I’ve been wanting to put this list together for a while because I keep reading books and thinking “I need to read everything this author has ever written!” But it’s so easy to forget about them in the onslaught of new releases, and they get pushed to the bottom of my TBR. So today’s post is all about authors whose backlists I would like to eventually finish reading.

Be forewarned: this list is very romance heavy. Romance novelists are just really prolific, and some of my favorites have had really long careers, which makes them perfect candidates for this list. But there are other types of authors on here, I promise!

Lisa Kleypas

I’m a huge Lisa Kleypas fan, but I haven’t read her entire backlist! I actually don’t want to go back and read all of her contemporaries (I’m sorry, they just don’t interest me right now), but I do want to read all of her pre-Wallflowers historicals, plus I really need to reread the Wallflower and Hathaway series! It’s been way too long.

Julia Quinn

Julia Quinn is another one of my longtime favorite romance novelists, and while of course I’ve read the Bridgerton series, the Smythe-Smith quartet, and the Rokesbys books, I haven’t read a lot of her other books. Maybe I don’t really need to go back and read the rest since I’ve covered the highlights, but I’ve been wanting to reread the Bridgerton books and figure it can’t hurt to read the rest of her backlist while I’m at it!

Tessa Dare

Tessa Dare is one of my more recent favorite romance novelists. Of course I’ve consumed the Spinster Cove series (practically a Regency England Themyscira!) and her Castles Ever After series, and I’m caught up on her latest release. But she’s got two earlier series that I need to check out as well! Admittedly they’re not as well known as her more recent works, and maybe I don’t need to read them either, but I’ve really enjoyed all of Dare’s works that I’ve read, and I’d like to finish out her backlist.

Roxane Gay

As a huge fan of Roxane Gay’s nonfiction works, I’m really eager to check out her fiction writing as well. I’m a little intimidated because I expect it to be super sad and brutal and difficult to read, plus it’s literary fiction, which is not exactly my favorite genre. But it’s Roxane Gay. I have to read it!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is another author whose nonfiction I am a huge fan of, but whose fiction I haven’t read yet. Like Gay, I’m a little intimidated by Adichie’s works because I’m not sure they’re something I’m going to enjoy. But she’s been such an influence on me with her feminist essays that I really want to check out her fiction writing.

Tamora Pierce

I’ve read a lot of Tamora Pierce’s works, but I’m pretty sure I never read the Immortals quartet or any of her Circle of Magic books. I’m a huge, huge fan of the Tortall books that I read growing up, and I’m planning to go back and start rereading them soon, and figured while I was at it that I may as well read her complete body of work. Plus her newest series is about a character who plays a major role in the Immortals books, so I definitely have to read those before I can read her new ones!

Eloisa James

We’re back to the romance novelists! I’ve always considered Eloisa James a solid romance novelist, but she wasn’t necessarily my favorite even though I read a lot of her works. So I was never in a rush to go back and read all of her books. But I’ve seen her speak in person a few times and been really impressed, plus I just recently read Seven Minutes in Heaven and really enjoyed it, so now I’m excited to finally get around to the rest of her books, most especially the Desperate Duchesses series.

Beverly Jenkins

I’m somehow actually new to Beverly Jenkins, and I am officially a fan! After hearing people in my book club rave about how amazing she is, I had to give some of her books a try, and they were totally right! I’m really excited to read some of her classics, like Topaz and The Taming of Jessi Rose, plus Avon sent me copies of her latest trilogy as part of the Avon Addicts program, so I’m very excited she has a big backlist for me to dive into. Though like Kleypas, I’m adding the caveat that I’m really only interested in her historicals.

Ron Chernow

I’ve been thoroughly impressed by all three Ron Chernow biographies I’ve read so far, and even though some of them are probably a bit dated by now, I definitely want to go back and read them all, especially Washington: A Life. This is a backlist that I’ll probably be working on for a while because his books are so big and can take me a long time to get through, but I  think he does an amazing job researching and writing these books, and I’m interested in reading about anyone he’s deemed worth writing a biography about.

Erik Larsen

Erik Larsen is one of my favorite nonfiction authors, and while I’ve read most of his backlist, I haven’t finished it just yet. I’m actually not interested in his first two books, just his history books, and the only one I haven’t read yet is Isaac’s Storm. In light of Hurricane Harvey, it seems really appropriate to get to that one soon since it’s about the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.

#####

Alright, I think those are the authors whose backlists I’m most eager to complete, at least right now. I feel like I should have more non-romance authors on here, but fantasy and nonfiction writers tend to have much shorter backlists for me to work my way through, or at least the ones that are on my radar right now. If I get into Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, or any other super prolific fantasy and science fiction authors, I’m going to have to revise that statement!

Who are some of your favorite authors whose backlists you’ve been meaning to get to? Let me know in the comments!