12 Books That Will Never Leave This Industry Insider’s Shelf

This is the book I recommend to anyone who wants to see what Louise Penny is about. It’s a sweeping and epic story that traverses a very personal murder, domestic terrorism, and a historical mystery. She tells three different stories in one novel, and each is harrowing, suspenseful, and emotional.

Kinder’s story first tells the tragedy of this 1857 shipwreck on personal terms. Then his prose matches the treasure hunt as Tommy Thompson and crew salvage one of the most fabled wrecks in history—the gold-laden SS Central America.

Set in post–WWI England, this tension-filled mystery follows Inspector John Madden as he begins to suspect a brutal madman of carrying out a seemingly ordinary robbery. No matter how many mysteries you’ve read, you’re not going to figure this one out.

Ooh, I shiver just thinking about this one. Val McDermid is an award-winning acknowledged master of suspense, but this book, set in rural England in 1963—to me—is far and away her most accessible masterpiece. A thirteen-year-old girl is missing, and a rookie inspector must solve the case.

David Baldacci’s grandfather and my great-grandfather were brothers. So, of course I was rooting for this debut—which generated a lot of industry buzz—to be great. And it was. It’s worth a re-read merely for the masterful plotting and many twists and turns.

I was at Simon & Schuster when Janet Evanovich’s debut was first published, but this one just might be the funniest Stephanie Plum love-triangle car wreck of them all.

When advertising artist Si Morley is recruited to join a covert government operation exploring the possibility of time travel, he jumps at the chance to leave his twentieth-century existence and step into New York City in January 1882. Aside from his thirst for experience, he has good reason to return to the past—his friend Kate has a curious, half-burned letter dated from that year, and he wants to trace the mystery. But when Si begins to fall in love with a woman he meets in the past, he will be forced to choose between two worlds—forever.

This book begins with a simple conceit: imagine that the human presence was removed from the Earth instantly. What would happen? Alan Weisman takes the concept further than you may anticipate.

Winner of the National Book Award, this is the story of the men and women as well as the tragedy and triumph behind the engineering feat that solved the age-old problem of maritime travel: the creation of the Panama Canal.

One split-second choice between saving her daughter or another girl nearly costs a mom her freedom and her reputation, and in true Scottoline style, there is far more going on than first appears.

This novel has everything—cowboys and horses and sisters and moral choices. Most of all, this is a story about what it can mean to be a family, with all the betrayal, forgiveness, and loyalty that can mean.

Sarah Vowell makes me laugh, and she makes me feel smart just by reading her books. Here, she tackles the Puritans (figuratively, of course) and their desire to create the Shining City on the Hill. Sure, it sounds dry, but her prose is addicting and illustrative.