National Book Festival authors share their favorite books

National Book Festival writers reveal their favorite titles and explain what makes them so special.

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Author: David Ezra Stein

“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “The Hobbit” over and over since I discovered them in childhood. It’s such a richly detailed world. These books are a gift to the imagination. Whenever I delve into Middle Earth, I remember where I was the last time I visited. As a grade-schooler, when I first took a dusty, map-adorned copy of “The Hobbit” from the school library. As a teenager, on my grandmother’s couch by a sunny window. As a newly married person reading aloud to my wife at bedtime.

/ Mariner

Author: T.C. Boyle

Faulkner reminds me of what fiction is supposed to do, can do, should do. And I don’t always reserve a rereading of these books for mid-novel: I just pulled “Sanctuary” from the shelf to stimulate me in the very beginning process of collecting material and thinking about the next novel, which at this point is as vague and shadowy to me as a flickering, dimly seen film.

/ Vintage

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140293248?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0140293248&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing</a>” by Melissa Bank. The writing is just extraordinary — crisp, evocative, and I think she perfectly captures what it feels like to be a girl. She is able to pack an incredible amount of heart into the smallest, rudimentary moments. I reread this book once a year, and I am inspired by it each and every time.

Author: Vivian Siobhan

“The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing” by Melissa Bank. The writing is just extraordinary — crisp, evocative, and I think she perfectly captures what it feels like to be a girl. She is able to pack an incredible amount of heart into the smallest, rudimentary moments. I reread this book once a year, and I am inspired by it each and every time.

/ Penguin

Author: Chris Raschka

The book I reach for the most, whether I’m sitting in my favorite library in New York or in my studio, is P.G. Wodehouse’s “The World of Mr. Mulliner,” which collects all of the Mulliner stories. The shape of those sentences still knocks me out. And the way in which Mr. Wodehouse constructs the humor, so adroitly, so stylishly, with no excess, demands constant study.

/ Penguin

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393979202?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0393979202&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>The Norton Anthology of Poetry</a>.” I have the fourth edition now; the third edition fell apart from overuse. This one’s looking mighty scruffy. I turn to it every day, after I put my younger kid on the school bus, while a fresh pot of coffee is brewing, before I head upstairs to my study to face the blinking cursor.

Author: Geraldine Brooks

“The Norton Anthology of Poetry.” I have the fourth edition now; the third edition fell apart from overuse. This one’s looking mighty scruffy. I turn to it every day, after I put my younger kid on the school bus, while a fresh pot of coffee is brewing, before I head upstairs to my study to face the blinking cursor.

/ W. W. Norton

Nancy Mitford’s “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030774082X?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=030774082X&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Love in a Cold Climate</a>” gets me laughing all over again as I revisit some of the funniest characters in English literature. I have long found the Mitford family fascinating and have read all of Nancy’s novels. With each rereading I appreciate anew Mitford’s comic sensibility and her sly and astute observations about the aristocratic world in which she was raised.

Author: Sally Bedell Smith

Nancy Mitford’s “Love in a Cold Climate” gets me laughing all over again as I revisit some of the funniest characters in English literature. I have long found the Mitford family fascinating and have read all of Nancy’s novels. With each rereading I appreciate anew Mitford’s comic sensibility and her sly and astute observations about the aristocratic world in which she was raised.

/ Vintage

For me, all roads lead back to “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307264882?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0307264882&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Beloved</a>,” by Toni Morrison. I own the book in all formats — a hardcover first edition, a dog-eared paperback that I use for my own pleasure, a marked up paperback for teaching, an e-book that I read on my phone and the audio book, so that I may hear Morrison’s words in her own voice. There is no novel that speaks to the complexity of modern life like this one, although the story takes place in 1873. It shows us that amid deep violations of humanity, humanity wins out.

Author: Tayari Jones

For me, all roads lead back to “Beloved,” by Toni Morrison. I own the book in all formats — a hardcover first edition, a dog-eared paperback that I use for my own pleasure, a marked up paperback for teaching, an e-book that I read on my phone and the audio book, so that I may hear Morrison’s words in her own voice. There is no novel that speaks to the complexity of modern life like this one, although the story takes place in 1873. It shows us that amid deep violations of humanity, humanity wins out.

/ Vintage

I’d have to say “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003A02YBA?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B003A02YBA&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Letters of E.B. White</a>” (collected and edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth). Because I spend a substantial part of each year in rural Maine, his voice resonates with me as he describes the quotidian life on a Maine farm. There’s no fake folksiness to his description but rather an elegant appreciation of what he calls, without irony, the “trivial matters of the hearth.”

Author: Lois Lowry

I’d have to say “Letters of E.B. White” (collected and edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth). Because I spend a substantial part of each year in rural Maine, his voice resonates with me as he describes the quotidian life on a Maine farm. There’s no fake folksiness to his description but rather an elegant appreciation of what he calls, without irony, the “trivial matters of the hearth.”

