Before Donna Tartt, Andrew Sean Greer, Louise Erdrich, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were reverent readers.

In this ebullient book, America’s favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America’s most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark.

From Viet Thanh Nguyen’s reading of American Vietnam War stories, which informed his own Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Sympathizer, to Jennifer Egan finding a touchstone for A Visit From the Goon Squad in Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, to Luis Alberto Urrea’s erotic memories of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Writer’s Library takes the librarian recommendation and dials it up to eleven, providing readers with unparalleled access to the minds, homes, literary tastes—and, in the case of Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, the sandwich tastes—of an impressive spate of today’s foremost talents. Illustrated with beautiful line drawings, The Writer’s Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today’s favorite authors—the creative artists whose imagination and sublime talent make America’s literary scene the wonderful, dynamic world it is.

A love letter to books and a celebration of wordsmiths, The Writer’s Library is a treasure for anyone who has been moved by the written word.