Welcome to MarshaReads.com. You will find a collection of short essays about books I’ve read starting in spring 2016. Your comments are welcomed.
Since this list has grown substantially since I started this website, I provide two tables to help you find a particular book.
Because I’m not an expert webmaster, I have the two tables on two pages to minimize your need to scroll seemingly endlessly.
This page has a table with the books aphabetized by title.
“Books by Title” has a table with the books aphabetized by author’s last name. If “The” or “An” is in the title, the second word is used for aphabetization.
NOTE: I’ve decided to classify any book that was published >50 years ago as “Classic”. This is my personal definition. If we’re still reading a book published more than 50 years ago it must have something that continues to resonate with readers today and likely in the future. Good enough definition for me.
The list is not exhaustive prior to spring 2016.
| Author Last Name | Author First Name | Title |
| Haruf | Kent | All Souls At Night |
| Doerr | Anthony | All the Light We Cannot See |
| Quindlen | Anna | Alternate Side |
| Jones | Tayari | American Marriage, An |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | The American Agent (12) |
| El Akkad | Omar | American War |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Among the Mad (6)* |
| Tolstoy | Leo | Anna Karenina |
| Bachman | Fredrik | Anxious People |
| Sophocles | Antigone | |
| Mahfouz | Naguig | Arabian Nights and Days |
| Strout | Elizabeth | Anything is Possible |
| Halliday | Lisa | Asymmetry |
| Lewis | Sinclair | Babbitt |
| Updike | John | Bech: A Book |
| Haurf | Kent | Benediction |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Birds of a Feather (2) * |
| Oates | Joyce Carol | Black Water |
| Didion | Joan | Blue Nights |
| Hood | Ann | Book That Matters Most, The |
| Huxley | Aldous | Brave New World |
| Brockmeier | Kevin | Brief History of the Dead, The |
| Strout | Elizabeth | Burgess Boys, The |
| Ishiguro | Kozuo | Buried Giant, The |
| Walker | Martin | Bruno: Chief of Police |
| Charmock | Anne | Calculated Life, A |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Care and Management of Lies: A Novel of the Great War, The |
| Galbraith | Robert | Career of Evil |
| Vonnegut | Kurt | Cat’s Cradle |
| Heller | Joseph | Catch 22 |
| Galloway | Steven | Cellist of Sarajevo, The |
| Russo | Richard | Chances Are… |
| Black | Benjamin | Christine Falls |
| Tyler | Anne | Clock Dance |
| Twain | Mark | Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court |
| Hillerman | Tony | Coyote Waits |
| Gaskell | Mrs (Elizabeth) | Cranford |
| Galbraith | Robert | The Cuckoo’s Calling |
| Bradbury | Ray | Dandelion Wine |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Dangerous Place (11)*, A |
| Napolitano | Ann | Dear Edward |
| Munro | Alice | Dear Life |
| Williams | Pip | Dictionary of Lost Words, The |
| Walker | Martin | The Devil’s Cave |
| Tyler | Anne | Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant |
| Le Guin | Ursula | Dispossessed, The |
| Walsh | M. O. | Don’t Take My Sunshine |
| Walsh | M.O. | Don’t Take My Sunshine |
| Russell | Mary Doria | Dreamers of the Day |
| Tokarczuk | Olga | Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead |
| Patchett | Ann | Dutch House, The |
| Smiley | Jane | Early Alert |
| Westover | Tara | Educated |
| Black | Benjamin | Elegy for April |
| Windspear | Jacqueline | Elegy for Eddy (9)* |
| Greene | Graham | The End of the Affair |