/ Harper

There is one book that I reread every five years or so with a devotion that even I find eccentric: “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393327191?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0393327191&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Lytton Strachey</a>,” by Michael Holroyd. This book is easily the best single-volume account of the Bloomsbury circle. It also ranks with the best biographies of gay men.

Author: Christopher Bram

There is one book that I reread every five years or so with a devotion that even I find eccentric: “Lytton Strachey,” by Michael Holroyd. This book is easily the best single-volume account of the Bloomsbury circle. It also ranks with the best biographies of gay men.

/ W. W. Norton

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RI9RDO?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B002RI9RDO&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</a>” by Friedrich Nietzche is a book not to be read, but to be learned by heart. It is a book of wisdom with a thought in every line. I have six or seven copies, but the one I learned by heart is the raggedy, dog-eared, crackling paperback, splitting through the spine.

Author: Giannina Braschi

“Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Friedrich Nietzche is a book not to be read, but to be learned by heart. It is a book of wisdom with a thought in every line. I have six or seven copies, but the one I learned by heart is the raggedy, dog-eared, crackling paperback, splitting through the spine.

/ Penguin

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394746163?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0394746163&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Common Ground</a>,” by J. Anthony Lukas, is the story, told through the lives of three families, of the Boston school busing crisis of the 1970s. In a larger sense, it’s an exploration of race and class in America — and a masterwork of narrative journalism, both impeccably researched and beautifully written.

Author: Jeffrey Toobin

“Common Ground,” by J. Anthony Lukas, is the story, told through the lives of three families, of the Boston school busing crisis of the 1970s. In a larger sense, it’s an exploration of race and class in America — and a masterwork of narrative journalism, both impeccably researched and beautifully written.

/ Vintage

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380977265?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0380977265&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Dandelion Wine</a>” by Ray Bradbury. I believe it is one of the most underrated books ever. Bradbury’s lyrical depiction of growing up in the Midwest in a long-ago time, a time that probably never even existed, is the kind of beautiful nostalgia few authors have achieved.

Author: R.L. Stein

“Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury. I believe it is one of the most underrated books ever. Bradbury’s lyrical depiction of growing up in the Midwest in a long-ago time, a time that probably never even existed, is the kind of beautiful nostalgia few authors have achieved.

Avon / Avon

Author: Laura Amy Schlitz

This is a personal and intrusive question, and I’m tempted to lie. I could honestly say that I’ve read — and reread — “Great Expectations” and “The Brothers Karamazov” and “The Song of the Lark” and “The Deptford Trilogy” and “Villette” and “Middlemarch.” I passionately love all these books, none of which runs the risk of compromising my status as an intellectual and an adult. But the book I reread most, and have loved since I was a child, is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “A Little Princess.”

/ Norilana

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684862212?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0684862212&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>The Snows of Kilimanjaro</a>” is the most perfect prose I’ve ever read. The way Hemingway summarizes a life and describes the act of dying is sheer brilliant poetry. I keep a copy nearby and even travel with it when I work on the road as I find the writing inspiring.

Author: Patricia Cornwell

“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is the most perfect prose I’ve ever read. The way Hemingway summarizes a life and describes the act of dying is sheer brilliant poetry. I keep a copy nearby and even travel with it when I work on the road as I find the writing inspiring.

/ Scribner

I have taught M.T. Anderson’s “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0763662623?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0763662623&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Feed</a>” for seven years in a row now and have reread it each time, and each time it has meant more to me and been more scarily prescient. It’s a great lens through which to see our culture and the risks of an over-reliance on technology instead of humanity.

Author: David Levithan

I have taught M.T. Anderson’s “Feed” for seven years in a row now and have reread it each time, and each time it has meant more to me and been more scarily prescient. It’s a great lens through which to see our culture and the risks of an over-reliance on technology instead of humanity.

/ Candlewick

“<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812550706?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0812550706&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Ender’s Game</a>,” by Orson Scott Card, influenced both my reading and writing life, shaped them more than any other novel. The book has everything I love in a story: a strong, complex, flawed protagonist; adventure; turmoil and heartache; displays of the relentless, unstoppable human spirit in the face of adversity; and surprising plot twists. One of the greatest endings of all time. “Ender’s Game,” I love you.

Author: James Dashner

“Ender’s Game,” by Orson Scott Card, influenced both my reading and writing life, shaped them more than any other novel. The book has everything I love in a story: a strong, complex, flawed protagonist; adventure; turmoil and heartache; displays of the relentless, unstoppable human spirit in the face of adversity; and surprising plot twists. One of the greatest endings of all time. “Ender’s Game,” I love you.

/ Tor

The book I loved as a kid and most returned to and have come to depend on as a source of inspiration, for me as a writer, is “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061124958?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0061124958&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Charlotte’s Web</a>,” by E.B. White. As an author of children’s stories who casts animals as kids, reading “Charlotte’s Web” brings me to a place where I’d like my characters to live. It helps me get in a zone where I feel more receptive to inspiration.

