Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel.
Welcome to One Great Book, where each week I pull one stand-out selection off my personal bookshelves and tell you all about it, in ten minutes or less.
Stay up to date on your favorite bookish podcasts
Sign up to get bookish news, podcast news, and most importantly bookish podcast news delivered to your inbox each week. Be the first to know about all the happenings with One Great Book and What Should I Read Next? including live event announcements, completely new projects (like this one), and keep up with when new volumes become available.
Volume IV
Book 1
A gorgeous novel that wrestles with the magical and the miraculous, whose beautiful storytelling and memorable characters have compelled many readers to call Peace Like a River THE best book they’ve ever read.
Book 2
This Is Where You Belong unfolds like a conversation with a friend who’s telling you about the stress of her recent move in a way that’s not only fun to read, but also practical, actionable, and bound to make a difference in your everyday life.
For more Great Books
For more great books, become a Patreon backer and receive double the great books.
Become a Patron!Each week that we release a new episode of One Great Book I’ll also be recording a bonus episode just for backers. These will be new books not yet released. Be the first to hear about them to put in your preorder or to be first on the library holds list when they come out.
Volume IV is sponsored by Page 1 Books.
Page 1 is a book subscription box company. They have the perfect gift for the readers on your list this holiday season, because they are literary matchmakers. Your recipient fills out their own subscription preferences and Page 1 picks the perfect books for them month after month. Learn more at page1books.com by selecting “give the gift of page 1.”
Volume III
Book 1
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is a haunting, atmospheric novel about the power of memory, the passage of time, and the human condition that packs a quiet but sure punch.
Book 2
The taut psychological thriller The Likeness has perfectly complicated characters, deeply human themes, and enough suspense to keep you glued to your couch for two days.
Book 3
In his final novel Our Souls at Night, Kent Haruf reflects on love, happiness, and the small moments that make up a life; its bittersweet story lingers long after the final page.
Book 4
A fascinating look into a little-explored aspect of the human mind, Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, may change the way you understand yourself and the people around you and may even make you question your understanding of reality as you know it.
Book 5
I once watched a woman miss her bus stop because she was utterly absorbed in this literary thriller. Everything I Never Told You is that good.
Book 6
A little bit science fiction, a little bit coming-of-age, The Age of Miracles effectively probes ordinary life not in spite of its un-real backdrop but because of it.
Volume II
Book 1
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. In her debut Love Walked In, Marisa de los Santos proves that happiness makes for terrific reading.
Book 2
My favorite John Grisham novel, The Pelican Brief, is a heck of a page-turner, a political thriller turned blockbuster action movie, and summer reading gold.
Book 3
If you’re looking for a breathtaking, breathless novel that brings history to life, consider this your invitation to read Octavia Butler’s Kindred now. Right now.
Book 4
Some books manage to feel fun and breezy while still tackling serious topics. In Katherine Center’s novel Happiness for Beginners, she shows us how one woman bounces back from personal tragedy.
Book 5
To me, there are two kinds of summer reads: fast-moving books that have me compulsively turning the pages, and more contemplative works that prompt me to slow down, both as a reader and as a person. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea sits firmly in the latter category.
Book 6
Deborah Crombie’s A Share in Death kicks off a long-running British mystery series with a strong sense of place and compelling characters whose personal lives matter every bit as much as their police work.
Book 7
If you like the sound of a multigenerational family saga full of interesting, well-developed, and flawed-but-likable characters, The Shell Seekers may be the next great (big) book you’re looking for.
Volume II is sponsored by Page 1 Books.
Page 1 is a book subscription box company. They are literary matchmakers who bring bookish delight to your doorstep. You can also order individual titles directly from Page 1, including all of the great books in this volume of One Great Book. One Great Book listeners can take 15% off their subscription with the code GREATBOOK.
Volume I
Book 1
Station Eleven gets all the attention, but I don’t want you to miss Emily St John Mandel’s 2012 literary mystery The Lola Quartet. Plus a fun story about how this podcast was born.
Book 2
Ex Libris is a book about books, for book lovers–and one that holds a special place in my heart and on my shelves.
Book 3
The debut novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of today’s greatest living writers, doesn’t just display the seeds of greatness. Purple Hibiscus is already great—even though it was published when she was just twenty-six years old.
Book 4
A Gentleman in Moscow gets all the attention, but it’s Amor Towles’s first book Rules of Civility that I keep coming back to.
Book 5
Don’t miss out on a good read just because it happens to be in the “wrong” section of the bookstore or the library. Sharon Draper’s Out of My Mind is for every reader who enjoys a (feel-good) story, well told.
Book 6
A typewriter shattered my destiny.” So begins The Time in Between, Maria Duenas’s sweeping tale of love, high fashion, and espionage.
Book 7
Not my genre, not my style, not the kind of book I’m interested in, or so I thought. But then I gave Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants a try. And… WOW.
Book 8
Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place is a kaleidoscope of a novel: wildly ambitious, emotionally resonant, lushly written and laden with symbolism. And most importantly—it works.
Volume I is sponsored by Libro.fm.
Libro.fm is the independent audiobook company. Buy audiobooks directly from your local bookstore. Same audiobooks, same price, different story.
Find all of the great books in volume one on the One Great Book playlist.
For more literary matchmaking
For more literary matchmaking, listen to my original podcast What Should I Read Next? where each week a guest tells me three books they love, one they don’t, and what they are currently reading. Then I help them find their next read.