In his memoir, James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of My Life, author and one of the most prolific writers of our time, James Patterson, shares his writing strategies and also his favourite books. He highlighted the following books as some of his favourite books of all time.
“if you are what you read, then this is an essential element of my story. ”
- The Tin Drum, Günter Grass
- Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge, Evan S. Connell Jr.
- Setting Free the Bears, John Irving
- One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
- The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty
- The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
- Eye of the Needle, Ken Follett
- The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
- The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest J. Gaines
- The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
- Ninety-Two in the Shade and The Sporting Club, Thomas McGuane
- Night Dogs, Kent Anderson
- Double Indemnity, James M. Cain
- A Time to Kill, John Grisham
- Marathon Man, William Goldman
- Anything by Don Winslow or Lee Child
- Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell
- Goodbye, Columbus and When She Was Good, Philip Roth
- A Fan’s Notes, Frederick Exley
- Push, Sapphire
- Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes
- Different Seasons, Stephen King
- Cogan’s Trade and The Friends of Eddie Coyle, George V. Higgins
- Them, Joyce Carol Oates
- Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
- The Virgil Flowers novels, John Sandford
- The Forever War, Dexter Filkins
- The Natural and The Fixer, Bernard Malamud
- Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
- Steps and The Painted Bird, Jerzy Kosinski
- All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
- The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
- The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton
- The Color Purple, Alice Walker
- Birdy, William Wharton
- Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
- Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion
- Fat City, Leonard Gardner
- The Armies of the Night, Norman Mailer
- Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
- The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
- Our Lady of the Flowers and The Thief’s Journal, Jean Genet
- City of Night, John Rechy
- Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
- Rage, Fear, and Peril, Bob Woodward
- Anything by Ron Chernow
- Nine Horses, Billy Collins
- All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers and Leaving Cheyenne, Larry McMurtry
- How to Live, or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, Sarah Bakewell
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne
“I could go on, but yeah, I read a lot, and I really like books. All kinds of books. But especially the ones that are dog-eared, beat-up, and look well loved and well read.”
All the Best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
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