Here are 20 books that The Correspondent fans have personally recommended if you like The Correspondent. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Midnight Library

Susan Pease Banitt Author Of Women Therapists on Healing

From Susan's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Susan's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Susan Pease Banitt Why Susan loves this book

I love a book that dives deep into the psyche and at the same time has some nonordinary reality themes. It encouraged self-reflection without being preachy.

By Matt Haig ,

Why should I read it?

41 authors picked The Midnight Library as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon

Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year

"A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."-The Washington Post

The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of…


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Book cover of Dear Orchid

Dear Orchid by Carol Van Den Hende,

Pinnacle Achievement Award Winner Literary Collections - IAN Book of the Year Finalist, Multicultural Nonfiction

#1 best-selling book in Amazon's Letters and Correspondence category

“Powerful, haunting, and precise. Each of the essays and stories in Van Den Hende’s collection—whether a three-page reverie of childhood’s joys and tragedies or a candid…

Book cover of Gaudy Night

Melanie M. Jeschke Author Of Inklings

From my list on novels set in Oxford, England.

Why am I passionate about this?

Whenever in Oxford, I feel I’ve come “home.” It’s a magical city steeped in beauty, history, literature, culture, and fascinating people. I’ve been blessed to have taken graduate courses at the University, participated in numerous conferences, brought tour groups, lived “in college,” and conducted walking tours of the town. My familiarity with the city enabled me to write the original chapter on Oxford for Rick Steves’ England guidebook, and it’s where I set my fictional series, The Oxford Chronicles. When I can’t be there in person, I love to visit vicariously through good books. I hope these novels will enable you to experience some of the magic of Oxford too.

Melanie's book list on novels set in Oxford, England

Melanie M. Jeschke Why Melanie loves this book

I’ve always been fascinated by the “dreaming spires” of Oxford University and enjoy Gaudy Night because it immerses me in the world of a (fictional) women’s college set in 1930s Oxford.

As a former professor, I’m intrigued by the internecine political and personal battles in the Senior Common Room (SCR), or college faculty lounge, as well as the friction between those professors devoted entirely to an academic career versus those trying to maintain the challenging balance of work and family, the same issues women struggle with today, nearly one hundred years later.

Sayers weaves together these tensions with a mysterious “poltergeist” who torments the college with poison-pen letters, pranks, vandalism, and violence into a compelling mystery under the dreaming spires.

By Dorothy L. Sayers ,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked Gaudy Night as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The twelfth book in Dorothy L Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series, introduced by actress Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries.

'D. L. Sayers is one of the best detective story writers' Daily Telegraph

Harriet Vane has never dared to return to her old Oxford college. Now, despite her scandalous life, she has been summoned back . . .

At first she thinks her worst fears have been fulfilled, as she encounters obscene graffiti, poison pen letters and a disgusting effigy when she arrives at sedate Shrewsbury…


Book cover of War and Peace

Judith Lissauer Cromwell Author Of Louise-Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun: Portrait of an Artist, 1755-1842

From Judith's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Judith's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Judith Lissauer Cromwell Why Judith loves this book

This is the second, or possibly third time I’ve read this gripping epic so I had some idea of the story, set in the revolutionary and war-ridden years immediately before and during Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia, (1812) and the dramatic characters Tolstoy presents and makes his readers understand in such masterly fashion. Nonetheless, I found the readable new (Pevear and Volokhonsky) translation to be a page turner.

By Leo Tolstoy , Richard Pevear (translator) , Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked War and Peace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov comes this magnificent new translation of Tolstoy's masterwork.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

War and Peacebroadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both…


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Book cover of Dear Orchid

Dear Orchid by Carol Van Den Hende,

Pinnacle Achievement Award Winner Literary Collections - IAN Book of the Year Finalist, Multicultural Nonfiction

#1 best-selling book in Amazon's Letters and Correspondence category

“Powerful, haunting, and precise. Each of the essays and stories in Van Den Hende’s collection—whether a three-page reverie of childhood’s joys and tragedies or a candid…

Book cover of I Have Some Questions for You

winter

From Winter's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Unknown Author Why Winter loves this book

The characters' disintegration was so believable...no one was too good or too bad. I find that I like campus mysteries, and this one covers both school years and coming back in later life. I would definitely read other books by Makkai!

By Rebecca Makkai ,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked I Have Some Questions for You as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FOR OPRAH DAILY, TIME, NPR, USA TODAY, BUSTLE, STAR TRIBUNE, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND MORE**

'Whip-smart and uncompromising' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'Quietly riveting' IRISH TIMES

'It's the perfect crime' NEW YORKER

'Impressive and complex' GUARDIAN

'Addictive' OPRAH DAILY

The riveting new novel from the author of The Great Believers, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past: the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the 1995 murder…


Book cover of Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting: A Novel

jennifer10

From Jennifer's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Unknown Author Why Jennifer loves this book

So fun and touching. Rare to have a middle-aged woman as the main character. Highly recommend! I was giggling the whole way through and just fell in love with the characters and was so sad when the book ended. I wanted to hang with these people in real life!

By Clare Pooley ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project: Nobody ever talks to strangers on the train. It’s a rule. But what would happen if they did?

“A hilarious and sweet creation about a group of individuals who form a family with love at its core.” —USA Today

Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do.…


Book cover of Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury

ck92bsce

From ck92bsce's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Unknown Author Why ck92bsce loves this book

Wonderful remembrance of 1950s-1960s US, through the eyes of a historian.

By Drew Gilpin Faust ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Necessary Trouble as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A memoir of coming of age in a conservative Southern family in postwar America.

To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. Two world wars and the depression that connected them had unleashed a torrent of expectations and dissatisfactions―not only in global affairs but in American society and Americans’ lives.

A privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For Drew Gilpin, the acceptance of…


Book cover of The Cartographers

winter

From Winter's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Unknown Author Why Winter loves this book

I loved that it involved museums and mystery. I could never have predicted the existence of the alternate world, nor the development of the characters--esp the villain! I like science fiction that's rooted in the actual earth and is believable.

By Peng Shepherd ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Cartographers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Exquisitely written ... Be prepared to be swept away on an incredible journey' Brad Thor, #1 bestselling author of Black Ice

'A story about magical maps that lead to your heart's desire [and] the people who would do anything to find them ... A vastly rich experience' Charles Soule, author of The Oracle Year

There are some maps you can lose yourself in...
Nell Young has lived her life in and around maps. Her father, Dr. David Young, was one of the most respected cartographers in the world. But this morning he was found dead - or murdered? - in…


Book cover of Birding to Change the World

Jeff Hardy Author Of Finding God in the Gulag: A History of Christianity in the Soviet Penal System

From Jeff's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Jeff's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Jeff Hardy Why Jeff loves this book

It's about birding and history and local politics and academia and enivronmental justice and social justice and Hurricane Katrina and so many other things, all bound together by the author's autobiographical narrative. Very informative and inspirational.

By Trish O'Kane ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Birding to Change the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this uplifting memoir, a professor and activist shares what birds can teach us about life, social change, and protecting the environment.

Trish O'Kane never expected to be a birder. She was a world-traveled journalist with no science background who surprised herself in her forties by falling in love with birds. Cut to seventeen years later, and O'Kane is a highly qualified ornithologist who teaches at the University of Vermont and is the creator of the hugely popular course Birding to Change the World, on which this book is based.

It was a lone red cardinal and a bumptious cast…


Book cover of Raising Hare

Davis Baird Author Of Natural Religion: A None's Journey of Religious Discovery

From my list on relationships between human and non-human animals.

Why am I passionate about this?

It has always seemed to me that humans underestimate the abilities—and particularly the conscious lives—of non-human animals. We, humans, are not apart from (and above) but live in a continuum of consciousness with the rest of life. All these books share stories of relationships between human and non-human animals. They make clear that we are connected to and part of all life on Earth. We are all in this together, and we better take good care of our shared natural living world.

Davis' book list on relationships between human and non-human animals

Davis Baird Why Davis loves this book

Forced by COVID to live solitary, the author ends up rescuing a baby hare and raising it to be wild, not a pet.

Growing up with her in her converted barn, her hare stays connected to the wild world beyond, but also to her human home. Mating with wild hares, Dalton’s hare has several litters, one in the human home itself.

An amazing story of cross-species connecting.

By Chloe Dalton ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Raising Hare as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
A TIMES and SPECTATOR BEST BOOK OF 2024
A WATERSTONES BEST NATURE WRITING BOOK OF 2024
A BOOKSHOP.ORG NATURAL HISTORY GIFT BOOK 2024

'A beautiful book' - ANGELINA JOLIE
'A glorious book - for its warmth, its precision, its joy' - KATHERINE RUNDELL
'I will be recommending this to everyone' - MATT HAIG

__

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your…


Book cover of The Instrumentalist

Cheryl Bulow

From Cheryl's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Unknown Author Why Cheryl loves this book

The depiction of Venice 1696 was atmospheric. Immersed in the world created by Constable.

By Harriet Constable ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Instrumentalist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**THE PHENOMENAL TOP TEN BESTSELLER**

'An absorbing story of musical rivalry and ambition' SUNDAY TIMES, Best historical fiction
'Enthralling, passionate, vivid. The Instrumentalist is a marvel' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE
'Historical fiction as it should be written' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A captivating narrative as tightly tuned as a thriller' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'A compassionate coming-of-age tale ... Constable understands the power music has to sustain us' OBSERVER
_________________________________________

Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent.

Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil.

But…


Book cover of The Midnight Library
Book cover of Gaudy Night
Book cover of War and Peace

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