Reading List

We talk about books a lot on the podcast; we do, after all, discuss the literary influences in works of pop culture, as well as read a lot of books in our research for the show.

Here is a running list of every book or literary work we’ve ever mentioned on Pop DNA (alphabetical by author).

Fiction

• Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Graeme-Smith
• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
• The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
• Beastly by Alex Flinn
• Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
• Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
• Pet Sematary by Stephen King
• Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• Beauty by Robin McKinley
• Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Renison
• Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
• The Beast’s Heart by Leife Shallcross
• Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
• Hunted by Meagan Spooner
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villenueve
• Heartstone by Elle Katharine White
• Slayer by Kiersten White
• Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Drama, Short Fiction, and Poetry

• Much Ado About Mean Girls by Ian Doescher
• William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher
• “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
• Matt & Ben by Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• “The Vampyre” by John Polidori
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
• Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
• The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson
• “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

Nonfiction

• Vampires, Burial, and Death by Paul Barber
• The Anatomy of Revolution by Crane Brinton
• Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
• The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel
• How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
• Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici
• Bossypants by Tina Fey
• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
• Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling
• The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
• Yes Please by Amy Poehler
• A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis
• The Devil in Massachusetts by Marion Starkey
• Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman

Book Lists and Reading Challenges

• Star Wars Reading Challenge
• The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge
• Book references in A Year in the Life

Rhonda’s favorite Georgette Heyer novels

• The Grand Sophy
• Bath Tangle
• Arabella

Erin’s favorite Sarah Dessen novels

• Once and For All
• Saint Anything
• Along for the Ride