robinson.
Alice MunroFor readers who love short stories that hold an entire life in a few pages.
Amanda PalmerFor readers curious about artists who build an open, direct relationship with their audience.
Amanda PetrusichFor readers drawn to music, history and obsession.
Amanda RipleyFor readers who want to know what people actually do in a crisis, told through survivors.
Amor TowlesFor readers who like elegant, tightly structured novels that play with time and confined settings.
Amy LiptrotFor readers drawn to islands, recovery and the cure of wild places.
Amy TanFor readers drawn to mothers, daughters and what migrants carry.
Anaïs NinFor readers drawn to diaries that treat desire and self-doubt with unguarded honesty.
Anand GiridharadasTen writers to try next, from Michael Sandel and Rutger Bregman to Matthew Desmond, George Packer and Katherine Boo, on money, power and America.
Andrew SolomonFor readers drawn to depression and difference.
Angela CarterFor readers drawn to writers who take old tales back to blood and appetite.
Angela DuckworthFor readers who love research on effort and motivation turned into practical advice for everyday life.
Anita ShreveFor readers drawn to marriages, secrets, the New England coast.
Ann PatchettFor readers who want warm, patient, character-driven fiction about families and the people we choose.
Ann RuleTen writers to try next, from Truman Capote and Kate Summerscale to Michelle McNamara, Robert Kolker and Janet Malcolm.
Anna Deavere SmithFor readers who believe ordinary testimony, given in people's own words, tells the truest story.
Anna LembkeFor readers who want addiction and the brain's reward system explained by people who treat it.
Anne BrontëFor readers drawn to governesses, bad husbands, women who leave.
Anne CarsonFor readers drawn to fragments, myth, grief and desire.
Anne FadimanFor readers drawn to cultures in collision and lives among books.
Anne FrankFor readers drawn to diaries and memoirs of persecution.
Anne LamottFor readers who like honest, funny writing about writing, faith, and getting through hard days.
Anne SextonFor readers drawn to confessional poetry about illness, womanhood, and desire, told without softening.
Anne TylerFor readers who love quiet domestic novels where small family trouble carries the whole book.
Annie DillardFor readers who want close attention to nature that opens into questions about life and death.
Annie ErnauxFor readers drawn to spare memoir that examines class, shame, and leaving where you came from.
Annie JacobsenFor readers who like national security history told as a minute-by-minute, interview-driven thriller.
Anthony BourdainFor readers who want food and travel writing with a sharp, unglamorous, personal voice.
Anthony HorowitzFor readers drawn to fair-play puzzles, sidekicks and clever tricks.
Anthony KiedisFor readers who want music memoirs that are honest about addiction and relapse.
Anthony TrollopeFor readers drawn to money, marriage and the clergy.
Antoine de Saint-ExupéryFor readers who love flight, desert, and solitude turned into reflection on what matters.
Anton ChekhovFor readers drawn to ordinary lives at the moment they turn.
Ariel LawhonFor readers who like historical fiction about real women, plotted with the pace of a thriller.
Arnon GrunbergFor readers drawn to darkly ironic fiction by writers who also embed themselves in reportage.
Arthur SchopenhauerFor readers drawn to suffering, desire and what consoles.
Arundhati RoyFor readers who want ambitious fiction and fierce political essays from the same writer.
Åsne SeierstadFor readers drawn to reportage from inside war and crime.
Atul GawandeFor readers who want doctors writing honestly about medicine's limits, mortality, and dying well.
Audre LordeFor readers drawn to poetry and essays that refuse to keep quiet.
Azadeh MoaveniFor readers drawn to Iran, exile and women in war.
B
Bae SuahFor readers drawn to the writers she reads and translates.
Barbara DemickFor readers who want closed societies seen through the patient testimony of ordinary people.
Barbara EhrenreichFor readers who like undercover reporting that exposes how hard it is to get by on low wages.
Barbara KingsolverFor readers who love rooted literary fiction that takes on politics, class, and the environment.
bell hooksFor readers who want feminist and cultural theory written in plain, accessible language about love and power.
Bella MackieFor readers who like their crime fiction darkly funny, with a murderous narrator you root for.
Ben MacintyreFor readers drawn to true spy stories told as thrillers.
Bessel van der KolkFor readers who want trauma research that explains how the body and brain carry the past.
Betty FriedanFor readers drawn to after The Feminine Mystique.
Bill BrysonFor readers who love big subjects explained with deep research, curiosity, and a good joke.
Bill BufordFor readers drawn to writers who join a world, from kitchens to football crowds, to report it.
Brené BrownFor readers who want research on shame and vulnerability translated into warm, usable advice.
Bret Easton EllisFor readers drawn to money, numbness and dread.
Brian EnoFor readers drawn to listening, systems and the creative process.
Brian WeissFor readers curious about past lives and consciousness, approached through clinical experience.
Brooke KroegerFor readers curious about the hidden women who shaped investigative journalism.
