"A brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning book about how the modern world was formed, analyzing how societies developed differently on different continents. I like how this is written from a biologist’s point of view rather than purely based on history or anthropology."

"Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel fulfilled me deeply as a lover of period piece romances. Her characters showed me early on that love is as much a choice as it is a feeling, and the pull of family, society and tradition can be overbearing."

"What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? … renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world … and the means to irrevocably destroy it."

"I love sonnets, with their iambic pentameter. This collection has most of her best-known works, but my favorite “I Shall Go Back Again to the Bleak Shore,” is in her Selected Poems edition. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, only the third woman to do so. All her life she was an activist for women’s rights."

"It was hard to choose which Maya Angelou work I wanted to include in this list, but I ultimately decided I wanted the one that her most definitive. This is the book that made her a voice to be heard. I was also tempted to include her book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, for which she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize."