Max’s Book Lists

The Millions started out as a place for Max to keep track of his reading, and he did so via various lists. Now that The Millions is about the reading proclivities of so many other people, as well, we’ve moved Max’s reading lists off the main Millions page to their own page here.

What I’m Reading Now

Killings by Calvin Trillin

On Deck

American Rust by Philipp Meyer

The Reading Queue

1. Boom Town by Sam Anderson
2. Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum
3. Super Crunchers by Ian Ayers
4. A Fortunate Man by John Berger
5. The Free World by David Bezmogis
6. A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising by Miron Białoszewski
7. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth
8. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
9. Afgantsy by Roderic Braithwaite
10. Intoxicated by My Illness by Anatyole Broyard
11. Brilliant by Jane Brox
12. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
13. Banvard’s Folly by Paul Collins
14. Fire Season by Philip Connors
15. Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes by Ted Conover
16. The Immortal Class by Travis Culley
17. The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal
18. Loitering: New and Collected Essays by Charles D’Ambrosio
19. The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars by Maurice DeKobra
20. The White Album by Joan Didion
21. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
22. Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow
23. Ryszard Kapuscinski: A Life by Artur Domoslawski
24. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
25. But Beautiful by Geoff Dyer
26. Middlemarch by George Eliot
27. His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
28. A Game of Brawl by Bill Felber
29. Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor
30. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
31. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
32. Cold New World by William Finnigan
33. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
34. On the Rez by Ian Frazier
35. The Tree by John Fowles
36. Will in the the World by Stephen Greenblatt
37. The Size of the World by Jeff Greenwald
38. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
39. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
40. The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
41. Tinkers by Paul Harding
42. Dispatches by Michael Herr
43. The Whale by Philip Hoare
44. Why Did Europe Conquer the World? by Philip Hoffman
45. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
46. Negroland by Margo Jefferson
47. Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson
48. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt
49. In Europe’s Shadow by Robert Kaplan
50. The Revenge of Geography by Robert Kaplan
51. Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski
52. The American Civil War by John Keegan
53. The Mask of Command by John Keegan
54. The Liberator by Alex Kershaw
55. Rome: A History in Seven Sackings by Matthew Kneale
56. Now the Hell Will Start by Brendan Koerner
57. Capital by John Lanchester
58. Give Me Everything You Have by James Lasdun
59. It’s Beginning to Hurt by James Lasdun
60. Submergence by J.M. Ledgard
61. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
62. If You’re Not Yet Like Me by Edan Lepucki
63. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
64. Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory
65. Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
66. The Not-Quite States of America by Doug Mack
67. The Preservationist by David Maine
68. Class A by Lucas Mann
69. Matterhorn by Karl Marlantas
70. Money: The Unauthorized Biography by Felix Martin
71. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
72. McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern Issue 13
73. The Marketplace of Ideas by Louis Menand
74. The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff
75. The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown by Charles Morris
76. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
77. Diary of a Very Bad Year by n+1
78. The Dog by Joseph O’Neill
79. The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner
80. The Children’s Crusade by Ann Packer
81. Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry
82. Bad Land by Jonathan Raban
83. The Secret Parts of Fortune by Ron Rosenbaum
84. Listen to This by Alex Ross
85. Ghost Writer by Philip Roth
86. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
87. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
88. The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto
89. Super Sad Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
90. The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver
91. How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein
92. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
93. The Big Roads by Earl Swift
94. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
95. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
96. Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff by Calvin Trillin
97. Within the Context of No Context by George W.S. Trow
98. Portrait with Keys by Ivan Vladislavic
99. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
100. The End of Loyalty by Rick Wartzman
101. State by State edited by Matt Weiland, Sean Wilsey
102. Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner
103. The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham
104. Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson
105. The Greatest Trade Ever by Gregory Zuckerman

Books Max Read in 2018

• The Nix by Nathan Hill
• Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays edited by Brendan Burford
• In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
• Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky
• Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker
• The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
• Freedom from Fear by David Kennedy
• The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
• Panther Soup by John Gimlette
• Arcadia by Lauren Groff
• Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen
• The Harder They Come by T.C. Boyle
• The Possessed by Elif Batuman
• Barbarian Days by William Finnigan