Bruce HolsingerFor readers who like family novels where one crisis exposes the tensions in a comfortable household.
Bruce LeeFor readers drawn to discipline, the body and the way of water.
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Candice MillardFor readers drawn to true history told as a near-fatal adventure.
Carl RogersFor readers drawn to listening, acceptance, growth.
Carl SaganFor readers drawn to the universe, made personal.
Carmen Maria MachadoFor readers drawn to bodies, desire and horror.
Carol DweckFor readers who want psychology research on learning and growth made practical for home and school.
Caroline KnappFor readers drawn to drinking, hunger and the dogs who save us.
Celeste NgFor readers who love quiet suburban family dramas about secrets, race, and belonging.
Chanel MillerFor readers who want memoir that confronts trauma and reclaims identity without softening it.
Charles DickensFor readers who love sprawling novels full of vivid characters and anger at social injustice.
Charlotte BrontëFor readers drawn to governesses, secrets and the attic.
Charlotte Perkins GilmanFor readers drawn to early feminist writing that exposes how medical authority and economic dependence confined women.
Cheryl StrayedFor readers who want memoir about grief and rebuilding a life, without a tidy lesson.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieFor readers who want stories of race, migration, and belonging that refuse a single national frame.
Chris AndersonFor readers who want a practical, structure-first guide to communicating ideas clearly on stage.
Chris De StoopFor readers drawn to reporting on rural life, vanishing farmland, and crime in close-knit communities.
Christina LambFor readers drawn to war told by the people who live it.
Christopher HitchensFor readers drawn to prose as argument.
Chuck PalahniukFor readers drawn to men, violence and consumer life.
Cicely TysonFor readers who love candid memoirs of Black artists building careers on their own terms.
Claire KeeganFor readers who like short, precise fiction where small moral choices carry enormous weight.
Clarice LispectorFor readers drawn to the inner life as event.
Colson WhiteheadFor readers drawn to American history through genre.
Cormac McCarthyFor readers who want violent, biblical-toned fiction about the American frontier and its darkness.
D
D.T. MaxFor readers who love medical mysteries and literary lives reconstructed through patient, deep reporting.
Dan ArielyFor readers who love behavioral economics that explains why we make irrational choices.
Daniel KahnemanFor readers drawn to how people decide, and why they get it wrong.
Daphne du MaurierFor readers drawn to houses with secrets.
Dava SobelFor readers drawn to the history of science told through the people in it.
David BrooksFor readers who want big questions about character and meaning answered with research, not platitudes.
David ByrneFor readers drawn to curious minds on music, cities and ideas.
David EnrichFor readers who like investigations that rebuild one institution's story from documents and insiders.
David Foster WallaceFor readers drawn to dense, digressive writing about attention, irony, and life inside your own head.
David GrannFor readers who love true stories of expeditions gone wrong, pieced together from logs and letters.
David HalberstamFor readers drawn to power, Vietnam and long reporting.
David McCulloughFor readers drawn to history as story.
David SedarisFor readers drawn to families, embarrassment, comedy.
David SheffFor readers drawn to addiction, family and what helps.
Deborah BlumFor readers who want deeply researched science history that builds real suspense from the record.
Deborah LevyFor readers drawn to women writing a life as they live it.
Denis JohnsonFor readers drawn to ruin, grace and violence.
Diane von FurstenbergFor readers drawn to style, work and self-invention.
Dolly AldertonFor readers who like funny, honest novels about breakups, friendship, and modern love.
Don DeLilloFor readers drawn to crowds, screens and American dread.
Donna TarttFor readers who love long, immersive novels about closed circles, obsession, and a crime's aftermath.
Doris LessingFor readers drawn to women, politics and broken forms.
Dorothy L. SayersFor readers drawn to detective fiction that plays fair and matters.
E
E.B. WhiteFor readers who believe clear, plain prose is the best way to carry big feelings.
Eckhart TolleFor readers seeking calm, presence, and a break from urgency.
Ed YongFor readers curious about how other creatures sense a world stranger than anything invented.
Edgar Allan PoeTen writers to try next, from E. T. A. Hoffmann and Mary Shelley to Conan Doyle, Edogawa Ranpo, Shirley Jackson and Mariana Enríquez.
Edith EgerFor readers who want survivor stories that move beyond trauma toward choice and healing.
Elena FerranteFor readers drawn to friendship, class and getting out.
Elie WieselFor readers who want testimony that confronts atrocity without looking away.
Elif ShafakFor readers drawn to history told by those it left out.
Elin HilderbrandFor readers who love warm summer fiction with ensemble casts set in a beloved seaside place.
Eliza GriswoldFor readers drawn to long reporting and poetry of witness.
Elizabeth GaskellFor readers drawn to mill towns and women's lives.
Elizabeth GilbertFor readers drawn to personal memoirs about reinvention, creativity, and building a life through honesty.
Elizabeth KolbertFor readers who want environmental reporting that makes big systems clear without softening the stakes.
