“What are the best books for solitude?” We looked at 274 books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
Some of the best fiction and nonfiction books for and about solitude. The top 19 books, all appearing on 2 or more lists, are ranked below with images, description, and links. The remaining titles, as well as the sources we used, can be found at the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
Lists It Appears On:
“Choosing to enrich your life by yourself is very different from being “lonely.” In Celebrating Time Alone, Lionel Fisher shares his personal reflections on solitude, brought into sharp focus by living alone for six years on a remote Pacific Northwest beach.
He supplements his own reflections by interviewing men and women in sixteen states, in both rural and urban settings, who have stretched the envelope of their aloneness to Waldenesque proportions.
All the material is intended to offer counsel, inspiration, affirmation, insights, encouragement, and advice on living well alone, to help learn to use solitude and periods of aloneness for self-discovery and personal growth—whether they choose aloneness or have it thrust on them.”
Lists It Appears On:
“With eye-opening statistics, original data, and vivid portraits of people who live alone, renowned sociologist Eric Klinenberg upends conventional wisdom to deliver the definitive take on how the rise of going solo is transforming the American experience.
Klinenberg shows that most single dwellers—whether in their twenties or eighties—are deeply engaged in social and civic life. There’s even evidence that people who live alone enjoy better mental health and have more environmentally sustainable lifestyles. Drawing on more than three hundred in-depth interviews, Klinenberg presents a revelatory examination of the most significant demographic shift since the baby boom and offers surprising insights on the benefits of this epochal change.”
Lists It Appears On:
“Robert Neville may well be the last living man on Earth . . . but he is not alone.
An incurable plague has mutated every other man, woman, and child into bloodthirsty, nocturnal creatures who are determined to destroy him.
By day, he is a hunter, stalking the infected monstrosities through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn…”
Lists It Appears On:
Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman’s passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed.
Lists It Appears On:
“I am here alone for the first time in weeks,” May Sarton begins this book, “to take up my ‘real’ life again at last. That is what is strange―that friends, even passionate love,are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened.” In this journal, she says, “I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths,to the matrix itself. There is violence there and anger never resolved. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there.”
Lists It Appears On:
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them “the truth.” After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional–but is it more true?
Lists It Appears On:
University of Chicago social neuroscientist John T. Cacioppo unveils his pioneering research on the startling effects of loneliness: a sense of isolation or social rejection disrupts not only our thinking abilities and will power but also our immune systems, and can be as damaging as obesity or smoking. A blend of biological and social science, this book demonstrates that, as individuals and as a society, we have everything to gain, and everything to lose, in how well or how poorly we manage our need for social bonds.
Lists It Appears On:
From the primitive peasant who kills without understanding that he is destroying a human life, to the anxious antihero of Notes From Underground—a man who both craves and despises affection—this volume and its often-tormented characters showcase Dostoyevsky’s evolving outlook on man’s fate. The compelling works presented here were written at distinct periods in the author’s life, at decisive moments in his groping for a political philosophy and a religious answer.
Lists It Appears On:
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Lists It Appears On:
The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all—along with as many as 25 percent of the world’s population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches. Too often, loners buy into those messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature—and hiding from it. Loners as a group deserve to be reassessed—to claim their rightful place, rather than be perceived as damaged goods that need to be “fixed.” In Party of One Anneli Rufus — a prize-winning, critically acclaimed writer with talent to burn — has crafted a morally urgent, historically compelling tour de force—a long-overdue argument in defense of the loner, then and now. Marshalling a polymath’s easy erudition to make her case, assembling evidence from every conceivable arena of culture as well as interviews with experts and loners worldwide and her own acutely calibrated analysis, Rufus rebuts the prevailing notion that aloneness is indistinguishable from loneliness, the fallacy that all of those who are alone don’t want to be, and wouldn’t be, if only they knew how.