Books Max Read in 2017

• Round Rock by Michelle Huneven
• The Information by James Gleick
• The Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin
• Darkmans by Nicola Barker
• Havoc, in Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett
• To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell
• Ranger Games by Ben Blum
• Her Privates We by Frederic Manning
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• The Fall Of Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson

Books Max Read in 2016

• New York Diaries edited by Teresa Carpenter
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
• The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
• Revolution by Deb Olin Unferth
• The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
• A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George Higgins
• Indonesia, Etc. by Elizabeth Pisani
• The Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux
• The Loved Ones by Sonya Chung

Books Max Read in 2015

• Mr. Jefferson’s University by Garry Wills
• Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
• Hiroshima by John Hersey
• City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
• Cubed by Nikil Saval
• The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
• Tough Trip Through Paradise 1878-1879 by Andrew Garcia
• The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray
• Purity by Jonathan Franzen
• Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb
• Going Clear by Lawrence Wright
• Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North by Yuri Slezkine

Books Max Read in 2014

• Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter’s by R.A. Scotti
• Lowboy by John Wray
• The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
• The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
• Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham
• California by Edan Lepucki
• Motor City Burning by Bill Morris
• The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• Stoner by John Williams
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
• 1491 by Charles Mann
• The Suicide Run by William Styron
• The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
• Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

Books Max Read in 2013

• The Politics of Glory by Bill James
• Long for This World by Sonya Chung
• Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson
• The Funny Man by John Warner
• Spooner by Pete Dexter
• Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
• The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson
• Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
• NW by Zadie Smith

Books Max Read in 2012

• Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones
• To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
• The Great Night by Chris Adrien
• Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
• Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan
• The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
• Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
• When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man by Nick Dybek
• The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
• Foreskin’s Lament by Shalom Auslander
• Slightly Out of Focus by Robert Capa
• Blame by Michelle Huneven
• Black and Blue: The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys, and the 1966 World Series That Stunned America by Tom Adelman
• The Big Short by Michael Lewis
• The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer
• Reality Hunger by David Shields

Books Max Read in 2011

• Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
• Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
• American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
• The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
• Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
• Habibi by Craig Thompson
• You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin

Books Max Read in 2010

• • A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
  • The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
  • The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
  • Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  • Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe by Robert Gellately
  • Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler
  • Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
  • Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
  • Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan
  • Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
  • The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald

Books Max Read in 2009

• • • Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
    • Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee
    • You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon
    • The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block
    • A Mercy by Toni Morrison
    • City of Refuge by Tom Piazza
    • Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
    • When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
    • The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
    • The Verificationist by Donald Antrim
    • The Glory of Their Times: The Story of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It by Lawrence S. Ritter
    • The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
    • Heart of Darkness, Youth, Typhoon: Three Short Novels by Joseph Conrad
    • Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
    • Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
    • English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
    • The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn
    • Atlas of Unknowns by Tania James
    • Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
    • Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
    • The Clerk’s Tale: Poems by Spencer Reece
    • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre
    • Crossing California by Adam Langer

Books Max Read in 2008

• • • The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
    • The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 by Rick Atkinson (review)
    • The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux (review)
    • The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez (review)
    • The Mansion by Alvaro Mutis (review)
    • Rapture Ready by Daniel Radosh (interview)
    • War Nerd by Gary Brecher (preview)
    • The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
    • Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden
    • The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
    • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
    • Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Books Max Read in 2007

• • • The Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewiski (LBC nominee)
    • Guerillas by Jon Lee Anderson (review)
    • Paper Trails by Pete Dexter (review)
    • Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by Alan DeNiro (LBC Pick!)
    • Sacco And Vanzetti Must Die! by Mark Binelli (LBC nominee)
    • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (review, 2)
    • Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker by David Remnick (review)
    • In the Wake by Per Petterson (review)
    • Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski (review)
    • Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee (review)
    • Liberation by Joanna Scott (review)
    • Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (review)
    • Pastoralia by George Saunders (review)