Elizabeth StroutFor readers who like quiet small-town fiction where ordinary disruptions do the work of plot.
Emily BrontëFor readers who want gothic longing that borders on obsession.
Emily DickinsonFor readers who love compressed, private poems that argue with God and break meter on purpose.
Emma GredeFor readers curious about the business instincts behind building a brand.
Emmanuel CarrèreFor readers drawn to true stories told like novels, with the author's own doubts on the page.
EpictetusFor readers who want practical Stoic wisdom about controlling what you can and accepting the rest.
Erich FrommFor readers drawn to love, freedom and the sane society.
Erik LarsonFor readers who love narrative history built from primary sources but paced like a thriller.
Ernest HemingwayFor readers who like spare, plain sentences that leave the strongest feelings unsaid.
Esther PerelFor readers curious about desire, intimacy, and why long-term love is harder than advice admits.
Eudora WeltyFor readers drawn to small towns, heard closely.
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F. Scott FitzgeraldFor readers who want lyrical fiction about glamour, self-invention, and the American Dream's broken promise.
Flannery O'connorFor readers who like dark, funny Southern stories where grace arrives through violence.
Florence AubenasFor readers who want undercover reporting from inside low-wage work and the lives it grinds down.
Frank McCourtFor readers who love memoirs of poor, hard childhoods told with humor instead of self-pity.
Franz KafkaFor readers drawn to fiction where ordinary life turns absurd, airless, and quietly terrifying.
Frederick DouglassTen writers to try next, from Olaudah Equiano and Harriet Jacobs to Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison.
Fredrik BackmanFor readers drawn to lonely people and the communities around them.
Frida KahloFor readers who want raw diaries and letters where pain, desire, and art share the same page.
Friedrich NietzscheFor readers who like thinkers who interrogate inherited morality instead of accepting it.
Friedrich NietzscheFor readers who like philosophy that questions inherited morality and certainty instead of accepting it.
Fyodor DostoevskyFor readers who want big novels of guilt, faith, and tormented minds arguing with themselves.
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G. I. GurdjieffFor readers drawn to the work of waking up.
Gabor MatéFor readers who want to understand how trauma shapes addiction, illness, and the body.
Gabriel García MárquezFor readers who love family sagas where the fantastical is told with a straight face.
Gary ZukavFor readers curious about where modern physics and spiritual questions about the soul meet.
Gay TaleseFor readers who love patient, immersive journalism that reads with a novelist's eye for scene.
George EliotFor readers who want large, morally serious novels about ordinary lives and the choices that shape them.
George OrwellFor readers who want to understand how totalitarian power works, in fiction and in fact.
George PackerFor readers drawn to ordinary lives, reported up close.
George PlimptonFor readers who like writers throwing themselves into unfamiliar worlds and reporting back as amateurs.
George SaundersFor readers who love strange, satirical stories that stay deeply humane underneath.
Gillian FlynnFor readers drawn to dark women, damaged families.
Glennon DoyleFor readers drawn to women telling the truth about their lives.
Graham GreeneFor readers drawn to faith, spies and betrayal.
Günter WallraffFor readers drawn to undercover journalism that exposes how workers are treated at the bottom.
Gwendolyn BrooksFor readers drawn to ordinary Black lives, exact forms.
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Han KangFor readers who want spare, physical fiction about the body, violence, and historical trauma.
Hannah ArendtFor readers who want rigorous political philosophy about power and moral responsibility.
Hanya YanagiharaFor readers drawn to friendship, damage, devotion.
Harper LeeFor readers who love Southern stories of injustice and moral courage seen through a child's eyes.
Haruki MurakamiFor readers who like dreamlike, melancholy fiction about memory, loneliness, and quiet strangeness.
Harville HendrixTen writers to try next, from Erich Fromm and John Bowlby to Sue Johnson, John Gottman, Esther Perel and bell hooks.
Helen MacdonaldFor readers who want grief and the natural world braided together in close, searching memoir.
Henry David ThoreauFor readers who want quiet rebellion and a slower, more deliberate life.
Henry JamesFor readers drawn to manners, money and what goes unsaid.
Henry MillerTen writers to try next, from Whitman and Rimbaud to Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Durrell and Jack Kerouac, and Kate Millett, who took him apart.
Hermann HesseFor readers drawn to the inner path and the search for a self.
Hilary MantelFor readers drawn to history seen from inside a mind.
HomerFor readers drawn to ancient epic and the retellings that keep finding new voices in it.
Hunter S. ThompsonFor readers who want chaos, wit, and total honesty about the writer's own state of mind.
I
Ian FrazierFor readers drawn to long journeys, deep history and dry humour.
Ian McEwanFor readers drawn to one moment that changes lives.
Ida TarbellFor readers drawn to writers who built a case from the record.
Iris ChangFor readers drawn to history that refuses to forget.
Iris MurdochFor readers who want philosophical fiction about morality and the messiness of love.
Irvin YalomFor readers drawn to the therapy room, and what death teaches.
