Author Guide · Literary Fiction
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Before she published a novel, Elizabeth Berg worked as a registered nurse. In 1985 she won an essay contest run by Parents magazine with a piece about leaving nursing to spend more time with her daughters, her first mainstream publication. Eight years later came Durable Goods (1993), about a twelve-year-old girl in an army family, and after it more than two dozen novels about marriage, illness, friendship, grief and starting over. Open House was an Oprah’s Book Club pick in 2000, and The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017), about a widower who eats lunch at his wife’s grave, found her a new generation of readers. This guide covers her 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1993–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Elizabeth Berg has published more than thirty books, 26 of them novels. Her best-known are Open House (2000), an Oprah’s Book Club selection, Talk Before Sleep (1994), Durable Goods (1993) and The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017). Start with The Story of Arthur Truluv, the first of her novels set in Mason, Missouri; the list below shows which books follow it.
Where to Start with Elizabeth Berg
If you want her best-loved recent novel
→ The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017) — the first of the Mason, Missouri books.
If you want the book that made her name
→ Open House (2000) — the 2000 Oprah’s Book Club pick.
If you want a novel about friendship and illness
→ Talk Before Sleep (1994) — a nurse caring for her dying best friend.
If you want to start at the very beginning
→ Durable Goods (1993) — the first Katie Nash novel.
14 Elizabeth Berg Books, in Order
Durable Goods
Her first novel. Katie Nash, twelve, lives on an army post in Texas with her sister and their father, whose career keeps the family moving; their mother has died of cancer and the father is abusive, and Katie longs to get away. The American Library Association named it one of its Best Books of the Year. It opens the Katie Nash trilogy, which is partly based on Berg’s own childhood.
Talk Before Sleep
Ann, a nurse, steps back from her own life to care for her best friend Ruth, an artist who is dying of cancer and who has left her unhappy marriage, a choice Ann at first envies. It was shortlisted for the ABBY Award in 1996.
Range of Motion
A young mother keeps faith that her husband, Jay, will wake from the deep coma he fell into after an accident, while she looks after their children and leans on a close friend. Lifetime adapted it as a television film in 2000, starring Rebecca De Mornay.
The Pull of the Moon
Nan, who has just turned fifty, walks out of her ordinary life and leaves home on her own. The novel is told through her journal and the letters she writes to her husband, Martin, and her daughter, Ruthie. Berg later adapted it as a play, staged in Chicago and Indianapolis.
Joy School
The second Katie Nash novel, continuing the story of the army daughter from Durable Goods. Like its predecessor it was named an ALA Best Book of the Year, and it was chosen for the ALA’s 1998 Best Books for Young Adults list. The trilogy ends with True to Form (2002).
Open House
After twenty years of marriage, Samantha Morrow’s husband David tells her he wants out. To keep the family home for herself and her son, Travis, she takes in boarders and, with the help of King, an odd-jobs man, works temp jobs from a laundromat to a carpenter’s crew. Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club in 2000, and it became a television film starring Christine Lahti.
The Year of Pleasures
Betta Nolan, newly widowed, sells her house in Massachusetts and moves to Stewart, a small town in Illinois. She buys a Victorian house, opens a shop called What a Woman Wants, and builds a new circle of friends and neighbours.
We Are All Welcome Here
Tupelo, Mississippi, in the Freedom Summer of 1964. Diana, thirteen, lives with her mother Paige, left paralysed from the neck down by polio, who gave birth to her in an iron lung, and with Peacie, the Black nurse and housekeeper who looks after them both. The novel is loosely based on a reader’s true story of growing up with a mother disabled by polio.
The Dream Lover
A novel about the life of George Sand. It opens in 1831, as Aurore Dupin leaves an unhappy marriage in the French countryside for Paris, and moves back and forth between her childhood and her adult life as a writer, with her love affairs at the centre.
The Story of Arthur Truluv
Arthur Moses, a widower, tends his roses and his cat, Gordon, and takes the bus each day to the cemetery to have lunch with his late wife. There he meets Maddy Harris, eighteen, who goes there to get away from school; she nicknames him “Truluv”, and with their neighbour Lucille the three help each other start over. People made it a Book of the Week.
