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Philip Roth was 26 when his first book, Goodbye, Columbus, won the National Book Award in 1960, and 77 when his last novel, Nemesis, came out in 2010. In between he published 29 books of fiction and memoir, won the Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Awards and the PEN/Faulkner Award three times, the first writer to do so. Most of them return to the same ground: Newark, New Jersey, where he was born in 1933, Jewish-American family life, sex, and the gap between a writer’s life and his fiction, often through his alter ego Nathan Zuckerman. In October 2012 he told a French magazine that he had stopped writing. This guide covers his 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1959–2010 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Philip Roth published 29 books of fiction and memoir between 1959 and 2010. The best known are Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), American Pastoral (1997, Pulitzer Prize), The Human Stain (2000) and The Plot Against America (2004). Start with American Pastoral; read on for how the Zuckerman, Kepesh and Nemeses books fit together.
Where to Start with Philip Roth
If you want his defining novel
→ American Pastoral (1997) — the Pulitzer winner, the first of the American Trilogy.
If you want the book that made him famous
→ Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) — the 1969 comic monologue.
If you want a gripping, plot-driven novel
→ The Plot Against America (2004) — America under a President Lindbergh.
If you want something short
→ Nemesis (2010) — his last novel, about a polio epidemic in 1944 Newark.
14 Philip Roth Books, in Order
Goodbye, Columbus
A novella and five stories. In the title story Neil Klugman, a library clerk from Newark, spends a summer with Brenda Patimkin, whose family has moved up to the suburbs. The candid picture of Jewish-American life divided reviewers, one of whom found it full of “self-loathing”. It was filmed in 1969 with Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw.
Portnoy’s Complaint
Alexander Portnoy, 33, talks to his psychoanalyst about his overbearing Jewish mother, his guilt and his sexual obsessions, in one long, comic and explicit monologue. It made Roth famous, and its sexual frankness made it notorious. It was filmed in 1972.
The Ghost Writer
In 1956 the young writer Nathan Zuckerman visits his literary hero, E. I. Lonoff, at his farmhouse in the Berkshires and spends the night. He meets Amy Bellette, a young woman in Lonoff’s house, and imagines she is Anne Frank, who survived the war. The first Zuckerman novel was adapted for PBS in 1984, with Claire Bloom.
The Counterlife
Nathan Zuckerman and his brother Henry live through contradictory versions of the same events, from risky heart surgery to Israel and England, and each chapter overturns the one before. It is Roth’s most formally playful novel.
Patrimony
A memoir of his father, Herman Roth, a retired insurance man from Newark, in the last years of his life, as he goes through a brain tumour. It is Roth writing without a mask.
Operation Shylock
A narrator called Philip Roth travels to Jerusalem to confront an impostor using his name to promote “Diasporism”, the idea that Israel’s Jews should return to Europe. The novel unfolds while the trial of John Demjanjuk is under way in Israel.
Sabbath’s Theater
Mickey Sabbath, a 64-year-old former puppeteer, falls apart after the death of his longtime lover, Drenka. Roth’s most outrageous late novel won his second National Book Award, 35 years after the first.
American Pastoral
Nathan Zuckerman reconstructs the life of Seymour “Swede” Levov, a golden athlete from Newark who takes over his father’s glove factory and marries a former Miss New Jersey, until his teenage daughter Merry bombs the local post office in 1968 in protest against the Vietnam War. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and was filmed by Ewan McGregor in 2016.
I Married a Communist
Murray Ringold tells his former pupil Nathan Zuckerman the story of his brother Ira, a radio star destroyed during the McCarthy era after his wife, the actress Eve Frame, publishes an exposé calling him a communist. Critics saw parallels between Eve Frame and Claire Bloom, whose memoir of her marriage to Roth, Leaving a Doll’s House, appeared in 1996.
The Human Stain
In 1998, the summer of the Clinton impeachment, Coleman Silk, a classics professor at a small New England college, is accused of racism over a single word and resigns. Zuckerman, his neighbour, uncovers the secret Silk has kept all his life. It was filmed in 2003 with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman.
The Dying Animal
David Kepesh, a cultural critic in his sixties, looks back on his affair with a former student, Consuela Castillo, and what happened years later. It is the last of the three Kepesh books and was filmed as Elegy (2008), with Ben Kingsley.