Books Max Read in 2006

• • • Other Electricities by Ander Monson (LBC nominee)
    • The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (review)
    • Seize the Day by Saul Bellow (review)
    • Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux (review)
    • The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (review)
    • I Never Liked You by Chester Brown (review)
    • The Girl in the Glass by Jeffrey Ford (LBC nominee)
    • Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint (LBC Pick!)
    • Ticknor by Sheila Heti (LBC nominee)
    • An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson (review)
    • The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D’Ambrosio
    • White Spirit by Paule Constant (LBC nominee)
    • Michael Martone by Michael Martone (LBC Pick!)
    • The Diviners by Rick Moody (review)
    • Firmin by Sam Savage (LBC Pick!)
    • ManBug by George K. Ilsley (LBC nominee)
    • Without Feathers by Woody Allen (review)
    • One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (review)
    • Seven Loves by Valerie Trueblod (LBC nominee)
    • Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi Wa’Thiong’O (LBC Pick!) (review)
    • Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones (LBC nominee)

Books Max Read in 2005

• • • Generations of Winter by Vassily Aksyonov (review)
    • Brotherly Love by Pete Dexter (review)
    • Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan (review)
    • 13: The Story of the World’s Most Popular Superstition by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer (review)
    • All This Heavenly Glory by Elizabeth Crane (LBC nominee) (review)
    • Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis (review, 2)
    • Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson
    • Game Time: A Baseball Companion by Roger Angell (review)
    • Bulletproof Girl by Quinn Dalton (review)
    • Looking for a Ship by John McPhee (review, 2)
    • Fraud by David Rakoff (review)
    • Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (LBC Pick!)
    • The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey (review)
    • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (review)
    • Belly by Lisa Selin Davis (review)
    • Absolutely American by David Lipsky (review)
    • The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki (review)
    • Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam (LBC nominee)
    • Angel of Forgetfulness by Steve Stern (LBC Pick!)
    • Our Napoleon in Rags by Kirby Gann (LBC nominee)
    • 10:01 by Lance Olsen (LBC nominee)
    • Mutual Life & Casualty by Elizabeth Poliner (LBC nominee)
    • The People’s Act of Love by James Meek (review)
    • Small Island by Andrea Levy (review)
    • Plain Heathen Mischief by Martin Clark (review)
    • Garner by Kirstin Allio (LBC Pick!)
    • Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha by Edward Falco (LBC nominee)
    • Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson (LBC nominee)

Books Max Read in 2004

• • • Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King (review)
    • The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (review)
    • Paris Trout by Pete Dexter (review)
    • The Known World by Edward P. Jones (review, 2)
    • Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes (review)
    • The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (review)
    • The First World War by John Keegan (review)
    • The Last Amateurs by John Feinstein (review)
    • Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuscinski (review)
    • Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick (review)
    • The Outlaw Sea by William Langewiesche (review)
    • Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
    • Jumpers by Tom Stoppard
    • The Singing by C. K. Williams (review)
    • East of Eden by John Steinbeck (review)
    • The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen (review)
    • Founding Fish by John McPhee (review)
    • Naked in Baghdad by Anne Garrels (review)
    • In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat by Rick Atkinson (review)

Mrs. Millions Has Been Reading

Currently reading the top book on the list. Now rated, by Mrs. Millions herself, from 0 to 5 *’s

• • A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore ****
  • The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall ****
  • Spooner by Pete Dexter *****
  • Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell ***^1/2
  • The Wild Trees by Richard Preston ****
  • Blame by Michelle Huneven ****^1/2
  • Wrestling with Moses by Anthony Flint ***
  • Homer & Langley by E.L Doctorow *****
  • City of Refuge by Tom Piazza ***
  • A Mercy by Toni Morrison *****
  • The Local News by Miriam Gershow **^1/2
  • The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball ****
  • The Echo Maker by Richard Powers ****
  • Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden ***
  • American Pastoral by Philip Roth ****^1/2
  • When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris ****
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz ****
  • Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris ***
  • Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan *****
  • Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon ***^1/2
  • Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman ****^1/2
  • The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez ****
  • Last One In by Nicholas Kulish **
  • Dishwasher by Pete Jordan **^1/2
  • Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin *****
  • The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux ****^1/2
  • The Cottagers by Marshall N. Klimasewiski *
  • Blue Taxi by N. S. Koenings ^1/2
  • One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson **^1/2
  • Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee ****^1/2
  • The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 ****
  • Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware ***
  • English Passengers by Matthew Kneale ***
  • Looking for a Ship by John McPhee ****^1/2
  • The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ****
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre ****^1/2
  • White Earth by Andrew McGahan ***^1/2
  • Crossing California by Adam Langer ***^1/2