| Jaswal | Balli Kaur | Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows |
| Russo | Richard | Everybody’s Fool |
| Haruf | Kent | Eventide |
| Hamid | Moshin | Exit West |
| Wolitzer | Meg | Female Persuassion |
| Groff | Lauren | Florida |
| Nunez | Sigrid | Friend, The |
| Guskin | Sharon | Forgetting Time, The |
| Contreras | Ingrid Rojas | Fruit of the Drunken Tree |
| Tripp | Dawn | Georgia |
| Towles | Amor | A Gentleman in Moscow |
| Howell | Georgiana | Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations |
| Hyeonseo | Lee | Girl with Seven Names, The |
| Zgheib | Yara | Girls at 17 Swan Street, The |
| Rao | Shobha | Girls Burn Brighter |
| Erpenbeck | Jenny | Go Went Gone |
| Mandel | Emily St John | Glass Hotel, The |
| Smiley | Jane | Golden Age |
| O’Nan | Stewart | The Good Wife |
| Dickens | Charles | Great Expectations |
| Conroy | Pat | The Great Santini |
| Dweyer | Carol | Growth Mindset |
| Adichie | Chimanda Ngozi | Half of a Yellow Sun |
| O’Farrell | Maggie | Hamnet |
| Atwood | Margaret | Handmaid’s Tale |
| Atwood | Margaret | Heart Goes Last, The |
| Kelly | Jack | Heaven’s Ditch |
| Shetterly | Margot | Hidden Figures |
| Vance | JD | Hilbilly Elegy |
| Shamsie | Kamila | Homefire |
| Urrea | Luis Alberto | House of Broken Angels |
| Warton | Edith | House of Mirth |
| Ogawa | Yoko | Housekeeper and the Professor, The |
| Marais | Bianca | Hum If You Don’t Know the Words |
| Kang | Han | Human Acts |
| Sklott | Rebecca | Immortal Life of Henrietta lacks, The |
| Silber | Joan | Improvement |
| Capote | Truman | In Cold Blood |
| Godden | Rummer | In This House of Brede |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | In this grave hour |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Incomplete Revenge (5) *, An |
| Desai | Kiran | Inheritance of Loss, The |
| Haruf | Kent | Introduction–Kent Haruf |
| Berry | Wendall | Jaybar Crow |
| Windspear | Jacqueline | Journey to Munich (12)* |
| Ishiguro | Kauzo | Klara and the Sun |
| Grann | David | Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI |
| Benedict | Marie | Lady Clementine |
| Doig | Ivan | Last Bus to Wisdom |
| Goodwin | Doris Kearns | Leadership in Turbulent Times |
| Ko | Lisa | Leavers, The |
| Windspear | Jacqueline | Leaving Everything Most Loved (10)* |
| Geer | Andrew Sean | Less |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Lesson in Secrets (8)*, A |
| Vida | Vendela | Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name |
| Galbraith | Robert | Lethal White |
| Ulrich | Laurel Thatcher | Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary 1785-1812, The |
| Saunders | George | Lincoln in the Bardo |
| Forman, Jr. | James | Locking Up Our Own |
| Mandel | Emily St John | Lola Quartet, The |
| Allende | Isabel | A Long Petal of the Sea |
| Moore | Liz | Long Bright River |
| Lusisella | Valerie | Lost Children Archives |
| Atwood | Margaret | Madd Addam |
| Lewis | Sinclair | Main Street |
| Joukhadar | Zeyn | Map of Salt and Stars, The |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Mapping of Love and Death (7)*, The |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Massie Dobbs (1) * |
| Ogawa | Yoko | Memory Police, The |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Messenger of Truth (4)* |
| Quindlen | Anna | Miller’s Valley |
| Langer | Ellen | Mindfulness* |
| Dweck | Carol | Mindset: The New Psychology of Success |
| Watson | Brad | Miss Jane |
| Modiano | Patrick | Missing Person |
| Wilke | Collin | Moonstone, The |
| Que Mai | Nguyen Phan | Mountains Sing, The |
