Quote: There are a few books I always push on people. But the big one is Robertson Davies’ The Deptford Trilogy, which has all the pleasures of 19th century fiction with the addition of Davies’ sly, sexually fascinated narrator, acting as cat’s-paw and catalyst.

Quote: I read Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada the summer I was twenty. It drew me into a world of invention on so many levels— narrative, literary, and historic, that I understood for the first time that words can remake the world.

Quote: Gone with the Wind has always captivated me, but my view has evolved. In 7th grade, I loved ravishing Scarlett O’Hara, flirting at the barbecue. Now, I love ravaged Scarlett, pulling herself up from the dirt and declaring, “I’ll never be hungry again."

Quote: When I opened Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life, I was overwhelmed. It incorporated everything I’d been utilizing in my work. What a humbling moment to realize that I had tapped into something greater than myself — and a true validation.

Quote: John Donne’s poem, Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls, has informed and inspired my career. This grieving and philosophically sound work has allowed me to portray stories that were not my own, and enter narratives that I could try on and wear as myself.

Quote: When I read Christopher Morley’s wonderful novel Kitty Foyle at the age of sixteen, I was a goner! It taught me for the first time that women need to be independent and in charge of their own lives.

Quote: As a young man growing up in small towns on the Great Plains, I read Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, and I never looked at the lives around me the same way again. This is a book that still tells us essential truths.

Quote: I am forced to make two choices. The first: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Every time I reread it I find more to admire in this magnificent love story. The other: The Woman In White by Wilkie Colins. It set the high water mark for suspense writers.

Quote: I was 13 when I read Gone With The Wind, and used to act out the parts of Rhett and Scarlett (which may be why I didn’t have a boyfriend til I was 15!). Mitchell’s ability to create a whole world out of words made me think, "Maybe I can do that, too."

Quote: John Donne’s poem, Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls, has informed and inspired my career. This grieving and philosophically sound work has allowed me to portray stories that were not my own, and enter narratives that I could try on and wear as myself.

Quote: Studs Terkel’s Working — hugely ambitious and totally unpretentious — is a book that has informed me as a fiction writer, as a memoirist, and as an American. It reminds me of the extraordinary eloquence of a human voice, speaking personal truth.

Quote: George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, with its provocative characters and glistening prose, made me see the ultimate power of fiction: to teach us empathy and show us endurance. Gwendolen Harleth remains my favorite protagonist of all time.

Quote: Before the word feminism came into my consciousness, there was a girl who led the way: Nancy Drew. She was smart, took risks and solved problems even grownups couldn’t unravel. I wanted to BE Nancy — even said “Malarkey!” for a while.

Quote: I love a short story collection called A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, by Amy Bloom. There’s a story in it about a mother taking her daughter to a clinic to have a sex-change operation that absolutely killed me!

Quote: Growing up, I read Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides three times in a row. It wrapped me up in its world, and I was blown away by the idea that just words could do that. I kept that book, with its turned-down corners and underlined passages, for decades.

Quote: Mrs. Bridge and Mr. Bridge are two novels with two disparate points of view on a shared life, which inspired me as a reader and as a writer. Short chapters, subtle but powerful scenes, irresistible dramedy—no, make that a miracle of precision and grace!

Quote: I was five when my father read Heidi to me, one chapter at a time. It opened up a new world to me. I was in Alabama, hearing about a little girl living all the way across the world in the snow mountains of Switzerland.  I’ve loved stories ever since!

Quote: I was so moved by Half the Sky. In documenting the horrors inflicted on women, from sex trafficking to gender violence, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn illuminated the courage of those fighting such abuse and the responsibility of others to help them.

Quote: I love The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, because the Devil and his entourage come to Moscow and wreak havoc – and because it somersaults nimbly along the knife-edge I love, with laughter on one side and tears on the other.

Quote: The first time I read Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury, I was breathless. I wanted to inhale the book — the language, the mood, the characters, the voice — and never exhale.

Quote: Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children is tragic, unsparing, unforgettable. Sam Pollit (no relation!) is the original fun dad, his wife a trapped butterfly, their daughter a furious teenager who someday will write it all down. It’s one of the great under-appreciated novels of the 20th century.

Quote: I love to visit 18th-century Sicily in The Silent Duchess, by Dacia Maraini ("La Lunga Vita di Marianna Ucria" in Italian), and say "Brava!" to deaf-mute Marianna, who struggles for independence within an intimately vivid, sumptuous, and cruel culture.

Quote: Now and forever, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Lo-lee-ta.  I re-read it when I’m in the mood to be reminded how staggering a great novel can be. Each time, I find it more brilliant, more creepy and more downright hilarious.  I even have a dog named Lolita.

Quote: Darcy O’Brien’s A Way of Life Like Any Other is a great fictional tale of Hollywood, adolescence, love, failure, booze, divorce, and fame, based on the author’s own life. I read it at least once a year, and always have copies on hand to give to people.

Quote: Nick Kristof and Sheryl Wu Dunn’s Half the Sky is riveting. The women in this book are the true heroines of our time: ordinary women who did extraordinary things. Anyone who reads this book will be moved, inspired, and called to action.