Niall Williams' 6 favorite books with rich storytelling
The best-selling author recommends works by Charles Dickens, James McBride, and more

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.
Irish novelist Niall Williams is the best-selling author of "Four Letters of Love," "History of the Rain," and "This Is Happiness." His widely acclaimed new novel, "Time of the Child," tells of a Christmas season that transformed one small Irish town.
'Station Island' by Seamus Heaney (1984)
Seamus' are the books most taken down from the shelf. There are three sections to "Station Island," but it's the 33-page title poem that seems to me a masterpiece. It is a narrative sequence, both confessional and dramatic, and has the questing urgency of all pilgrimages to arrive at a place of peace. Buy it here.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
'The World-Ending Fire' by Wendell Berry (2017)
This is a collection of essays from 1968 to 2011, written with Berry's signature grace and gravitas. Each piece stakes out its ground with authority and the wisdom that comes from paying close attention to the land. After reading one of these essays, you pause, lift your head, and go outside. Buy it here.
'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens (1861)
The book that made me want to be a novelist. Reading it in a classroom at age 14 meant that it entered me like no book before or since. Dickens' world was more real than the Dublin outside. When Pip fell in love with Estella, so did I; when his heart was broken, mine was too. Buy it here.
'Housekeeping' by Marilynne Robinson (1980)
A flawless thing, this hauntingly beautiful novel tells the story of two sisters' haphazard upbringing under the care of an eccentric aunt. The narration is hued with melancholy, the sentences hypnotic, and the whole book made with a grace not often found in fiction. Buy it here.
'The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store' by James McBride (2023)
McBride was one of those novelists whose books I was long aware of but had somehow never read. When that was at last remedied, this novel transported me into a richly human world of overlapping stories both heartbreaking and heart-lifting. It's an armchair of a novel. You sit into it and don't want to leave. Buy it here.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
There are some novels that you read in awe. This is one of those. The story of an evangelical Baptist who brings his family to the Belgian Congo in 1959, it is told through the daughters' voices, each one so perfectly caught that you can only bow to the craft and scope and majesty of the storytelling. Buy it here.
This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.
-
Today's political cartoons - March 30, 2025
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - strawberry fields forever, secret files, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilariously sparse cartoons about further DOGE cuts
Cartoons Artists take on free audits, report cards, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Following the Tea Horse Road in China
The Week Recommends This network of roads and trails served as vital trading routes
By The Week UK Published
-
Following the Tea Horse Road in China
The Week Recommends This network of roads and trails served as vital trading routes
By The Week UK Published
-
Roast lamb shoulder with ginger and fresh turmeric recipe
The Week Recommends Succulent and tender and falls off the bone with ease
By The Week UK Published
-
Adolescence and the toxic online world: what's the solution?
Talking Point The hit Netflix show is a window into the manosphere, red pills and incels
By The Week Staff Published
-
Snow White: Disney's 'earnest effort to meet an impossible brief'
Talking Point Live-action remake of Disney classic is not the disaster it could have been – but where's the personality?
By The Week UK Published
-
Don McCullin picks his favourite books
The Week Recommends The photojournalist shares works by Daniel Defoe, Lesley Blanch and Roland Philipps
By The Week UK Published
-
6 breathtaking homes in capital cities
Feature Featuring a glass conservatory in Atlanta and a loft library in Boston
By The Week US Published
-
Playhouse Creatures: 'dream-like' play is 'lively, funny and sharp-witted'
Anna Chancellor offers a 'glinting performance' alongside a 'strong' supporting cast
By The Week UK Published
-
The CIA Book Club: 'entertaining and vivid' book explores a huge Cold War secret
The Week Recommends 'Gripping' narrative explores a covert smuggling operation across the Iron Curtain
By The Week UK Published