| Hijuelos | Oscar | Mr. Ives’ Christmas |
| Macy | Caitlin | Mrs. |
| Ben-Moshe | Danny | My Lost Family |
| du Maurier | Daphne | My Cousin Rachel |
| Strout | Elizabeth | My Name is Lucy Barton |
| Choo | Yangsze | Night Tiger, The |
| Russo | Richard | Nobody’s Fool* |
| Toibin | Colm | Nora Webster |
| Gaskell | Elizabeth | North and South |
| Strout | Elizabeth | Olive Again! |
| Vuong | Ocean | On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous |
| Quindlen | Anna | One True Thing |
| Atwood | Margaret | Oryx and Crake |
| Dinensen | Isak | Out of Africa |
| Powers | Richard | Overstory, The |
| Lee | Min Jin | Pachinko |
| Winspear | Jacqueline | Pardonable Lies (3) * |
| Wilde | Oscar | Picture of Dorian Gray, The |
| Haruf | Kent | Plainsong |
| Doig | Ivan | Prairie Nocturne |
| Austen | Jane | Pride and Prejudice |
| Sparks | Muriel | Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The |
| Kingsolver | Barbara | Prodigal Summer |
| Schnittman | Suzanne | Provocative Mothers and their Precocious Daughters |
| Hansberry | Lorraine | Raisin in the Sun |
| Chevalier | Tracy | Remarkable Creatures |
| Wright | Cameron | Rent Collector, The |
| DeFoe | Daniel | Robinson Crusoe |
| Larson | Kate Clifford | Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter |
| Orczy | Baroness | Scarlet Pimpernel, The |
| Brooks | Geraldine | Secret Chord, The |
| George | Alex | Setting Free the Kites |
| Yun | Jung | Shelter |
| Zimmer | Carl | She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity |
| Galbraith | Robert | The Silkworm |
| Ward | Jesmyn | Sing Unburied Sing |
| McTiernan | Dervla | The Sisters |
| Hillerman | Tony | Skeleton Man |
| Brennan-Jobs | Lisa | Small Fry |
| Lang | James | Small Teaching |
| Banville | John | Snow |
| Smiley | Jane | Some Luck |
| McDermott | Alice | Someone |
| Darznik | Jazmin | Song of a Captive Bird |
| Iweala | Uzodinma | Speak No Evil |
| Mandel | Emily St John | Station Eleven |
| Dawson | Evan | Summer in a Glass |
| Chancellor | Bryn | Sycamore |
| Michener | James | Tales of the South Pacific |
| Hardy | Thomas | Tess of d’Ubervilles |
| Atwood | Margaret | The Testaments |
| Friedman Mandelbaum | Thomas L Michael | That Used to be us: How America Fell Behind in the World it invented and how we can come back |
| Orange | Tommy | There, There |
| Adichie | Chimamanda Ngozi | Thing Around Your Neck, The |
| O’Brien | Tim | The Things They Carried |
| Kahneman | Daniel | Thinking Fast and Slow |
| Frankel | Laurie | This Is How It Always is |
| Haruf | Kent | Tie That Binds, The |
| Shakespeare | William | Tragedy of Julius Caesar, The |
| Galbraith | Robert | Troubled Blood |
| Stowe | Harriet Beecher | Uncle Tom’s Cabin |
| Ullmann | Linn | Unquiet: A Novel |
| Bennett | Brit | The Vanishing Half |
| Kang | Han | Vegetarian, The |
| Appanah | Natacha | Waiting for Tomorrow |
| Gundar-Goshen | Ayelet | Waking Lions |
| Tolstoy | Leo | War and Peace |
| Rum | Etaf | A Woman is No Man |
| Woolfe | Virginia | Waves, The |
| Roberts | Cokie | We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters |
| Kadish | Rachel | Weight of Ink, The |
| Tompkins | Joanne | What Comes After |
| Kalanithi | Paul | When Breath Becomes Air |
| Haruf | Kent | Where You Once Belonged |
| Owens | Delia | Where the Crawdads Sing |
| Anderson | Carol | White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide |
| Rum | Etaf | A Woman is No Man |
| Collins | Wilkie | The Woman in White |
| Palacio | R.J. | Wonder |
| Coben | Harlan | The Woods |
| Atwood | Margaret | Year of the Flood, The |