The Plot Against America
In 1940 the aviator Charles Lindbergh, an isolationist, defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt for the presidency, and a Jewish family in Newark named Roth, seen through the eyes of their young son Philip, watches antisemitism become official policy. David Simon and Ed Burns adapted it as a six-part HBO series in 2020.
Everyman
A short novel that opens at the funeral of its unnamed hero and then tells his life through his illnesses and hospital stays. It made Roth the first writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award three times.
Nemesis
In the summer of 1944 Bucky Cantor, a young playground director in Newark kept out of the war by poor eyesight, watches polio spread among the children in his care. Roth’s last novel; two years later he announced he had stopped writing.
In What Order to Read Philip Roth
Roth’s novels stand alone, but several form loose groups. The Zuckerman books follow his alter ego, the novelist Nathan Zuckerman: The Ghost Writer, Zuckerman Unbound, The Anatomy Lesson and the epilogue The Prague Orgy (collected in 1985 as Zuckerman Bound), then The Counterlife, the American Trilogy (American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, The Human Stain), in which Zuckerman mostly tells other people’s stories, and finally Exit Ghost (2007). The Zuckerman of My Life as a Man (1974) is a different character, invented by that novel’s narrator.
The Kepesh books follow the professor David Kepesh: The Breast (1972), in which he turns into a breast, The Professor of Desire (1977) and The Dying Animal (2001). The Nemeses are four short late novels collected by the Library of America under that title: Everyman, Indignation, The Humbling and Nemesis. A fourth strand has a narrator called Philip Roth: The Facts, Deception, Operation Shylock and The Plot Against America. Read the Zuckerman books in order; the rest can be read in any order.
A reading path
1. Goodbye, Columbus (1959)
2. American Pastoral (1997)
3. The Plot Against America (2004)
4. The Human Stain (2000)
5. Portnoy’s Complaint (1969)
6. Nemesis (2010)
Everything Else Philip Roth Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 18 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Zuckerman books
4
4 books · 1981–2007
- 1981Zuckerman UnboundZuckerman copes with sudden fame after a scandalous bestseller
- 1983The Anatomy LessonZuckerman, in chronic pain, wants to give up writing
- 1985The Prague Orgythe epilogue, first published in Zuckerman Bound
- 2007Exit Ghostthe last Zuckerman novel
Kepesh books
2
2 books · 1972–1977
- 1972The BreastKepesh turns into a breast
- 1977The Professor of DesireKepesh’s erotic and literary education
Nemeses
2
2 books · 2008–2009
- 2008Indignationa Newark student at a college in Ohio during the Korean War
- 2009The Humblingan ageing actor loses his ability to act
Other novels and memoir
7
7 books · 1962–1990
- 1962Letting Gohis first full-length novel
- 1967When She Was Gooda Midwestern novel with a female protagonist
- 1971Our Ganga satire of the Nixon administration
- 1973The Great American Novela comic baseball novel
- 1974My Life as a Mana novelist, Peter Tarnopol, and his disastrous marriage
- 1988The Factsa novelist’s autobiography, answered by Zuckerman
- 1990Deceptiona novel told almost entirely in dialogue
Essays
3
3 books · 1975–2017
- 1975Reading Myself and Othersessays and interviews
- 2001Shop Talkconversations with other writers
- 2017Why Write?collected non-fiction, 1960–2013, from the Library of America
The years · 1933–2018
Quick facts about Philip Roth
- Known for
- Comic, angry and autobiographically teasing novels about Jewish-American life, sex and postwar America, many narrated by his alter ego Nathan Zuckerman
- 1933
- Born in Newark, New Jersey
- 2018
- Dies in Manhattan, aged 85
- Born
- 19 March 1933, Newark, New Jersey
- Education
- Bucknell University (B.A.); University of Chicago (M.A., 1955)
- Married
- Margaret Martinson (1959–1963); the actress Claire Bloom (1990–1994)
- Honours
- National Medal of Arts (1998); National Humanities Medal (2010); Man Booker International Prize (2011)
- Retired
- Announced in October 2012 that he had stopped writing fiction
- Died
- 22 May 2018, Manhattan, of heart failure; buried at Bard College
The red mark is 1997: American Pastoral, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998.
