Here are 24 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 Hamnet

Gayle Rosengren Author Of What the Moon Said

From Gayle's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Gayle's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Gayle Rosengren Why Gayle loves this book

It evoked such powerful emotions in me.

By Maggie O'Farrell ,

Why should I read it?

51 authors picked Hamnet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021
'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times
'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither…


If you love The Correspondent...

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 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…


Book cover of Gaudy Night

Julia Buckley Author Of The Ghosts of Lovely Women

From my list on compelling mysteries set in a school or academic setting.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Julia Buckley. I am an avid reader and writer of mysteries. This particular subgenre of mystery focuses on schools and academic settings. I love institutions of learning as settings for mysteries because the buildings can be spooky and oppressive, but also because the dialogue is always intelligent. There is great potential for conflict between students, faculty, and campus interlopers. All of it is intriguing, and it allows for a closed world with limited suspects! If you haven’t read an academic mystery, give it a try! It’s like going back to school, but as a detective.

Julia's book list on compelling mysteries set in a school or academic setting

Julia Buckley Why Julia loves this book

All of the Peter Wimsey novels are delightful, but I greatly enjoy the ones that feature Peter’s love interest, Harriet Vane.

In this one, Harriet, recently exonerated of a murder charge, returns to her Alma Mater, Oxford, for a traditional Gaudy dinner. Naturally, the event leads to murder, and Peter must be consulted to help resolve the case.

By Dorothy L. Sayers ,

Why should I read it?

15 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…


If you love Virginia Evans...

Book cover of Some Starry Night

Some Starry Night by Irene Latham,

Paris 1886. Two restless souls move toward the same horizon—unaware that their meeting will ignite a love as luminous and fleeting as the stars themselves.

Vincent van Gogh arrives in Paris with little more than paint-stained hands and an aching determination to create something worthy of the world. Across the…

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…


Book cover of This Tender Land

Jackie Kurtz Author Of Kindness Heroes

From Jackie's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Jackie's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Jackie Kurtz Why Jackie loves this book

This tender land by William Kent Kruger, is the best book I’ve read in years. I couldn’t put it down. It felt like a Twain or Steinbeck book, covering the depression era and following four kids on an epic journey. The book is so beautifully written, that I now have to go read some of Kruger’s other books. Take the journey, fall in love with the four kids, Albert, Odie, Emmy, and Mose, and prepare to have your emotions jerked all over the place. Yes, your heart will hurt, your emotions will boil, and you will root for and fall in love with the four children on their arduous journey.
Here’s a taste of what’s to come:
“The tale I’m going to tell is of a summer-long ago. Of killing and kidnapping and children pursued by demons of a thousand names. There will be courage in this story and cowardice.…

By William Kent Krueger ,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked This Tender Land as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

1932, Minnesota-the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent's wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will fly into the unknown and cross paths with others…


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 When God Was a Rabbit

Gayle Rosengren Author Of What the Moon Said

From Gayle's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Gayle's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Gayle Rosengren Why Gayle loves this book

Such a beautifully told story!

By Sarah Winman ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked When God Was a Rabbit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER from the author of STILL LIFE

'Thronging with incident and wonder' Guardian
'Beautifully true . . . superb' The Times
'Captivating' Observer
'Beguiling . . . You can't get the voice out of your head' Daily Mail

This is a book about a brother and sister.

It's a book about childhood and growing up, friendships and families, triumph and tragedy and everything in between.

More than anything,
it's a book about love in all its forms.


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…


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 Hamnet
Book cover of The Midnight Library
Book cover of Gaudy Night

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