125 Books We Love in Accessible Formats
The New York Public Library has just released our list of 125 Books We Love from the last 125 years. I've already found some new ones I love, and am looking forward to adding more to my "to-read next" stack. If you also love finding new books to try but you have some difficulty reading standard print books, there's another piece of good news!
DB (digital talkingbook) / BR (braille)
1984 by George Orwell: DB 73474 BR 01614
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow: DB 058799
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue by W.H. Auden: not available
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow: DB 058364
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: DB 54896 / BR 11984
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson: not available
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon: DB 050950
American Gods by Neil Gaiman: DB 52917 BR 21682
American Primitive by Mary Oliver: DB 21493
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: DB 11077
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson: not available
Ariel by Sylvia Plath: DB 11077 BR 16537
Atonement by Ian McEwan: DB 62239 BR 16537
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson: not available
Beloved by Toni Morrison: DB 26026 BR 16707
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler: DB 26026 BR 16707
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe: DB 26040 BR 13688
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh: DB 78564 / 53981 BR 18644
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín: DB 69470 BR 18385
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: DB 48063 BR 11980
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger: DB 047480 BR 022463
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine: DB 81184 BR 20748
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff: DB 72130
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: DB 64339 BR 20995
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes: DB 041265
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett: DB 60775
The Color Purple by Alice Walker: DB 018576 BR 007222
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley: DB 032935
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson: DB 055748
Dune by Frank Herbert: DB 44126
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje: DB 035558
An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole: DB 089362 BR 022107
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: DB 034963 BR 022322 BR 008799
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien: DB 010975 DB 047486 BR 009745
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin: DB 082240
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel: not available
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: DB 045742 BR 021103 (in Spanish DB 28311)
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin: DB 12503
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: DB 044608
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor: DB 033325 BR 019069
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace: DB 47282
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: DB 068308 BR 001621 BR 009954 BR022585
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: DB 016147 BR 011057
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: DB 024695 BR 011911
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling: DB 92229 BR 17774 (DB 50988 in Spanish)
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: DB 021679
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers: DB 058532 BR 011395
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers: DB 049737
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: DB 018339 BR 014438
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle: DB 014165 BR 010565
A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul: DB 020604
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: DB 035369 BR 009091
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson: DB 68564 BR 16132
Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg: not available
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: DB 57200 BR 15665
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote: DB 22726 BRC 01440
Indigo by Beverly Jenkins: DB 094126
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: DB 50087
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer: DB 44525
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison: DB 009600 BR 008550
Julian by Gore Vidal: DB 008847 BR 000546
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: DB 57457 BR 15785 (DB 67986 in Spanish)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: DB 043166 BR 012827
The Liars' Club by Mary Karr: DB 041154
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson: DB 76417
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith: not available
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: DB 67388 BR 13157
Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman: not available
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris: DB 50514 BR 20805
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt: DB 38077 BR 11463
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie: DB 16993 BR 18687
Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis: DB 22896
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis: DB 56245
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem: DB 49231
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: DB 21624 BR 11925
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: DB 80509
Naked in Death by J.D. Robb: DB 059555
Native Son by Richard Wright: DB 25087
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: DB 67392 BR 21164
On the Road by Jack Kerouac: DB 31675 BR 18352
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez: DB 59490
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson: not available
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson: DB 074282
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: DB 66733
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler: DB 39777 BR 21257
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi: not available
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard: DB 65463 BR 17537
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth: DB 67856
The Quiet American by Graham Greene: DB 036154
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: DB 48914 BR 12354
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro: DB 30751 BR 20842
The Round House by Louise Erdrich: DB 075641
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles: DB 73689 BR 18750
Runaway by Alice Munro: DB 59521 BR 15771
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery: BR 03211
The Shining by Stephen King: DB 010563
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx: DB 037883 BR 009612
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson: DB 20184
Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh: not available
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion: not available
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg: not available
The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever: DB 65170
The Stranger by Albert Camus: DB 40902 BR 10394
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: DB 34114 BR 16853
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith: DB 50315
Tenth of December by George Saunders: DB 076097 BR 019818
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: DB 35745 BR 16074
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: DB 47510 BR 22569
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu: DB 080931
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: DB 77672 BR 12850 (DB 72989 SPANISH)
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson: DB 76608 BR 19564
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: DB 18129 BR 06763
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera: DB 21074 BR 08839
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: DB 85212 BR 21819
Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories by Joseph Mitchell: DB 35718
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides: DB 096022 BR 009600
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan: DB 071810 BR 021471
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson: DB 071929
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: not available
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver: DB 21168 BR 05118
White Noise by Don DeLillo: DB 23512
White Teeth by Zadie Smith: DB 50261
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami: DB 046636
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: DB 50261
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston: DB 70074
Read E-Books with SimplyE
With your library card, it's easier than ever to choose from more than 300,000 e-books on SimplyE, The New York Public Library's free e-reader app. Gain access to digital resources for all ages, including e-books, audiobooks, databases, and more.
If you don’t have an NYPL library card, New York State residents can apply for a digital card online or through SimplyE (available on the App Store or Google Play).
Need more help? Read our guide to using SimplyE.