If you could recommend just one book to someone, what would it be?  When I ask people this question in real life, the question I usually get in return is “Recommend to you, or recommend in general?”  And I guess, sure, if you’ve got a title in mind that you’re sure I’d hate, that might defeat the purpose.  But by the same token, if you’re thinking, “Here’s a book that I didn’t like at all, but you might,” that’s not exactly what I’m looking for either.  I want to know what the people who visit my site went crazy for themselves.

I received about seventy distinct recommendations; over the course of the 2010s, I read forty of them (and wrote articles about each of those).  Now a new decade is upon us, and while it would probably take me the entirety of that decade to finish up the original list, I thought it was time to add some new titles to it.  The parameters this time are a little different, though:

• I am particularly interested in stuff from the 2010s.  That doesn’t mean that I won’t read anything from before this past decade⁠—of course I will!  But newer books will get a boost when I settle upon a reading order.

• I am particularly interested in stuff I can teach⁠—both challenging texts for my AP students and more accessible ones for my untracked sophomores.  I should probably be a lot more familiar with the College Board’s list of recommended texts (linked here) than I am, but that list is also way too long for me to read every title on it.  Some guidance would be awesome.

• I am particularly interested in literary and historical fiction.  Last time around I plowed through my list irrespective of whether the books sounded like my sort of thing, and (as with the movies I watch) I tried to go into each book knowing as little as possible about it.  This time around I’m going to read a bit about each book and boost the ones that sound more interesting.  (These days I’m sure that by the time I get around to reading any given book I’ll have forgotten all my research, so no harm done!)

• I am particularly interested in shorter works; in general, I’d rather read five 200-page books than one 1000-page one.

• Here’s the list of books I’ve already written up; it’s highly unlikely that I’ll revisit something I’ve already read.

Finally⁠—while I already have a list of 100+ movies that I need to get to, I know that there are hundreds of critically acclaimed TV series out there that I haven’t even heard of.  So I’d love TV recommendations as well, even if I only ever get to a tiny percentage of them.

Many thanks to all who submit recommendations!  I’ve been looking forward to this for years now and am very much looking forward to seeing what pops up in my inbox.

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