Lists It Appears On:
Daniel Defoe relates the tale of an English sailor marooned on a desert island for nearly three decades. An ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances, Robinson Crusoe wrestles with fate and the nature of God.
Lists It Appears On:
Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.
Lists It Appears On:
Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically when he meerts a woman who is his opposite, the carefree and elusive Hermine. The tale of the Steppenwolf culminates in the surreal Magic Theater for mad men only.
Lists It Appears On:
Fernando Pessoa was many writers in one. He attributed his prolific writings to a wide range of alternate selves, each of which had a distinct biography, ideology. and horoscope. When he died in 935, Pessoa left behind a trunk filled with unfinished and unpublished writings, among which were the remarkable pages that make up his posthumous masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner’s words, “gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce’s Dublin or Kafka’s Prague.”
Lists It Appears On:
In this international classic, Paz has written one of the most enduring and powerful works ever created on Mexico and its people, character, and culture. Compared to Ortega y Gasset’s The Revolt of the Masses for its trenchant analysis, this collection contains his most famous work, “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” a beautifully written and deeply felt discourse on Mexico’s quest for identity that gives us an unequalled look at the country hidden behind “the mask.” Also included are “The Other Mexico,” “Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude,” “Mexico and the United States,” and “The Philanthropic Ogre,” all of which develop the themes of the title essay and extend his penetrating commentary to the United States and Latin America.
Lists It Appears On:
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.
Lists It Appears On:
“At fifty, Alix Kates Shulman, author of the celebrated feminist novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, left a city life dense with political activism, family and literary community, and went to live alone on an island off the coast of Maine. On a windswept beach, in a cabin with no plumbing, power, or telephone, she found that she was learning to live all over again.
In this luminous, spirited book, she charts her subsequent path as she learned not simply the joys of meditative solitude, but to integrate her new awareness into a busy, committed, even hectic mainland life.”
Lists It Appears On:
A pre-eminent work in self-help and popular psychology literature, Solitude was seminal in challenging the psychological paradigm that “interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness.” Indeed, most self-help literature still places relationships at the center of human existence. Lucid and lyrical, Storr’s book argues that solitude ranks alongside relationships in its impact on an individual’s well-being and productivity, as well as on society’s progress and health. Citing numerous examples of brilliant scholars and artists—from Beethoven and Kant to Anne Sexton and Beatrix Potter—he argues that solitary activity is essential not only for geniuses, but often for the average person as well. For nearly three decades, readers have found inspiration and renewal in Storr’s erudite, compassionate vision of the human experience—and the benefits and joy of solitude.
Lists It Appears On:
In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a cabin by Walden Pond. With the intention of immersing himself in nature and distancing himself from the distractions of social life, Thoreau sustained his retreat for just over two years. More popular than ever, “Walden” is a paean to the virtues of simplicity and self-sufficiency.