Night of Miracles
The second Mason novel. Lucille Howard, inspired by her late friend Arthur, starts teaching baking classes, and hires Iris, a newcomer who cannot bake, as her assistant. When tragedy strikes the family next door, Lucille looks out for their son, Lincoln.
The Confession Club
The third Mason novel. A supper club of former baking students turns into a weekly ritual in which each woman confesses something she regrets and the others answer “Go in peace”. Iris Winters, now renting Maddy’s house, falls for John Loney, a homeless Vietnam veteran living in an abandoned farmhouse outside town.
Earth’s the Right Place for Love
A prequel to The Story of Arthur Truluv, set in Mason in 1947. Arthur Moses is a high-school sophomore quietly devoted to his classmate Nola, who has a crush on his older brother Frank, an aspiring writer; their father, a war veteran, has a violent temper. A family tragedy leaves Arthur grieving, and the book ends at the cemetery where he begins to talk to the dead.
Life
Florence “Flo” Greene, ninety-two, has been given weeks to live. She writes a long letter to Ruthie Eimers, the young woman who grew up next door and is thinking about divorce, leaving her the house and its small objects with the stories behind them, and the truth about her own imperfect marriage.
In What Order to Read Elizabeth Berg
Most of Berg’s novels stand alone, so you can start anywhere. Two groups are better read in order. The Katie Nash trilogy runs Durable Goods (1993), Joy School (1997) and True to Form (2002). The Mason, Missouri books run The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017), Night of Miracles (2018) and The Confession Club (2019), with the prequel Earth’s the Right Place for Love (2023) best read after them, since it assumes you know who Arthur becomes.
Read in publication order, the books follow the ages of her heroines: girls in the 1990s novels, wives and mothers facing illness or divorce around 2000, widows in the mid-2000s, and in the most recent books people in their eighties and nineties.
A reading path
1. The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017)
2. Night of Miracles (2018)
3. The Confession Club (2019)
4. Open House (2000)
5. Talk Before Sleep (1994)
Everything Else Elizabeth Berg Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 18 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other novels
12
12 books · 1998–2013
- 1998What We KeepGinny Young, flying to see the mother she has not spoken to in 35 years, remembers the summer of 1958
- 1999Until the Real Thing Comes Alonga novel
- 2001Never Changea novel; a national bestseller
- 2002True to Formthe third Katie Nash novel
- 2003Say Whena novel
- 2004The Art of Mendinga novel
- 2006The Handmaid and the Carpentera novel
- 2007Dream When You’re Feeling Bluea novel
- 2009Home Safea novel
- 2010The Last Time I Saw Youa novel
- 2011Once Upon a Time, There Was Youa novel
- 2013Tapestry of Fortunesa novel
Short story collections
2
2 books · 2002–2008
- 2002Ordinary Lifestories
- 2008The Day I Ate Whatever I Wantedstories
Nonfiction and memoir
4
4 books · 1992–2020
- 1992Family Traditionscelebrations for holidays and everyday
- 1999Escaping into the Openon the art of writing true
- 2016Make Someone Happyfavourite postings from her Facebook page
- 2020I’ll Be Seeing Youa memoir about caring for her ageing parents
The years · 1948–2026
Quick facts about Elizabeth Berg
- Known for
- Warm, plainly written novels about ordinary women and older people coming through loss, divorce and illness, from the Oprah pick Open House to the Mason, Missouri books.
- 1948
- Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota
- 1985
- Wins the Parents magazine essay contest
- 2000
- Open House chosen by Oprah’s Book Club
- Born
- 2 December 1948, Saint Paul, Minnesota
- Before writing
- Registered nurse; studied at the University of Minnesota
- First book
- Durable Goods (1993)
- Honours
- New England Book Award for fiction (1997); two ALA Best Books of the Year
- Oprah’s Book Club
- Open House, 2000
- Lives
- Outside Chicago; founded the Writing Matters reading series in Oak Park in 2015
The red mark is 2000: Open House, chosen for Oprah’s Book Club.
