JULIE OTSUKA

Author of The Buddha in the Attic

Favorite: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway "I'd somehow managed to avoid reading Hemingway until my early 30s, when I was first beginning to write. I'd always thought he was 'not for me'—I'm not white, I'm not a man, I've never stalked a lion, I haven't been to war. And yet, as soon as I began to read him, I could not stop."

MATTHEW PAUL TURNER

Author of the children's book, I Am God's Dream

Favorite: Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak "This is a perfect children's book because it's one of the most delightful to read aloud, offering moments to read quietly, in almost a hush, and also lines to read loudly with growls and snorts. I love that I was able to introduce my kids to a story that I loved when I was their age."

ELIZABETH STROUT

Author of Olive Kitteridge

Favorite: The Collected Stories by William Trevor "William Trevor is so precise and so gentle and can flip over a sentence in a heartbeat. He writes about the lives of ordinary people, who are all—of course—extraordinary. One of my favorites is called 'Mrs. Silly' about a young boy sent to boarding school and his lovely mother who embarrasses herself on their visiting day. It's a quiet, honest killer of a story."

BEVERLY JENKINS

Author of Indigo

Favorite: Dune by Frank Herbert "It appeals to the fantasy/sci-fi lover that I am," Jenkins says. "Dune is also the ultimate romance, and that appeals to me as well. Lady Jessica

was told by her Order to birth a girl child, but her love for her Duke overrode that directive. She gave Leto a son instead. Without that love, there'd be no Paul. And without Paul, there'd be no Dune."

TIM O'BRIEN

Author of The Things They Carried

Favorite: The Stranger by Albert Camus

"I'm always moved by how unmoved the book's protagonist is in the midst of shattering circumstances. (Yet, by and large, don't we all 'recover' and somehow move on from lost loves and dead mothers and our own misdeeds?) The book is among the novels that made me dream about writing one of my own."