Isabel AllendeFor readers drawn to family sagas, dictatorships and ghosts.
Isabel WilkersonFor readers who love vast history and social hierarchy made intimate through real lives.
Ivan DoigFor readers drawn to the working West, remembered.
Iyanla VanzantFor readers drawn to forgiveness, faith and women rebuilding a life.
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J.D. VanceFor readers drawn to memoirs and books on class and leaving home.
Jack KerouacFor readers who love restless road writing, Beat friendships, and a search for spiritual meaning.
Jack LondonFor readers who like wilderness adventure alongside undercover reporting on poverty and hard labor.
James BaldwinFor readers who want prose that's both furious and deeply humane.
James BloodworthFor readers who want low-wage work reported from the inside, one shift at a time.
James ClearFor readers who like practical, research-backed advice on building small habits that stick.
James McBrideFor readers who love fiction that puts comedy and atrocity side by side in American history.
Jane AustenFor readers who love sharp social comedy, courtship, and romance that never turns sentimental.
Jane FallonFor readers drawn to betrayal, revenge and very dark comedy.
Jean RhysFor readers drawn to women adrift, cities and colonial ghosts.
Jeannette WallsFor readers drawn to hard childhoods, poverty and leaving home.
Jeff MayshFor readers who love stranger-than-fiction true stories of cons, heists, and obsessive schemes.
Jeffrey EugenidesFor readers drawn to bodies, families and secrets.
Jennette McCurdyFor readers who want darkly funny, unsentimental memoirs about fame, family control, and recovery.
Jenny OdellFor readers drawn to attention, rest and time outside the clock.
Jesmyn WardFor readers drawn to grief, ghosts and the Gulf Coast South.
Jessica BruderFor readers drawn to immersive reporting on Americans living on the economic margins.
Jhumpa LahiriFor readers who love quiet, precise stories of immigrant families, marriage, and belonging.
Jia TolentinoFor readers who like sharp cultural essays about the internet, self-delusion, and modern life.
Jim HarrisonFor readers drawn to wild country, appetite and Zen.
Joan DidionFor readers who want cool, exacting prose that turns reporting and grief into personal essay.
Jodi KantorFor readers who want patient investigative journalism that holds powerful people to account.
Jodi PicoultFor readers drawn to one impossible ethical question, explored from every side.
John BerendtFor readers who love narrative nonfiction steeped in one place and its eccentric cast of characters.
John BowlbyFor readers curious about attachment theory and how early bonds shape adult relationships.
John CarreyrouFor readers who like corporate fraud exposed with meticulous reporting and the pace of a thriller.
John IrvingFor readers who love big comic-tragic family novels full of orphans and plots that pay off.
John Jeremiah SullivanFor readers who love long-form essays that find the strange and moving in American life.
John Kennedy TooleFor readers drawn to grand misfits and the comedy of contempt.
John McPheeFor readers who like patient nonfiction about subjects nobody expected could carry a book.
John SteinbeckFor readers who want plain, powerful American fiction rooted in working lives and social conscience.
John UpdikeFor readers drawn to marriage, suburbs, desire.
John VaillantFor readers drawn to gripping nonfiction about wildfire, wild animals, and a changing climate.
John WyndhamFor readers drawn to the end, calmly.
Jojo MoyesFor readers drawn to love stories with grief and ordinary lives in them.
Jon KrakauerFor readers who want embedded reporting on obsession, wilderness, and the pull of extreme danger.
Jon McGregorFor readers drawn to villages, ordinary days and what goes unsaid.
Jon MooallemFor readers who love curious, big-hearted essays about odd people and scientific obsessions.
Jon RonsonFor readers who like getting close to extremists and outsiders with curiosity and humane wit.
Jonathan FranzenFor readers drawn to families, money and the social novel.
Jonathan HaidtFor readers curious about why moral and political beliefs feel so resistant to argument.
Jorge Luis BorgesFor readers drawn to labyrinths, libraries and books that do not exist.
Joseph HellerFor readers drawn to war, rules and dark comedy.
Joshua FoerFor readers drawn to immersive journalism and the science of memory.
Joshua HuntFor readers who want deep investigations into powerful institutions and the secrets they bury.
Julian BarnesFor readers drawn to memory, love and grief looked back on.
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Kahlil GibranFor readers drawn to wisdom, plainly spoken.
Karen RussellFor readers drawn to strange premises, real grief.
Karl Ove KnausgårdFor readers drawn to a whole life, written down.
Kate BowlerFor readers who want honest writing on faith and mortality with wit and no silver linings.
Kate MortonFor readers drawn to great houses, lost letters, buried secrets.
Kate QuinnFor readers drawn to women in wartime, spies and hidden history.
Katherine BooFor readers who want immersive reporting built on years spent inside a single community.
Katherine CenterFor readers who like romantic comedies that take grief and hardship seriously while staying hopeful.
Katherine GrahamFor readers drawn to women who took on institutional power and wrote honestly about it.
Katherine MansfieldFor readers drawn to one day, one small event.
