American novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen shot to fame when his third novel, The Corrections, was published in 2001. A sprawling, satirical family drama set in the Midwest, it drew extensive critical acclaim and won the National Book Award for Fiction. His 2010 followup Freedom – another epic of contemporary American marriage – received similar praise, with some critics calling it the “Great American Novel.” In addition to five works of non-fiction, Franzen released his sixth novel Crossroads last year, the first in a projected trilogy that follows a suburban family in crisis in ’70s Chicago.
Sharing some of his favorite fiction recommendations with Oprah’s Book Club, Franzen included work by Faulkner, Rushdie, Morrison and Munro. Read on for his favorites, and complement with the bookshelves of David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood and Philip Roth.
Jonathan Franzen’s Reading List
Continental Drift by Russell Banks
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (also rec’d by William S. Burroughs)
The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley
Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell (also rec’d by Jia Tolentino)
Mr. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury
The Hamlet by William Faulkner
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
Angels by Denis Johnson (also rec’d by Kim Gordon)
Corregidora by Gayl Jones
Independent People by Halldór Laxness
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud (also rec’d by Philip Roth)
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (also rec’d by Jodie Foster, Kamala Harris & Marlon James)
The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
Runaway by Alice Munro
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe
Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (also rec’d by Deepak Chopra)
In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (also rec’d by Chrissie Hynde)
The Family Moskat by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
The Age of Grief by Jane Smiley
Ordinary Love & Good Will by Jane Smiley
Endless Love by Scott Spencer
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (also rec’d by John Waters)
“Christina Stead’s masterpiece remains the most fabulous book that hardly anyone I know has read.” -JF
Taking Care by Joy Williams
(via Oprah’s Book Club)