95 Books by 95 Authors

And so we find ourselves with an abundance of free time.

What better way to spend that free time than by reading?

That’s what I’ve done for most of my life: read books. Mostly novels.

About a decade ago, I started branching out of reading purely fiction and found some startling good non-fiction. Then I started getting my hands on plenty of different of authors instead of reading the same ones over and over.

I mean, chances are, if you’re good at writing, I’ll still read whatever you publish, but I branched out.

So right now, here’s a list of 95 books by 95 different authors. The original idea for this blog post, which has been in the making for some time, was 50 by 50, then 75 by 75, then 100 by 100. Alas, I couldn’t make it to 100. It seems that right now is the best time to publish this list (with a few comments, which will be in bold), so I’ve let go another five authors. I’ll get to them eventually.

Also, this is a lot shorter than the original post idea. In reality (definitely not be design), that sucker would’ve been something like 50,000 words. That’s a lot of words! This one is much shorter, and, let’s be honest, probably better.

Enough preamble. Here’s the list. Hope you find something you’ll enjoy.

1. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
2. In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball by Mark L. Armour and Daniel R. Levitt. Great parts in this book about the birth of the Kansas City Royals.
3. The Murder of Sonny Liston by Shaun Assael
4. The Last Coach: A Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant by Alan Barra
5. Tricky Business by Dave Barry. Barry’s always good for some laughs.
6. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Exceedingly better than the movie. The actual “garden” is in South Carolina, not Georgia.
7. Three Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger. The Friday Night Lights author spends a couple of evenings during the baseball season with the struggling St. Louis Cardinals.
8. Saban: The Making of a Coach by Monte Burke
9. Heartsick by Chelsea Cain. I’m seeing that there’s more of this series on the way. I cannot wait.
10. “Bad News”: The Turbulent Life of Marvin Barnes, Pro Basketball’s Original Renegade by Mike Carey
11. The High Window by Raymond Chandler
12. The Relic by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston
13. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
14. Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy
15. Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines
16. The Narrows by Michael Connelly. The Harry Bosch series is excellent. If you want to start at the beginning, it’s a novel titled The Black Echo.
17. Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. This is the first of the best space series I’ve read. I’m four in with–what?–five to go.
18. The Promise by Robert Crais. Crais, like Connelly, writes great detective stories that mostly follow P.I. Elvis Cole and his best friend Joe Pike.
19. The Passage by Justin Cronin
20. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. This is up there for most bonkers book I’ve ever read. 
21. Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver. James Bond fan? With No Time to Die pushed to November, read this novel about the world’s most daring spy.
22. The Land of Open Graves by Jason de Leon
23. Spies in the Family by Eva Dillon. In this non-fiction book, Dillon tells the story of her father and the man he handled inside the USSR during the Cold War.
24. American Tabloid by James Ellroy. Top-five novel, right here.
25. The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens
26. League of Denial by Mark Fainarue-Wada and Steve Fainaru
27. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
28. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
29. The Russian Five: A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage by Keith Gave. It’s about the Detroit Red Wings, which is gross, but it’s a fascinating story about the team’s Russian players during the ’90s.
30. Something Blue by Emily Giffin. Love me some Emily Giffin.
31. Hold the Dark by William Giraldi
32. Last Looks by Howard Gould
33. Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith. A dark fantasy novel about the three wise men.
34. Zodiac: Unmasked by Robert Graysmith
35. The Broker by John Grisham
36. The Perfect Pass by S.C. Gwynne. Mississippi State football head coach Mike Leach plays a big role in this book about the birth of the Air Raid Offense and its creator, Hal Mumme.
37. October 1964 by David Halberstam. A re-telling of the 1964 baseball season and World Series between the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals.
38. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
39. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
40. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. In which we meet Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
41. The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway
42. Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen
43. Day of Reckoning by Jack Higgins
44. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Hill’s first novel is a ghost story for the ages. Check it out.
45. Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend by James S. Hirsch
46. War Room by Michael Holley
47. Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson. Ever seen the television show Longmire? This is my favorite book in that literary series. 
48. Dr. Death by Jonathan Kellerman
49. Finders Keepers by Stephen King. I didn’t go horror for King, instead picking one of his most recent ones, the middle of the so-called Bill Hodges trilogy. And it’s about books, which is also cool.
50. The Face by Dean Koontz
51. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
52. Gone Goose by Braden Leap. My man!
53. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. The best spy writer to practice the trade.
54. Smart Baseball by Keith Law
55. Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna
56. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre. A true story about spies during World War II.
57. The Natural by Bernard Malamud
58. When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss
59. Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin. I love this history of the Targaryens, which starts when they first arrive in Westeros through Aegon III.
60. The Royal Wulff Murders by Keith McCafferty
61. :07 or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Runnin’ and Gunnin’ Phoenix Suns by Jack McCallum. For some reason, I love books about basketball. This one’s the best out there. 
62. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
63. The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL by Sean McIndoe. Want to learn about the history of hockey in North America? Pick up this book.
64. The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, The ‘70s and the Fight for America’s Soul by Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne
65. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. Moore’s hit or miss, but this one’s hysterical.
66. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
67. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
68. The Bat by Jo Nesbø
69. The Ritual by Adam Nevill
70. Anno-Dracula by Kim Newman. Nutty novel posits that Dracula survives the Bram Stoker novel and manages to take over England.
71. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
72. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
73. The Year of the Pitcher by Sridhar Pappu. Book about the 1968 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and Cardinals. But more than that, it examines race relations of the time plus the burgeoning MLB Players’ Association.
74. The Arm by Jeff Passan
75. Cradle & All by James Patterson. Two virgins give birth, one to the second son of God, one to the son of Satan. And the only person who knows which has died. God, I love vintage James Patterson. 
76. Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s by Jeff Pearlman. Really, you could read any of Pearlman’s books, but this one about the Lakers dynasty is my favorite.
77. Pep Confidential: The Inside Story of Pep Guardiola’s First Season at Bayern Munich by Martí Perarnau
78. Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta
79. The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin. About as weird as the title suggests.
80. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
81. Quietus by Vivian Schilling
82. The Might Have Been by Joseph Schuster. Wonderful baseball novel.
83. TV (The Book) by Alan Sepinwall & Matt Zoller Seitz. In which two excellent television critics rank the best 100 shows of all-time.
84. The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall
85. Basketball (and Other Things) by Shea Serrano
86. In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
87. Sourdough by Robin Sloan. This novel made me very hungry. I ate sourdough bread for a couple of days after completing it.
88. Putin’s World by Angela Stent. Vladimir, you scamp.
89. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Top-notch post-apocalyptic novel.
90. Koko by Peter Straub
91. The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film by W.K. Stratton. If you enjoyed the movie The Wild Bunch, which I consider the best Western ever made, check out this book for behind-the-scenes goodness.
92. The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch. Space- and time-travel novel. Great read.
93. The Genius Plague by David Walton
94. The Siege by Stephen White. Basically a “bottle episode” of White’s now-finished series about Dr. Alan Gregory and his good friend, detective Sam Purdy.
95. The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow. The first of a trilogy about the War on Drugs, this is perhaps the best novel I’ve ever read. Definitely my favorite novel.

Hope you find something you like!