Katherine MayFor readers who love gentle nature writing about rest, retreat, and rebuilding through hard seasons.
Kathryn StockettFor readers drawn to Southern women and the colour line.
Kazuo IshiguroFor readers who like restrained novels about memory, self-deception, and slow-burning regret.
Kenzaburō ŌeFor readers drawn to fathers, sons and the bomb.
Kevin WilsonFor readers who love absurd premises played straight to reveal truths about family and grief.
Khaled HosseiniFor readers drawn to family, exile and debts that take decades to repay.
Kristin HannahFor readers who want historical fiction that leads with feeling first.
Kristin HarmelFor readers who love World War II fiction about ordinary women and hidden acts of resistance.
Kurt CobainFor readers drawn to raw, confessional writing that turns private pain directly into art.
Kurt VonnegutFor readers who want satire, science fiction, and grief in the same breath.
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Larry McMurtryFor readers who want the American West stripped of myth but still full of feeling.
Laura HillenbrandFor readers drawn to true stories of endurance, told like novels.
Lawrence WrightFor readers who want meticulously reported nonfiction on belief and extremism.
Leo TolstoyFor readers who love vast, morally serious novels that hold whole societies and inner lives.
Leslie JamisonFor readers who want rigorous, self-implicating essays on empathy, pain, and addiction.
Liane MoriartyFor readers who like domestic dramas where ordinary community life hides secrets and suspense.
Lindsay C. GibsonFor readers curious about healing from emotionally immature parents and difficult family dynamics.
Lisa JewellFor readers who love twisty British domestic thrillers where the danger lies inside the family.
Lisa SeeFor readers drawn to historical fiction about Chinese women, sisterhood, and mothers and daughters.
Lisa WingateFor readers drawn to hidden histories told through families.
Liz MooreFor readers who love literary mysteries about missing girls, closed worlds, and the money that protects people.
Louis TherouxFor readers drawn to polite, curious reporting from deep inside extreme and fringe subcultures.
Louise ErdrichFor readers drawn to land, family and Native history.
Louise GlückFor readers who want restrained, austere poems that address something that may never answer back.
Louise PennyFor readers who like their crime novels rooted in one small community, with real moral weight.
Lucy FoleyFor readers drawn to closed circles and old secrets.
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Madeline MillerFor readers drawn to Greek myth retold from the edges.
Maeve BinchyFor readers who want warm, big-hearted stories of small-town Irish life and friendship.
Maggie NelsonFor readers who like memoir and critical theory braided together in one restless, genre-blurring book.
Maharishi Mahesh YogiFor readers drawn to meditation, East to West.
Mahatma GandhiFor readers who want a life built entirely around principle and nonviolence.
Malcolm GladwellFor readers who love one counterintuitive idea explained until it clicks.
Marcus AureliusFor readers who want Stoic wisdom written as a private conversation with oneself.
Margaret AtwoodFor readers drawn to sharp, feminist speculative fiction with real teeth.
Margaret FullerFor readers who want early feminist thought with real intellectual bite.
Margery AllinghamFor readers drawn to puzzles, jokes and fog.
Maria PopovaFor readers curious about essays that wander across science, poetry, art, and philosophy.
Maria SempleFor readers drawn to clever, difficult women and comedy that lets pain in.
Marian KeyesFor readers drawn to funny books about serious damage.
Marilynne RobinsonFor readers drawn to faith, small towns and grace.
Mark BowdenFor readers who want ground-level combat reporting that reconstructs a battle almost minute by minute.
Marshall RosenbergFor readers who want communication that turns conflict into connection.
Martin AmisFor readers drawn to money, London and style.
Martin ScorseseFor readers who love film history treated as a living inheritance to study and argue with.
Mary KarrFor readers who like childhood memoir that is unsparing about a chaotic family and very funny.
Mary OliverFor readers who want close, patient attention to the natural world as a spiritual practice.
Mary RoachFor readers who love science reporting that asks the awkward questions and laughs without sneering.
Mary ShelleyFor readers drawn to gothic fiction where scientific ambition, not the monster, is the true horror.
Mary WollstonecraftFor readers drawn to the long case for women’s minds.
Mathew KnowlesFor readers curious about the music industry's business side, seen from inside one famous family.
Matt HaigFor readers drawn to second chances, bent time, staying alive.
Matthew DesmondFor readers who want immersive reporting on poverty that lives alongside people and then counts the cost.
Maya AngelouFor readers who want lyrical memoir and poetry that turn pain into resilience.
Megan TwoheyFor readers who want patient investigative reporting that exposes powerful men and centers the people who speak up.
Melissa FebosFor readers who like unflinching memoir about the body, desire, and what culture teaches women.
Michael A. SingerFor readers drawn to writers on watching the mind and letting go.
Michael FinkelFor readers drawn to true stories of hermits, obsessive thieves, and people who walk away from ordinary life.
Michael HerrFor readers who want war writing that captures how Vietnam actually felt and sounded on the ground.