How Philip Roth Writes: The Self as Material
Roth built a career on playing with the line between himself and his fiction. His narrators are writers who resemble him: Nathan Zuckerman, David Kepesh, and in several books a character actually called Philip Roth, who in Operation Shylock meets an impostor using his name. The Facts (1988), his autobiography, ends with a letter from Zuckerman arguing with it.
His home ground is Newark, New Jersey, and the Jewish-American families who left it for the suburbs. The early books are comic and transgressive, Portnoy’s Complaint above all; from The Counterlife on, he becomes more interested in history and in how private lives are wrecked by public events: the Vietnam War in American Pastoral, McCarthyism in I Married a Communist, the politics of 1998 in The Human Stain, an invented fascist America in The Plot Against America.
His last books, the four short Nemeses novels, turn to illness, ageing and death, in plainer prose. He drew criticism throughout his career: early on from readers who found his portraits of Jewish life hostile, later from critics, Claire Bloom among them, who called him misogynist. Asked in 2005 whether he was a Jewish-American writer, he answered: “I’m an American.”
Frequently asked questions about Philip Roth’s books
How many books did Philip Roth write?
He published 29 books of fiction and memoir between 1959 and 2010, plus collections of essays and interviews. This page covers 14 key books; the other 15 fiction and memoir titles and three essay collections are listed below them.
What are Philip Roth’s books in order?
The key books are Goodbye, Columbus (1959), Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), The Ghost Writer (1979), The Counterlife (1986), Patrimony (1991), Operation Shylock (1993), Sabbath’s Theater (1995), American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), The Human Stain (2000), The Dying Animal (2001), The Plot Against America (2004), Everyman (2006) and Nemesis (2010).
Where should I start with Philip Roth?
With American Pastoral, his Pulitzer Prize winner. If you want a faster, more plot-driven book, start with The Plot Against America; for something short, Goodbye, Columbus or Nemesis.
What is Philip Roth’s most famous book?
Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) made him famous and is still his best-known title. Among critics, American Pastoral (1997), which won the Pulitzer Prize, is usually ranked highest.
In what order should I read the Zuckerman books?
The Ghost Writer (1979), Zuckerman Unbound (1981), The Anatomy Lesson (1983), The Prague Orgy (1985), The Counterlife (1986), American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), The Human Stain (2000) and Exit Ghost (2007). The last three before Exit Ghost form the American Trilogy and can each be read alone.
What are the Nemeses books?
Four short late novels collected by the Library of America in 2013 under the title Nemeses: Everyman (2006), Indignation (2008), The Humbling (2009) and Nemesis (2010). They do not share characters; they share a preoccupation with illness, chance and death.
Did Philip Roth win the Nobel Prize?
No. He won the Pulitzer Prize (1998, for American Pastoral), the National Book Award twice (for Goodbye, Columbus and Sabbath’s Theater), the PEN/Faulkner Award three times and the Man Booker International Prize (2011).
Which Philip Roth books have been filmed?
Among others, Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Portnoy’s Complaint (1972), The Human Stain (2003), The Dying Animal as Elegy (2008), The Humbling (2014), Indignation and American Pastoral (both 2016), and The Plot Against America as an HBO series (2020).
What happened to Philip Roth’s biography?
Roth chose Blake Bailey as his biographer in 2012 and gave him exclusive access to his archives. Philip Roth: The Biography was published by W. W. Norton in April 2021. Weeks later, after allegations of sexual misconduct against Bailey, which he denies, Norton halted shipping and on 28 April 2021 took the book out of print. Skyhorse Publishing reissued it in May and June 2021.
When did Philip Roth die?
On 22 May 2018 in Manhattan, of heart failure, aged 85. He is buried at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He had announced in 2012 that he had stopped writing fiction.
Footnotes
- Philip Roth bibliography — Wikipedia
- Philip Roth — Britannica
- Philip Roth: The Biography — Wikipedia
- The Plot Against America (miniseries) — Wikipedia
- The triumphs and follies of adapting Philip Roth — Brooklyn Magazine
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.
“Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.”
— Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004), the first line
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