| # | Book | Author | List |
| (Books Appear On 1 List Each) | |||
| 20 | 1984 | George Orwell | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 21 | A Book of Silence | Sara Maitland | Lone Wolf |
| 22 | A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 23 | A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 24 | A Country Year: Living the Questions | Sue Hubbell | Goodreads |
| 25 | A Fine Balance | Rohinton Mistry | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 26 | A Mediocre Man | A.K. Hill | Goodreads 2 |
| 27 | A Moveable Feast | Ernest Hemingway | The Guardian |
| 28 | A Prayer for Owen Meany | John Irving | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 29 | A Room of One’s Own | Virginia Woolf | Goodreads 2 |
| 30 | A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 31 | A Tale Of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 32 | A Town Like Alice | Nevil Shute | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 33 | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 34 | Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 35 | All the King’s Men | Robert Penn Warren | The Guardian |
| 36 | Alone | Richard E. Byrd | Lone Wolf |
| 37 | Alone: Finding Connection in a Lonely World | Andy Braner | About Great Books |
| 38 | Aloneness in America: the Stories that Matter | Robert A. Ferguson | Lone Wolf |
| 39 | Americanah | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Bustle |
| 40 | Amy Falls Down | Jincy Willett | NPR |
| 41 | An Experiment in Love | Hilary Mantel | The Guardian |
| 42 | An Unknown Woman | Alice Koller | Goodreads |
| 43 | And She Lived Happily Ever After: Finding Fulfillment as a Single Woman | Skip McDonald | Online Psychology Degree |
| 44 | Animal Farm | George Orwell | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 45 | Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 46 | Anne of Green Gables | L. M. Montgomery | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 47 | Atonement | Ian McEwan | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 48 | Becoming Human | Jean Vanier | Online Psychology Degree |
| 49 | Birdsong | Sebastian Faulks | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 50 | Bleak House | Charles Dickens | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 51 | Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 52 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 53 | Bridget Jones’s Diary | Helen Fielding | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 54 | Captain Corelli’s Mandolin | Louis De Bernieres | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 55 | Captain Rum: A Wondrous Adventure | John Perrier | Goodreads 2 |
| 56 | Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 57 | Catcher in the Rye | J. D. Salinger | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 58 | Changing | Liv Ullmann | The Guardian |
| 59 | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Roald Dahl | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 60 | Charlotte’s Web | E. B. White | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 61 | Chronicles of Narnia | CS Lewis | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 62 | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 63 | Cold Comfort Farm | Stella Gibbons | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 64 | Cold Skin | Albert Sanchez Pinol | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 65 | Complete Works of Shakespeare | The Bookshelf of Emily J. | |
| 66 | Concrete Island | J.G. Ballard | Goodreads 2 |
| 67 | Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 68 | David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 69 | Death on the Installment Plan | Louis-Ferdinand Céline | Goodreads 2 |
| 70 | Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness | Edward Abbey | Lone Wolf |
| 71 | Desolation Angels | Jack Kerouac | Lone Wolf |
| 72 | Distant Shores | KRISTIN HANNAH | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 73 | Doppler | Erlend Loe | Goodreads 2 |
| 74 | Dracula | Bram Stoker | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 75 | Dune | Frank Herbert | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 76 | Emma | Jane Austen | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 77 | Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life | Judith Orloff | Online Psychology Degree |
| 78 | Far From The Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 79 | Fifty Days of Solitude | Doris Grumbach | Lone Wolf |
| 80 | Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | Publishers Weekly |
| 81 | Freedom From Loneliness: 52 Ways To Stop Feeling Lonely | Jennifer Page | About Great Books |
| 82 | Germinal | Emile Zola | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 83 | God’s Outrageous Claims: Discover What They Mean for You | Lee Strobel | About Great Books |
| 84 | Godric | Frederick Buechner | Goodreads 2 |
| 85 | Gone With The Wind | Margaret Mitchell | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 86 | Good Morning, Midnight | Jean Rhys | Publishers Weekly |
| 87 | Graceful Simplicity: Toward a Philosophy and Politics of Simple Living | Jerome M. Segal | Lone Wolf |
