Every book Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has recommended online

Ruth Kinane
Updated

J.K. Rowling may be an acclaimed author, the queen of taking down trolls on Twitter, a screenwriter, and a philanthropist, but she’s also (unsurprisingly) an avid reader.

Over the years, Rowling has recommended many a novel in interviews or on social media. From childhood favorites to all-time classics, the Harry Potter author’s reading list is as varied as a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. (We just hope there isn’t an earwax-flavor novel equivalent.)

So why not pluck one of her recommendations from the shelf at your next bookstore visit? We can’t guarantee characters as complex and charismatic as Harry, Ron, and Hermione will stroll into your head fully formed as a result, but at the very least it’ll make for impressive conversation.

Check out the list below:

1. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer

2. Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass by Darren McGarvey

3. The Little Big Things: A young man’s belief that every day can be a good day by Henry Fraser

4.The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

5. The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit

6. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle

7. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

8. The Diaries of Auberon Waugh by Auberon Waugh

9. The Iliad by Homer

10. Emma by Jane Austen

11. Chéri by Colette

12. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

13. The Collected Stories of Colette by Colette

14. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

15. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

16. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

17. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

18. Manxmouse: The Mouse Who Knew No Fear by Paul Gallico

19. Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford

20. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

21. The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit

22. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

23. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman

24. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

25. Macbeth by William Shakespeare

26. Grimble by Clement Freud

27. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

28. Secrets of the Flesh by Judith Thurman

29. JFK Playboy of the Western World by Nigel Hamilton

30. JFK: Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton

31. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

32. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

34. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

35. Animal Farm by George Orwell

36. The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid

37. Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford

38. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

39. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

40. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

41. The Song Of Achilles by Madeline Miller

42. Decca: the Letters of Jessica Mitford edited by Peter Y Sussman

43. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

44. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (Rowling’s pseudonym)

45. The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter

46. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

47. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

48. Feminism is For Everybody by bell hooks

Other authors mentioned:

49. Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries

50. Cressida Cowell’s dragon books

51. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

52. Anthony Trollope

53. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

54. Collected works of Shakespeare

55. Collected works of Colette

56. Collected works of P. G. Wodehouse