Author: Tad Hills

The book I loved as a kid and most returned to and have come to depend on as a source of inspiration, for me as a writer, is “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.B. White. As an author of children’s stories who casts animals as kids, reading “Charlotte’s Web” brings me to a place where I’d like my characters to live. It helps me get in a zone where I feel more receptive to inspiration.

/ HarperCollins

I’ve worn out two or three copies of Jonathan Raban’s “<a data-xslt='_http' href='http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375701001?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0375701001&linkCode=xm2&tag=washpost-books-20'>Old Glory</a>,” about piloting a small boat down the Mississippi. I first read “Old Glory” 30 years ago, as a young reporter in the Midwest, and Raban helped me realize that you don’t need to climb a mountain or trek across the Gobi to have a great adventure. He also showed me that aimlessness and loitering are excellent techniques, and I’ve tried to apply them to my own travel writing ever since.

Author: Tony Horwitz

I’ve worn out two or three copies of Jonathan Raban’s “Old Glory,” about piloting a small boat down the Mississippi. I first read “Old Glory” 30 years ago, as a young reporter in the Midwest, and Raban helped me realize that you don’t need to climb a mountain or trek across the Gobi to have a great adventure. He also showed me that aimlessness and loitering are excellent techniques, and I’ve tried to apply them to my own travel writing ever since.

/ Vintage

FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES

TV presenter and conservationist Anneka Tanaka-Svenska wears a hat designed by Louis Mariette during the first day of Royal Ascot, in Berkshire, west of London, on June 18, 2013. The five-day meeting is one of the highlights of the horse racing calendar. Horse racing has been held at the famous Berkshire course since 1711 and tradition is a hallmark of the meeting. Top hats and tails remain compulsory in parts of the course while a daily procession of horse-drawn carriages brings the Queen to the course. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNISADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

Photos of the day

Royal Ascot, protests in Brazil, Lego exhibition, flooding in India, Cheetah-Cub robot and more.

Two-year old male rat named Dyatlik wears a costume during a rodent exhibition in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, June 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Animal views

Rodent exhibition, swimming with elephants, Mexico’s feline mayoral candidate and more.

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: Johnathon Carrington, valedictorian at Dunbar High School, laughs with family and friends after his school's graduation ceremony at Howard University on Friday, June 14, 2013, in Washington, DC. Carrington, who grew up in Tyler House public-housing apartments and is graduating from one of DC's low-performing high schoolsy, where academic expectations are high. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Johnathon’s journey

Johnathon Carrington graduated Friday as the valedictorian of his neighborhood school, Dunbar High, and is headed to Georgetown University. But Carrington, 17, is nervous, and so are...

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 18: Madonna attends the Dolce & Gabbana and The Cinema Society screening of the Epix World premiere of 'Madonna: The MDNA Tour' at The Paris Theatre on June 18, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Madonna, Michael Buble, Barbara Streisand, Jackie Chan, Jerry Seinfeld, Estelle and other celebrities.

Inmates walk at a high-security male prison camp outside Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk May 14, 2013. High-security male prison camp number 17 is intended to house male inmates who are serving a sentence for the first time, and have been convicted for serious crimes. Prisoners at the facility work in wood and metal processing shops, manufacture furniture, sew clothes and do other kinds of work. They can also take part in educational, sport and cultural programs. Picture taken May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin (RUSSIA - Tags: CRIME LAW SOCIETY) ATTENTION EDITORS: PICTURE 4 OF 29 FOR PACKAGE 'INSIDE SIBERIA'S PRISONS' SEARCH 'ILYA PRISON' FOR ALL IMAGES

Life in a Siberian prison

A look inside a high-security prison camp outside Krasnoyarsk, Russia

LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 16: Reenactors dressed as knights stage a medieval jousting competition at Eltham Palace on June 16, 2013 in Eltham, England. The 'Grand Medieval Joust' event at Eltham Palace, an English Heritage property which was the childhood home of King Henry VIII, aims to give a great insight into life at the palace during the medieval period. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

The Grand Medieval Joust

The Grand Medieval Joust at Eltham Palace, an English Heritage property that was the childhood home of King Henry VIII, aims to lend insight through reenactment into life at the palace...

In this June 8, 2013 photo, youth compete in the Sao Carlos slum local soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The pitch is just dirt and the incandescent lights aren't so bright. But when the boys' feet strike the football in the Sao Carlos slum as night falls every Saturday, big league dreams glow, inflated by the hope of escaping the shantytown with sporting skills. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Brazil’s other soccer fields

With the Confederations Cup opening this week and the World Cup one year away, all eyes are on Brazil, where soccer is arguably played with more passion and art than anywhere else....

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 16: John F. Tatum Sr. hugs his grandson John F. Tatum III during his annual Father's Day block party on Sunday, June 16, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Father’s Day picnic in Northeast D.C.

A decades-old backyard barbecue in Northeast Washington draws hundreds in honor of dads everywhere. “It’s off-the-chain fun,” says Butch McNair, who has worked one...

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