Over the course of six novels, the writer Christopher Bollen has demonstrated a knack for writing moody, intelligent mysteries that never sacrifice character development on the altar of thrills (though thrills there are aplenty). “You want life to mean something, and you want it to hurt when someone dies and you want to feel the loss of their life,” he says on our podcast Shelf Life. Hurt it often does. When a major character is killed off in his 2015 novel, Orient, it catches in your throat, feels personal. In his sixth novel, the critical darling Havoc, what initially seems like a twisted version of Agatha Christie's Jane Marple becomes a study of a deteriorating, dangerous mind as 81-year old Maggie Burkhardt meets her match in an 8-year-old rival, Otto. As the two engage in battle, anyone and everyone around them becomes collateral damage. A diehard fan of Agatha Christie, one of several touchstones for his own writing career, we invited Bollen to identify ten of his favorite Christie novels for One Grand Books, something of a daunting task given Christie’s output: 66 novels and countless short stories. Below are Christopher Bollen's favorite Agatha Christie books, available to purchase individually or as a set.

Christopher Bollen'S FAVORITE BOOKS

A pivotal force in contemporary dance, Janet Eilber has danced at the White House, danced with Rudolf Nuryev, and most importantly, danced for Martha Graham. It was Graham who mentored Eilber as a young dancer – coaching her in her famous “contraction and release” method – eventually leading to Eilber’s appointment as Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, School, and Archive in 2005. She is still there, commissioning work that embodies and expands on Graham’s legacy. “Martha is compared to Picasso and Stravinksy because she made such a seismic shift,” Eilber has said. “Her discoveries were so radical.” That radicalism lives on, cemented and extended by Eilber's leadership. Founded in 1926, the Martha Graham Dance Company is not only the oldest contemporary dance company in America, but one of its most dynamic, producing new work and interpretations of classics at a remarkable pace. Did we mention that Eilber also played the co-star and love interest to Rick Springfield in the 1984 movie, Hard to Hold? Below are Janet Eilber’s favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set.

Janet Eilber'S FAVORITE BOOKS

Sera Gamble is the screenwriter and showrunner for the hit Hetflix series You, based on the novels of Caroline Kepnes, in which the romantic hero is not just a pretty face - he’s a serial killer as well. You is not the first book that Gamble has turned into darkly entertaining television. She also created The Magicians for the SyFy Channel, based on the best-selling novel by Lev Grossman. And she was a showrunner on Supernatural, a haunting fantasy series which ran for 15 seasons. She has said, “I’m a horror writer in my heart, in that I always like to ask myself what scares me, and what scares us universally when I’m approaching a story. To me there’s just about nothing scarier than the truth that we can never really know another person.” Below are Sera Gamble's favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set.

Sera Gamble'S FAVORITE BOOKS

“I’m very nervous about doing this,” says Coel with admirable candor. “My memory is really bad, to the point that I forgot how bad my memory was.” She does, however, recall being spurred to spend a summer reading books by her local library which gave a medal to anyone who reached a goal of reading ten books. Coel, the child of an immigrant Ghanaian mother, won that library medal after devouring Marieke Nijkamp’s series of graphic novels for kids, Goosebumps. “I wasn’t really into things like sports, I didn’t dance, so reading really occupied me that summer and took my brain somewhere else, for which I’m forever grateful.” The actress, screenwriter, and director, who found acclaim in the UK with her series, Chewing Gum, and then as the lead in Black Earth Rising, Hugo Blick’s intense political thriller for Netflix, went through 191 drafts of her autobiographical HBO-BBC series, I May Destroy You, before she felt ready to release it into the world. The series won her a British Academy Award and an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards, making her the first black woman to win that category. She will next write, star in and executive produce First Day On Earth, a 10-part series for the BBC. Below, are Michaela Coel's favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set.

Michaela Coel'S FAVORITE BOOKS

When HBO, desperate to feed the pandemic TV appetite, asked Mike White if he wanted to create a new TV show, the veteran actor, writer, and director didn’t need to be asked twice. “The filtration system of getting something on the air is aggravating and time-consuming,” he told The New Yorker. “I thought, If they go with this, it’ll be like a boulder they can’t stop. I can do exactly what I want to do.” The “this” was his runaway hit, The White Lotus, a veritable Trojan Horse--a spiky critique of class and privilege dressed up as a murder mystery. A second season was greenlit before the first season--six episodes each written and directed by White--concluded with what was among the most satisfying TV finales in recent memory. The third season will be the last. White is too much the auteur to push a concept past its peak. With one of Hollywood’s most eclectic resumes, running the gamut from the comedy musical, School of Rock, to the lauded HBO series, Enlightened, starring Laura Dern, White's not-so-secret passion is competing on reality TV, where he has been a contestant on The Amazing Race, twice, and on Survivor. “As a writer of drama, I aspire to do what reality television already does,” he told The New Yorker, “To create characters that are surprising and dimensional and do weird shit and capture your attention.” When he’s not writing, directing, acting, or competing, White is a reader, as this list of books reflects. “These may not be my 10 favorite books, that’s impossible,” he writes. “But these come to mind and are ones I’m always recommending.” Below are Mike Whites's books, available to purchase individually or as a set. Photo: Courtesy of Jason Yokobosky

Mike White'S FAVORITE BOOKS