Michael LewisFor readers who love finance and big events told through one unlikely person who saw it coming.
Michael PollanFor readers curious about food, plants, and how what we eat shapes us and the world.
Michel de MontaigneFor readers drawn to the essay as a way of thinking aloud.
Michel FoucaultFor readers drawn to power, institutions and the self.
Michelle McNamaraFor readers who like true crime built from obsessive research, case files, and forgotten victims.
Michelle ObamaFor readers who want candid memoir about identity, family, and the costs of public life.
Mieko KawakamiFor readers drawn to bodies, money and women.
Min Jin LeeFor readers drawn to family sagas, migration and the price of belonging.
Mitch AlbomFor readers who want simple, moving stories about mortality, faith, and what makes a life worthwhile.
Muhammad YunusFor readers who are drawn to economics built on dignity and self-reliance rather than charity.
Muriel SparkFor readers drawn to short, sharp, darkly comic novels.
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N. K. JemisinFor readers drawn to worlds built to show power and survival.
Nadine Burke HarrisFor readers curious about how childhood trauma leaves lasting, measurable marks on the body.
Nancy L. SegalFor readers who like careful, case-by-case science on twins, genes, and how much we inherit.
Nassim Nicholas TalebFor readers drawn to luck, risk and the limits of prediction.
Nathaniel PhilbrickFor readers drawn to history told from inside.
Nellie BlyFor readers who want undercover journalism that gets the story by living inside it.
Ngaio MarshFor readers drawn to Golden Age puzzles and theatre.
Niccolò MachiavelliTen writers to try next, from Thucydides and Kautilya to Hobbes, Isaiah Berlin and Robert Caro, plus the king who wrote a book against him.
Nicholas D. KristofFor readers who want global injustice made personal by following one named person through it.
Nicholson BakerFor readers drawn to writers who look at ordinary things for a long time.
Nick CaveFor readers drawn to writing about grief, faith, and violence that mixes gothic menace with honesty.
Nikolai GogolFor readers drawn to absurd officials and a deadpan fantastic.
Norman MailerFor readers who love big, combative New Journalism where the writer is part of the story.
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Ocean VuongFor readers who want lyrical, poetic writing about displacement, family, and inherited history.
Olga TokarczukTen writers to try next, from William Blake and Bruno Schulz to W. G. Sebald, Jenny Erpenbeck and Han Kang.
Oliver BurkemanFor readers who are skeptical of productivity advice and want to make peace with limited time.
Oliver SacksFor readers curious about the brain's strangest conditions, told with real warmth for the people living them.
Oprah WinfreyFor readers who want stories of healing, resilience, and building a life out of a hard past.
Oscar WildeFor readers who love sharp epigrams, drawing-room comedy, and wit with a tragic edge.
OshoTen writers to try next, from Krishnamurti and Alan Watts to Ramana Maharshi and Thich Nhat Hanh, plus one who rejected every guru, Osho included.
Ottessa MoshfeghFor readers drawn to women who opt out, voices that bite.
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P. D. JamesFor readers drawn to serious detective novels about guilt.
Paramahansa YoganandaFor readers drawn to the seeker's life, told from inside.
Parker PalmerFor readers who want quiet, honest reflection on vocation, the inner life, and finding your own path.
Patricia HighsmithFor readers drawn to crime written from the inside.
Patrick Radden KeefeFor readers who like long, patient investigations that find the human story inside crime and power.
Patrick SymmesFor readers drawn to adventurous travel reporting that follows history and revolution across Latin America.
Patti SmithFor readers drawn to poets, punks and memoirs of downtown New York.
Paul GrahamFor readers who want sharp essays on ambition, startups, and how to think.
Paul KalanithiFor readers who want doctors writing honestly about mortality and the limits of medicine.
Paul TherouxFor readers drawn to travel as a test of character.
Paulo CoelhoFor readers who want a short fable to carry one big question about destiny.
Pema ChodronFor readers who want warm, plainspoken Buddhist guidance for moments when life falls apart.
Percival EverettFor readers who love fearless satire about race in America that plays games with form.
Peter MatthiessenFor readers drawn to wild places, grief and the Zen of paying attention.
Peter ThielTen writers to try next, from Paul Graham and Ben Horowitz to Joseph Schumpeter, plus the writers who argue with him.
Philip K. DickFor readers drawn to fiction about unreal worlds and who made them.
Philip RothTen writers to try next, from Kafka and Saul Bellow to Grace Paley, Milan Kundera and Lisa Halliday, who wrote a version of him into her novel.
Primo LeviFor readers who want Holocaust testimony written with a chemist's precision and close, careful detail.
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Quentin TarantinoFor readers drawn to pulp crime, Hollywood and film writing.
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Rachel AvivFor readers curious about mental illness and the people who don't fit neatly inside their diagnosis.
Rachel CuskFor readers who like spare, fragmentary fiction that slips out of memoir into something stranger.
Rachel JoyceFor readers drawn to ordinary people setting out to mend things.
