FAVOURITE BOOKS


I used to have a mammoth, totally unmanageable list of young adult books, graphic novels, novels for adults, and non-fiction here. The truth is that I read so much (you can see what I'm reading on  Goodreads) that I can't keep the list current so from now on I'm sticking with my all-time fiction favourites (I hardly ever reread anything but some of these I've even read twice!), a smattering of graphic novels I really enjoyed and a brief list of recommended reading for writers. Oh, and I couldn't resist including a jumble of young adult and middle grade authors who have written some really great stuff!



SOME FICTION FAVS

★  Emma Who Saved My Life (Wilton Barnhardt)
★  A History of The World in Ten and a Half Chapters (Julian Barnes)
★  The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood)
★  Crow Lake (Mary Lawson)
★  Deaf Elephants (William Benton)
★ An Ocean of Minutes (Thea Lim)
★  Atonement (Ian McEwan)
★  I Like You (Sandol Stoddard Warburg)
★  A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
★  The Hollow Places (T. Kingfisher)
★  Chilly Scenes of Winter (Ann Beattie)
★  Klara and the Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro)
★  The Chrysalids (John Wyndham)
★  Franny and Zooey (J. D. Salinger)
★ The Age of Miracles (Karen Thompson Walker)
★ Longbourn (Jo Baker)
★ Hotline (Dimitri Nasrallah)
★ My Best Friend's Exorcism (Grady Hendrix)




GRAPHIC NOVELS

★  La Perdida (Jessica Abel)
★  Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Alison Bechdel)
★  The Best We Could Do (Thi Bu)
★  Black Hole (Charles Burns)
★  Ghost World (Daniel Clowes)
★  The Summer of Love (Debbie Drechsler)
★  The Bunker by Bruce Mutard
★  Lost at Sea (Brian Lee O'Malley)
★  Paul Moves Out and Paul Has a Summer Job (Michel Rabagliati)
★  Persepolis 1 and Persepolis 2 (Marjane Satrapi)
★  Skim and This One Summer (Mariko Tamaki)
★  Blankets (Craig Thompson)
★  Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos, and Me (Lorina Mapa)
★  Thornhill (Pam Smy)
★ The Arab of the Future (Riad Sattouf)
★ Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (Kate Beaton)


FOR WRITERS

I'm not a big fan of books about writing so the below are mostly market guide recommendations but the two books on screenwriting and the one on comics are useful if you don't naturally think in screenplay or comic book format.

★  Crafty Screenwriting by Alex Epstein
★  Writer's Market Online (various editions)
★  Children's Writers'  Artists' Yearbook (various editions)
★  Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
★  Making Comics by Scott McCloud
★  Formatting & Submitting & Your Manuscript by Jack Neff, Don Prues, Glenda Tennant Neff
★  Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market (various editions)
★  The Writer's Handbook (various editions), Barry Turner, editor




YA & MG AUTHORS

Kwame Alexander | S. K. Ali | Laurie Halse Anderson | Rebecca Barrow | Judy Blume | Coe Booth | Akemi Dawn Bowman | Steve Brezenoff  | Jennifer Brown  | Carol Rifka Brunt | Laura Buzo | Deb Caletti | Kate Cann | Lucy Christopher | Carol Clippinger | Rachel Cohn | E.M. Crane | Cath Crowley | Tanita S. Davis | Denise Deegan | Lara Deloza | Sarah Dessen | Trish Doller | Jenny Downham | Kirsty Eagar | Nick Earls | Jennifer Echols | Sara Farizan | Alex Flinn | Moira Fowley-Doyle | E.R. Frank | Hilary Freeman | Alma Fullerton | Rita Williams-Garcia | Kathleen Glasgow | John Green | Paul Griffin | Janet Gurtler | Jenny Han | Brent Hartinger | S.A. Harazin | Tanuja Desai Hidier | Simmone Howell | Catherine Ryan Hyde | Justina Ireland | Tiffany D. Jackson | Jennifer Richard Jacobson | Denise Jaden | A. M. Jenkins | Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson | Varian Johnson | Patrick Jones | Tara Kelly | Deborah Kerbel Aditi Khorana | A. S. King | Jo Knowles | Nina LaCour | David Levithan | Gina Linko | Saci Lloyd | E. Lockhart | Cynthia Lord | Barry Lyga | Chris Lynch | Carolyn Mackler | Sarra Manning | Melina Marchetta | Goldy Moldavsky | Jaclyn Moriarty | Hannah Moskowitz | Catherine Gilbert Murdock | Walter Dean Myers | Lauren Myracle | Blake Nelson | R. A. Nelson | Patrick Ness | Michael Northrop | Joyce Carol Oates | Lauren Oliver | Mary Pearson | Susan Beth Pfeffer | Ben Philippe | Rory Power | Yvonne Prinz | Amy Reed | Beth Revis | Karen Rivers | Geoff Rodkey | Meg Rosoff | Laura Ruby | Carrie Ryan | Alex Sanchez | Lisa Schroeder | Victoria Schwab | Elizabeth Scott | Mindi Scott | Cynthia Leitich Smith | Sherri L. Smith | Sonya Sones | Rebecca Stead | Maggie Stiefvater | Heather Duffy Stone | Nic Stone | Lauren Strasnick | Nova Ren Suma | Courtney Summers | Angie Thomas | Rob Thomas | J. H. Trumble | Jenny Valentine | Siobhan Vivian | Eric Walters | Renée Watson | Garret Freymann-Weyr | Daisy Whitney | Laura Wiess | Ellen Wittlinger | Virginia Euwer Wolff | Jacqueline Woodson | David Yoo | Sara Zarr | Lara Zeises | Ibi Zoboi