| 88 | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 89 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 90 | Happy Days | Samuel Beckett | Publishers Weekly |
| 91 | Harry Potter series | J. K. Rowling | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 92 | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 93 | His Dark Materials | Philip Pullman | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 94 | Hopecasting: Finding, Keeping, and Sharing the Things Unseen | Mark Oestreicher | Online Psychology Degree |
| 95 | How to Be Alone | Tanya Davis | Goodreads |
| 96 | How to Be Alone | Sara Maitland | Goodreads |
| 97 | I Love Dick | Chris Kraus | Publishers Weekly |
| 98 | Ice | Anna Kavan | Publishers Weekly |
| 99 | In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise | George Prochnik | Lone Wolf |
| 100 | In Search of Lost Time | Marcel Proust | Bustle |
| 101 | Into the Wild | Jon Krakauer | Goodreads |
| 102 | Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | Lone Wolf |
| 103 | Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence | Ruth Haley Barton, R Ruth Barton | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 104 | Journey to the End of the Night | Louis-Ferdinand Céline | Goodreads 2 |
| 105 | Jude the Obscure | Thomas Hardy | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 106 | Keeping the World Away | Margaret Forster | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 107 | Kinder Than Solitude | Yiyun Li | Goodreads 2 |
| 108 | LA SOLITUDINE DEI NUMERI PRIMI | Paolo Giordano | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 109 | Leaving Loneliness: A Workbook: Building Relationships with Yourself and Others | David Narang Ph.D. | About Great Books |
| 110 | Leaving the Atocha Station | Ben Lerner | The Guardian |
| 111 | Les Miserables | Victor Hugo | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 112 | Listening Below the Noise | Anne D. LeClaire | Lone Wolf |
| 113 | Little Women | Louisa M. Alcott | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 114 | Living Alone and Loving It | Barbara Feldon | About Great Books |
| 115 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 116 | Lonesome Traveler | Jack Kerouac | Bustle |
| 117 | Lord of the Flies | William Golding | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 118 | Lost Trail: Nine Days Alone in the Wilderness | Donn Fendler | Goodreads |
| 119 | Love In The Time Of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 120 | Madame Bovary | Gustave Flaubert | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 121 | Mar Sem Fim | Amyr Klink | Goodreads |
| 122 | Married But Lonely | David E. Clarke | About Great Books |
| 123 | Memoirs of a Geisha | Arthur Golden | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 124 | Middlemarch | George Eliot | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 125 | Midnight’s Children | Salman Rushdie | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 126 | Migrations to Solitude | Sue Halpern | Lone Wolf |
| 127 | Moby Dick | Herman Melville | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 128 | Moderato cantabile | Marguerite Duras | Goodreads 2 |
| 129 | Monsieur Teste | Paul Valéry | Goodreads 2 |
| 130 | More Readings From One Man’s Wilderness: The Journals of Richard L. Proenneke, 1974-1980 | Richard L. Proenneke | Goodreads |
| 131 | Mountains of the Mind | Five Books | |
| 132 | Mourning Diary | Roland Barthes | Publishers Weekly |
| 133 | Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf | Bustle |
| 134 | My Happy Life | Lydia Millet | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 135 | My Name is Joe | Stefan Bourque | Goodreads 2 |
| 136 | My Side of the Mountain (Mountain, #1) | Jean Craighead George | Goodreads |
| 137 | Nausea | Jean-Paul Sartre | Goodreads 2 |
| 138 | Neon Pilgrim | Lisa Dempster | Goodreads |
| 139 | Never Be Lonely Again: The Way Out of Emptiness, Isolation, and a Life Unfulfilled | Pat Love and Jon Carlson | Online Psychology Degree |
| 140 | Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro | Goodreads 2 |
| 141 | New Seeds of Contemplation (Shambhala Classics Library) | Thomas Merton | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 142 | Norwegian Wood | Haruki Murakami | Goodreads 2 |
| 143 | Notes From A Small Island | Bill Bryson | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 144 | Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 145 | Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 146 | On My Own: The Art of Being a Woman Alone | Florence Falk | Goodreads |
| 147 | On The Road | Jack Kerouac | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 148 | One Man’s Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey | Sam Keith | Goodreads |
| 149 | Open City | Teju Cole | Bustle |
| 150 | Opp Oridongo | Ingvar Ambjørnsen | Goodreads 2 |
| 151 | Our Lady of the Flowers | Jean Genet | Goodreads 2 |
| 152 | Pan | Knut Hamsun | The Guardian |
| 153 | Persuasion | Jane Austen | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 154 | Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | Five Books | |