Rachel MonroeFor readers drawn to true crime that asks why we watch.
Rainer Maria RilkeFor readers drawn to solitude, patience, and living inside questions that have no easy answers.
Ralph Waldo EmersonFor readers drawn to trust yourself, then look hard at nature.
Ramana MaharshiFor readers drawn to self-inquiry stripped down to its simplest form.
Ray BradburyFor readers drawn to wonder, dread and futures close to home.
Rebecca ElsonFor readers who want science and grief rendered in spare, luminous verse.
Rebecca SklootFor readers who want patient investigative nonfiction where real people carry the weight of a larger story.
Rebecca SolnitFor readers who want essays that connect personal experience to larger cultural forces.
Rebecca YarrosFor readers drawn to dragons, war and love under fire.
Resmaa MenakemFor readers drawn to the idea that racialized trauma lives in the body and heals through it.
Richard BachFor readers drawn to flight, fables and the search for a freer life.
Richard FeynmanTen writers to try next, from Michael Faraday and George Gamow to Carl Sagan, Primo Levi, Carlo Rovelli and Mary Roach.
Richard RussoFor readers drawn to small towns, fathers, comedy.
Rick RubinFor readers curious about creativity as a quiet, spiritual practice.
Roald DahlFor readers drawn to wicked adults, clever children.
Robert CaroFor readers who love archive-deep biography that shows exactly how political power works.
Robert CialdiniFor readers who want to understand exactly why persuasion works.
Robert GreeneFor readers drawn to power, persuasion and its critics.
Robert KolkerFor readers who want patient reporting on families living with mental illness, without easy diagnosis.
Robert KursonFor readers who like true stories of physical danger and people who cannot stop chasing something.
Robert SapolskyFor readers drawn to primates, stress and the free-will debate.
Roberto SavianoFor readers drawn to organised crime, reported up close.
Robyn DavidsonFor readers drawn to solo journeys into real isolation and what solitude does to a person.
Rohinton MistryFor readers drawn to Bombay households and the history that breaks them.
Ron SuskindFor readers who want one life followed closely for years, or power reported from inside.
Ronan FarrowFor readers who want investigative reporting that keeps digging when powerful people try to bury it.
Rory StewartFor readers who like genuine physical risk paired with real historical and political depth.
Roxane GayFor readers who want essays on feminism, race, and the body that leave contradictions unresolved.
RumiFor readers drawn to mystical love poetry, and which translations to trust.
Ruth RendellFor readers drawn to crime where the why matters more than who.
Ryszard KapuścińskiFor readers who love foreign reportage that turns firsthand witness to revolution into literature.
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SadhguruFor readers curious about Eastern spirituality delivered in plain, modern language.
Sally RooneyFor readers who like clear-eyed, unsentimental fiction about messy modern intimacy and young adulthood.
Salman RushdieFor readers drawn to history told through marvels.
Samuel BeckettFor readers drawn to waiting, failing, and voices that will not stop.
Sarah PolleyFor readers drawn to memory, the body and who tells the story.
Sarah VowellFor readers who love road-trip history that is funny first and properly sourced underneath.
Sarah WatersFor readers drawn to secrets, houses and hidden lives.
Sayaka MurataFor readers drawn to normality, bodies and the rules nobody questions.
Sebastian JungerFor readers who want dangerous, deeply reported nonfiction about risk, community, and survival.
SenecaFor readers who want clear, quotable Stoic philosophy on time, discipline, and how to live.
Shane BauerFor readers drawn to journalists who go undercover inside institutions to expose how they really work.
Sharon OldsFor readers drawn to the body, family and love, unsoftened.
Shelby Van PeltFor readers who love warm novels about a difficult older person and a community that won't let go.
Sheri FinkFor readers who want rigorous reporting on the life-and-death decisions medicine makes under pressure.
Shirley JacksonFor readers who like their horror quiet, domestic, and deeply unsettling.
Siddhartha MukherjeeFor readers who love sweeping histories of medicine and science told by a working doctor.
Simone WeilFor readers drawn to attention, affliction and a faith tested.
Sonia NazarioFor readers drawn to migration told through real journeys.
Sonia ShahFor readers curious about how diseases and species move, and what that movement means for us.
Søren KierkegaardFor readers drawn to faith, doubt and anxiety argued from inside one life.
Stephen KingFor readers drawn to fear grown from ordinary life.
Steven PressfieldFor readers who want blunt talk on creative discipline, or ancient battle told from the ranks.
Studs TerkelFor readers who love oral history that lets ordinary people describe their lives in their own words.
Suketu MehtaFor readers drawn to Bombay and migration, reported from the street.
Suleika JaouadFor readers who want illness memoir that treats recovery as ongoing rather than a tidy lesson.
Sun TzuFor readers who want strategy distilled into short, timeless principles.
Susan CainFor readers who like research-backed books that reclaim traits our culture treats as flaws.
