For his 2007 book The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, J. Peder Zane asked 125 authors to name their favorite novels. Among them was horror and sci-fi writer Stephen King, whose list is replicated below. Including Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, George Orwell and Mark Twain, King’s picks largely deal with the bleak, often brutal, journeys of people under improbable pressures.
Read on for Stephen King’s 10 favorite books of all time, and head over to Aerogramme Writers’ Studio for a list of 96 books he recommends for writers.
The Golden Argosy, The Most Celebrated Short Stories in the English Language by Van Cartmell & Charles Grayson
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Light in August by William Faulkner
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (also rec’d by Elon Musk)
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (also rec’d by Bruce Springsteen)
McTeague by Frank Norris (also rec’d by David Bowie)
1984 by George Orwell (also rec’d by David Bowie, John Lennon & Steve Jobs)
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
(via Open Culture; Photo by Michael Edwards)