"One of the first books I read when I moved to New York City, I like that James Baldwin imparts some of his own experience growing up in Harlem into this novel. It deals with issues of race and the church, and how both can be positive and negative factors in life."

"Another instance of pleasurable re-reading. William Gaddis’ first novel, mid-1950s, The Recognitions, and I remember walking into a bookstore in Manhattan and being intrigued by the striking cover design, from a 15th century Italian altarpiece. The first paragraph knocked me out and I’ve been reading and re-reading Gaddis ever since."

"As for dystopian, I’m not putting this on the list because we live in a time when those wielding power say things like, “Truth isn’t truth.” (Fun fact: it is!) I’m adding it because, when I was too young to grasp its cautionary aspects, this book showed me what a novel could do."

"This is an amazing work of art and history—a three-part graphic novel that dives deep into some of the struggle, strategy, beauty, and brutality that defined our country’s Civil Rights Movement. A vital tool for people, young and old, to learn about the past and be inspired about the future."

"New Zealand’s greatest novel and the one book that will transport me instantly home. Three disparate characters come together to form a fragile and unlikely family; their need to connect at odds with their fear of attachment. One of those books that wipes you out, no matter how many times you read it."

"The narrator of this novel works at a Tokyo convenience store and loves the routine of the job; she is also something of an anthropologist, noting her observations of human behavior in a distant and yet utterly open way. Watching her try to participate in the world is both moving and unsettling."

"Perhaps the best introduction to another great original of the English novel, who learned from Firbank's economy, but who had his own quite different imaginative world. Loving, set among the servants of an Irish country house, combines his superbly truthful ear for how people really speak with an unforgettable vein of surreal poetry."

"This is a recent Booker-winning novel with Tolstoyan ambitions that presents the horrors inflicted on Australian prisoners of war by the Japanese during World War II in Burma - and then turns around and gives us a compassionate portrait of the defeated Japanese. A book distinguished by its big heart and beautiful language."

"One of the most beautifully told family sagas in world literature. Exploring gender identity, ethnic identity, American dream, immigrants, family memories and collective myths… but to me this is primarily a novel about belonging—how we fail but still somehow find the hope and the will to continue to try to belong."

"I’ve been touring recently, so I’ve been reading Joe Dunthorne’s The Adulterants. It’s a slim, short novel for taking on the road, and it’s very funny. It’s set in the backdrop of the riots that took place in the UK a few years ago, so it’s light and grotesque at the same time."