Susan OrleanFor readers who love a curious, cheerful plunge into an unlikely subject, with jokes and real reporting.
Susan SontagFor readers who want criticism that treats culture as something worth arguing over.
Susannah CahalanFor readers who want medical mysteries of the mind reported with a journalist's rigor.
Svetlana AlexievichFor readers who want history told through ordinary voices, with almost no commentary in the way.
Swami VivekanandaFor readers drawn to Vedanta, yoga and the meeting of East and West.
Sy MontgomeryFor readers drawn to nature writing that treats animals as individuals with minds of their own.
Sylvia PlathFor readers who want unflinching, interior writing about depression, identity, and a woman's inner life.
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Tana FrenchFor readers drawn to crime with a closed circle.
Tara WestoverFor readers who want memoirs of escaping a controlling family and rebuilding an identity through education.
Ted ConoverFor readers who like immersive journalism where the writer takes on the role instead of observing.
Tessa HadleyFor readers drawn to whole lives in domestic scenes.
Thi BuiFor readers drawn to family, war and what refugees carry.
Thich Nhat HanhFor readers who want mindfulness taught with gentleness rather than urgency.
Thomas MannFor readers drawn to families in decline, illness, ideas and Europe falling apart.
Thomas McGuaneFor readers who love American fiction of appetite, the outdoors, fishing, and men out of options.
Thomas PynchonFor readers drawn to conspiracy, systems and dark comedy.
Tina KnowlesFor readers who like family memoirs about fashion, creativity, and the women behind famous names.
Tom RobbinsFor readers drawn to comic novels with big ideas.
Tom WolfeFor readers who love New Journalism and satire that skewers real people and their status games.
Toni MorrisonFor readers who want language that carries the full weight of history.
Trevor NoahFor readers who want funny, voice-driven memoirs about identity that never soften the hardship.
Truman CapoteFor readers drawn to true crime written with the depth and structure of a novel.
Tyler PerryFor readers drawn to comic voices, hard childhoods and faith.
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Upton SinclairFor readers drawn to writers who went to see how work really was.
Ursula K. Le GuinFor readers drawn to invented worlds that question this one.
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Viktor FranklFor readers who want meaning found even inside unimaginable suffering.
Viola DavisFor readers who want celebrity memoirs that face poverty, shame, and hardship without polish.
Virginia GiuffreFor readers who want survivors' memoirs that reclaim their names and set the record straight.
Virginia WoolfFor readers who want interior life rendered in restless, beautiful sentences.
Vladimir NabokovFor readers who love dazzling prose in service of morally complicated, unreliable narrators.
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W. G. SebaldFor readers drawn to walking, memory and loss.
Wally LambFor readers drawn to damaged families and the work of forgiveness.
Wangari MaathaiFor readers drawn to grassroots activism where environmental work and empowerment grow from the same root.
Wendell BerryFor readers drawn to land, farms and small places.
Willa CatherFor readers drawn to land, memory and the prairie.
William FaulknerFor readers drawn to voices, place and a living past.
William FinneganFor readers who want physical risk, in surf or conflict, written with real literary seriousness.
William GoldingFor readers curious about how thin the veneer of civilization is when social order collapses.
Wisława SzymborskaTen writers to try next, from Emily Dickinson and C. P. Cavafy to Zbigniew Herbert, Czesław Miłosz, Kay Ryan and Louise Glück.
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Yann MartelFor readers drawn to castaways, animals, faith and invented texts.
Yiyun LiFor readers who like cool, restrained fiction about quiet, irreversible losses and unbearable things.
Yuval Noah HarariFor readers drawn to the whole human story, and its critics.
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Zadie SmithFor readers who want big-hearted novels about identity and modern city life.
Zahra Fatima HankirFor readers who want war and the Middle East reported by women from inside the region.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "Authors Like" mean on lisanneswart.com?
Each "Authors Like" page groups a well-known author with other writers who share a similar voice, theme, or reading experience, so you can find your next book once you've finished everything by a favorite.
How do you decide which authors belong together?
The pairings come from my own reading experience, not an algorithm — I only connect writers I'd naturally hand to the same reader, based on tone, subject matter, or the feeling a book leaves behind.
What if an author I'm looking for isn't listed yet?
New "Authors Like" guides are added regularly as I finish reading and writing about each author, so check back or explore the full Authors directory in the meantime.
Is this list the same as the main Authors directory?
No — the Authors directory profiles individual writers, while "Authors Like" pages connect an author to other writers you might enjoy next; the two work together but serve different purposes.
Are these recommendations ranked in any order?
No, the list is purely alphabetical by first name, not a ranking — every author included is one I'd genuinely recommend, just organized for easy scanning.
Keep exploring
If a name here caught your attention, here's where else to look.
DirectoryAuthorsEvery author guide, with the full body of work and where to start. Reading listsReading ListsBooks grouped by theme, mood and question. If you loved one bookBooks LikeStart from a single book and find the next one. PrizesLiterary PrizesEvery winner, and the ones I think are worth reading.