How Elizabeth Berg Writes: Ordinary Lives, Close Up
Berg has said she does not like to plot. She writes in the mornings for four or five hours, prefers to work “subconsciously” and lets a book “tell me what to do”, and keeps notes on whatever is to hand, from receipts to gum wrappers. The novels show it: they are built from small domestic scenes, a bus ride, a baking class, a list of household objects, rather than from twists.
Her years as a nurse are everywhere in the subject matter: cancer in Durable Goods and Talk Before Sleep, a coma in Range of Motion, polio in We Are All Welcome Here, dying and old age in the Mason books and Life: A Love Story. She credits nursing school with teaching her “unconditional positive regard” for every patient, and says she extends it to her characters, including the ones she dislikes.
She often writes in the first person or in letters, as in The Pull of the Moon and Life: A Love Story, and her prose is plain and direct. Admirers praise its clarity; some critics have called her novels sentimental. For other writers of quiet lives in small places, see Authors like Elizabeth Strout.
Watch
Elizabeth Berg on I'll Be Seeing You
Elizabeth Berg talks about her memoir I’ll Be Seeing You in a conversation hosted by the American Writers Museum in Chicago. From the official American Writers Museum channel.
Frequently asked questions about Elizabeth Berg’s books
How many books has Elizabeth Berg written?
More than thirty. This page lists 32: 26 novels, two short story collections and four books of nonfiction and memoir. The 14 key books are listed above, from Durable Goods (1993) to Life: A Love Story (2026). She has also published further collections of her Facebook posts, Still Happy and Happy to Be Here.
What are Elizabeth Berg’s books in order?
The key books are Durable Goods (1993), Talk Before Sleep (1994), Range of Motion (1995), The Pull of the Moon (1996), Joy School (1997), Open House (2000), The Year of Pleasures (2005), We Are All Welcome Here (2006), The Dream Lover (2015), The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017), Night of Miracles (2018), The Confession Club (2019), Earth’s the Right Place for Love (2023) and Life: A Love Story (2026). The rest are listed under Everything Else.
Where should I start with Elizabeth Berg?
The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017), about a widower, a teenage girl and an older neighbour who become friends after meeting in a cemetery. If you like it, two more Mason novels follow. For her earlier work, start with Open House.
What is Elizabeth Berg’s most famous book?
Open House (2000), which Oprah Winfrey chose for her book club and which became a television film starring Christine Lahti. Among recent readers The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017) is equally well known.
What order should I read the Arthur Truluv books in?
The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017), Night of Miracles (2018), The Confession Club (2019), then the prequel Earth’s the Right Place for Love (2023), set in Mason in 1947 when Arthur is a teenager.
What is the Katie Nash trilogy?
Three novels about Katie Nash, the daughter of an army officer, partly based on Berg’s own childhood: Durable Goods (1993), Joy School (1997) and True to Form (2002). The first two were named ALA Best Books of the Year.
Have Elizabeth Berg’s books been made into films?
Her publisher says three of her novels became television films. Two are Range of Motion, made for Lifetime in 2000 with Rebecca De Mornay, and Open House, with Christine Lahti, Rita Moreno and Eva Marie Saint.
Was Elizabeth Berg a nurse?
Yes. She worked as a registered nurse before she turned to writing, and in 1985 won a Parents magazine essay contest with a piece about leaving nursing to spend more time with her daughters. Illness and caregiving run through her fiction, and her memoir I’ll Be Seeing You (2020) is about caring for her ageing parents.
What is Elizabeth Berg’s newest book?
Life: A Love Story, published by Random House on 17 March 2026, about a ninety-two-year-old widow who writes a long letter to the young woman who grew up next door.
Is Elizabeth Berg still alive?
Yes. She was born on 2 December 1948 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, lives outside Chicago and published Life: A Love Story in 2026.
Footnotes
- Elizabeth Berg (author) — Wikipedia
- Elizabeth Berg — Penguin Random House
- A Conversation with Elizabeth Berg (What We Keep) — Penguin Random House
- Open House (novel) — Wikipedia
- Berg, Elizabeth 1948– — Encyclopedia.com
- Life: A Love Story — Bookreporter
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I loved nursing, but I loved writing more.”
— Elizabeth Berg, interview in the Random House reader’s guide to What We Keep
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