by Ben Blatt
I often made judgment calls on whether or not to include a book in the bibliography, which you can explore in the following pages. An author might appear slightly up or down on a given chart if one or two books had been removed from or added to their bibliography. But I concentrated on larger trends in the text, and these larger trends hold even with slight variations to the original samples.
Data Sources
Immediately following are the bibliographies for all the authors used in this book. Any statement in this book that reads “Jane Austen used the word X at rate Y” means “Of the six Jane Austen books listed in this notes section, she used the word X at rate Y.”
Following the author bibliographies I have also listed specialized samples for which I explained the methodology throughout the main text, but not the exact contents. For example, “Modern Literary Fiction” was categorized as books that won various prizes over a set time period, but the text did not have room to include the full listing. Each of those titles can be found in this Notes section.
Chinua Achebe—5 Novels
Things Fall Apart
No Longer at Ease
Arrow of God
A Man of the People
Anthills of the Savannah
Douglas Adams—7 Novels
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Mostly Harmless
Life, the Universe and Everything
Mitch Albom—6 Books
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
For One More Day
Have a Little Faith
The Time Keeper
The First Phone Call from Heaven
Isaac Asimov—7 Foundation Series Novels
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation’s Edge
Foundation and Earth
Jean Auel—6 Earth’s Children Novels
The Clan of the Cave Bear
The Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters
The Plains of Passage
The Shelters of Stone
The Land of Painted Caves
Jane Austen—6 Novels
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Persuasion
David Baldacci—29 Novels
The Camel Club
The Collectors
Stone Cold
Divine Justice
Hell’s Corner
Split Second
Hour Game
Simple Genius
First Family
The Sixth Man
King and Maxwell
The Whole Truth
Deliver Us from Evil
Zero Day
The Forgotten
The Escape
The Innocent
The Hit
The Target
Absolute Power
Total Control
The Winner
The Simple Truth
Saving Faith
Wish You Well
Last Man Standing
The Christmas Train
True Blue
One Summer
Enid Blyton—21 Famous Five Novels
Five on a Treasure Island
Five Go Adventuring Again
Five Run Away Together
Five Go to Smuggler’s Top
Five Go Off in a Caravan
Five on Kirrin Island Again
Five Go Off to Camp
Five Get into Trouble
Five Fall into Adventure
Five on a Hike Together
Five Have a Wonderful Time
Five Go Down to the Sea
Five Go to Mystery Moor
Five Have Plenty of Fun
Five on a Secret Trail
Five Go to Billycock Hill
Five Get into a Fix
Five on Finniston Farm
Five Go to Demon’s Rocks
Five Have a Mystery to Solve
Five Are Together Again
Ray Bradbury—11 Novels
The Martian Chronicles
Fahrenheit 451
Dandelion Wine
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Halloween Tree
Death Is a Lonely Business
A Graveyard for Lunatics
Green Shadows, White Whale
From the Dust Returned
Let’s All Kill Constance
Farewell Summer
Ann Brashares—9 Novels
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
Girls in Pants
Forever in Blue
The Last Summer (of You and Me)
3 Willows
My Name Is Memory
Sisterhood Everlasting
The Here and Now
Charlotte Brontë—4 Novels
Jane Eyre
Shirley
Villette
The Professor
Dan Brown—4 Robert Langdon Novels
Angels & Demons
The Da Vinci Code
The Lost Symbol
Inferno
Truman Capote—5 Books
The Grass Harp
Over Voices, Other Rooms
Summer Crossing
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
In Cold Blood
Willa Cather—12 Novels
Sapphira and the Slave Girl
One of Ours
My Ántonia
Shadows on the Rock
A Lost Lady
Lucy Gayheart
O Pioneers!
Death Comes for the Archbishop
The Song of the Lark
The Professor’s House
My Mortal Enemy
Alexander’s Bridge
Michael Chabon—7 Novels
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Wonder Boys
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Final Solution
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Gentlemen of the Road
Telegraph Avenue
John Cheever—5 Novels
The Wapshot Chronicle
The Wapshot Scandal
Bullet Park
Falconer
Oh What a Paradise It Seems
Agatha Christie—66 Novels
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Secret Adversary
The Murder on the Links
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Sittaford Mystery
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Murder Is Easy
And Then There Were None
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
N or M?
The Body in the Library
Five Little Pigs
The Moving Finger
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Hollow
Taken at the Flood
Crooked House
A Murder Is Announced
They Came to Baghdad
Mrs McGinty’s Dead
They Do It with Mirrors
After the Funeral
A Pocket Full of Rye
Destination Unknown
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
4:50 From Paddington
Ordeal by Innocence
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Pale Horse
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
The Clocks
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Third Girl
Endless Night
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Hallowe’en Party
Passenger to Frankfurt
Nemesis
Elephants Can Remember
Postern of Fate
Curtain
Sleeping Murder
Tom Clancy—13 Novels
The Hunt for Red October
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
The Bear and the Dragon
Red Rabbit
The Teeth of the Tiger
Red Storm Rising
Rainbow Six
Cassandra Clare—9 Novels
City of Bones
City of Ashes
City of Glass
City of Fallen Angels
City of Lost Souls
City of Heavenly Fire
Clockwork Angel
Clockwork Prince
Clockwork Princess
Suzanne Collins—3 Hunger Games Novels
The Hunger Games
Catching Fire
Mockingjay
Michael Connelly—27 Novels
The Black Echo
The Black Ice
The Concrete Blonde
The Last Coyote
The Poet
Trunk Music
Blood Work
Angels Flight
Void Moon
A Darkness More Than Night
City of Bones
Chasing the Dime
Lost Light
The Narrows
The Closers
The Lincoln Lawyer
Echo Park
The Overlook
The Brass Verdict
The Scarecrow
Nine Dragons
The Reversal
The Fifth Witness
The Drop
The Black Box
The Gods of Guilt
The Burning Room
Joseph Conrad—14 Novels
Nostromo
An Outcast of the Islands
The Rescue
Heart of Darkness
The Nigger of the “Narcissus”
Almayer’s Folly
Lord Jim
Typhoon
Victory
The Arrow of Gold
Under Western Eyes
Chance
The Secret Agent
The Shadow-Line
Michael Crichton—24 Novels
Odds On
Scratch One
Easy Go
A Case of Need
Zero Cool
The Andromeda Strain
The Venom Business
Drug of Choice
Grave Descend
Binary
The Terminal Man
The Great Train Robbery
Eaters of the Dead
Congo
Sphere
Jurassic Park
Rising Sun
Disclosure
The Lost World
Airframe
Timeline
Prey
State of Fear
Next
Clive Cussler—23 Dirk Pitt Novels
Pacific Vortex
The Mediterranean Caper
Iceberg
Raise the Titanic!
Vixen
Night Probe!
Deep Six
Cyclops
Treasure
Dragon
Sahara
Inca Gold
Shock Wave
Flood Tide
Atlantis Found
Valhalla Rising
Trojan Odyssey
Black Wind
Treasure of Khan
Arctic Drift
Crescent Dawn
Poseidon’s Arrow
Havana Storm
James Dashner—3 Maze Runner Novels
The Maze Runner
The Scorch Trials
The Death Cure
Don DeLillo—15 Novels
Americana
End Zone
Great Jones Street
Ratner’s Star
Players
Running Dog
The Names
White Noise
Libra
Mao II
Underworld
The Body Artist
Cosmopolis
Falling Man
Point Omega
Charles Dickens—20 Novels
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
The Adventures of Oliver Twist
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
The Old Curiosity Shop
Barnaby Rudge
A Christmas Carol
The Chimes
The Cricket on the Hearth
The Battle of Life
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit
Dombey and Son
David Copperfield
Bleak House
Hard Times
Little Dorrit
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Our Mutual Friend
Theodore Dreiser—8 Novels
Sister Carrie
Jennie Gerhardt
The “Genius”
The Financier
An American Tragedy
The Stoic
The Titan
The Bulwark
Jennifer Egan—4 Novels
The Invisible Circus
Look at Me
The Keep
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Dave Eggers—6 Novels
You Shall Know Our Velocity
What Is the What
The Wild Things
A Hologram for the King
The Circle
Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?
Jeffrey Eugenides—3 Novels
The Virgin Suicides
Middlesex
The Marriage Plot
Janet Evanovich—40 Novels
One for the Money
Two for the Dough
Three to Get Deadly
Four to Score
High Five
Hot Six
Seven Up
Hard Eight
To the Nines
Ten Big Ones
Eleven on Top
Twelve Sharp
Lean Mean Thirteen
Fearless Fourteen
Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
Sizzling Sixteen
Smokin’ Seventeen
Explosive Eighteen
Notorious Nineteen
Takedown Twenty
Top Secret Twenty-One
Visions of Sugar Plums
Plum Lovin’
Plum Lucky
Plum Spooky
Wicked Appetite
Wicked Business
Metro Girl
Motor Mouth
Back to the Bedroom
Smitten
Wife for Hire
The Rocky Road to Romance
Hero at Large
Foul Play
The Grand Finale
Thanksgiving
Manhunt
Love Overboard
Naughty Neighbor
William Faulkner—19 Novels
As I Lay Dying
The Sound and the Fury
Unvanquished
Sanctuary
Light in August
The Reivers
Go Down, Moses
Absalom, Absalom!
The Wild Palms
The Hamlet
The Mansion
Requiem for a Nun
Intruder in the Dust
Pylon
A Fable
The Town
Mosquitoes
Flags in the Dust
Soldiers’ Pay
Joshua Ferris—3 Novels
Then We Came to the End
The Unnamed
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
F. Scott Fitzgerald—4 Novels
The Great Gatsby
Tender Is the Night
This Side of Paradise
The Beautiful and Damned
Ian Fleming—12 James Bond Novels
Casino Royale
Live and Let Die
Moonraker
Diamonds Are Forever
From Russia, with Love
Dr. No
Goldfinger
Thunderball
The Spy Who Loved Me
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
You Only Live Twice
The Man with the Golden Gun
Gillian Flynn—3 Novels
Dark Places
Gone Girl
Sharp Objects
E. M. Forster—6 Novels
Maurice
A Passage to India
The Longest Journey
Howards End
A Room with a View
Where Angels Fear to Tread
Jonathan Franzen—4 Novels
The Twenty-Seventh City
Strong Motion
The Corrections
Freedom
Charles Frazier—3 Novels
Cold Mountain
Thirteen Moons
Nightwoods
William Gaddis—5 Novels
Agape Agape
The Recognitions
Carpenter’s Gothic
A Frolic of His Own
JR
Neil Gaiman—7 Novels
Neverwhere
Stardust
American Gods
Coraline
Anansi Boys
The Graveyard Book
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Mark Greaney—6 Novels
Support and Defend
Ballistic
On Target
The Gray Man
Full Force and Effect
Dead Eye
John Green—4 Novels
Looking for Alaska
An Abundance of Katherines
Paper Towns
The Fault in Our Stars
John Grisham—28 Novels
The Firm
The Pelican Brief
The Client
The Chamber
The Rainmaker
The Runaway Jury
The Partner
The Street Lawyer
The Testament