| 155 | Positive Solitude: A Practical Program for Self-Fulfillment | Rae Andre | Online Psychology Degree |
| 156 | Possession | AS Byatt | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 157 | Possum Perkins | William Taylor | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 158 | Poustinia: Encountering God in Silence, Solitude, and Prayer | Catherine de Hueck Doherty | Lone Wolf |
| 159 | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 160 | Quicksand | Nella Larsen | Bustle |
| 161 | Quiet Strength: Embracing, Empowering and Honoring Yourself as an Introvert | Aletheia Luna | Lone Wolf |
| 162 | Rebecca | Daphne Du Maurier | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 163 | Reflections on a Mountain Lake | Five Books | |
| 164 | Reveries of the Solitary Walker | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Goodreads 2 |
| 165 | Saturn Apartments, Vol. 1 (Saturn Apartments, #1) | Hisae Iwaoka | Goodreads 2 |
| 166 | Savage Solitude | Máighréad Medbh | Lone Wolf |
| 167 | Sea Room | Five Books | |
| 168 | Self-Reliance | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Bustle |
| 169 | Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 170 | Seymour, an Introduction | JD Salinger | The Guardian |
| 171 | Sherry and Narcotics | Nina-Marie Gardner | Goodreads 2 |
| 172 | Siddhartha | Hermann Hesse | Goodreads 2 |
| 173 | Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered | E. F. Schumacher | Lone Wolf |
| 174 | Sputnik Sweetheart | Haruki Murakami | The Hungry Reader |
| 175 | Stillness: Daily Gifts of Solitude | Richard Mahler | Lone Wolf |
| 176 | Stop Being Lonely: Three Simple Steps to Developing Close Friendships and Deep Relationships | Kira Asatryan | Online Psychology Degree |
| 177 | Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 178 | Taken on Trust | Terry Waite | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 179 | Tess of the D’Urbervilles | Thomas Hardy | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 180 | The Affairs of Others | Amy Grace Loyd | NPR |
| 181 | The Bible | The Bookshelf of Emily J. | |
| 182 | The Call of Solitude: Alonetime in a World of Attachment | Ester Schaler Buchholz | Lone Wolf |
| 183 | The Color Purple | Alice Walker | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 184 | The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 185 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time | Mark Haddon | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 186 | The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 187 | The Desert Fathers | Five Books | |
| 188 | The Devil in Silver | Victor LaValle | Bustle |
| 189 | The Enigma of Arrival | V.S. Naipaul | The Hungry Reader |
| 190 | The Faraway Tree Collection | Enid Blyton | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 191 | The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am | Kjersti A. Skomsvold | NPR |
| 192 | The Five People You Meet In Heaven | Mitch Albom | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 193 | The Glass Bead Game | Hermann Hesse | Goodreads 2 |
| 194 | The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 195 | The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 196 | The Greatest Escape: Adventures in the History of Solitude | David Balcom | Lone Wolf |
| 197 | The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 198 | The Heart is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers | Goodreads 2 |
| 199 | The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 200 | The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 201 | The Hunter | Julia Leigh | Goodreads 2 |
| 202 | The Inferno | Dante | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 203 | The Journals of John Cheever | Publishers Weekly | |
| 204 | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini – | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 205 | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | CS Lewis | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 206 | The Little Prince | Antoine De Saint-Exupery | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 207 | The Loneliness Cure: Six Strategies for Finding Real Connections in Your Life | Kory Floyd | Online Psychology Degree |
| 208 | The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American | David Riesman, Todd Gitlin, Nathan Glazer | About Great Books |
| 209 | The Lord of the Rings | J. R. R. Tolkien | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 210 | The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 211 | The Madman: His Poems & Parables | Khalil Gibran | Bustle |
| 212 | The Man Who Quit Money | Mark Sundeen | Lone Wolf |
| 213 | The Martian | Andy Weir | Goodreads 2 |
| 214 | The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka | Goodreads 2 |
| 215 | The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living | Mark Boyle | Lone Wolf |
| 216 | The Mysteries of Pittsburgh | Michael Chabon | The Guardian |
| 217 | The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge | Rainer Maria Rilke | Goodreads 2 |
| 218 | The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod | Henry Beston | Goodreads |
| 219 | The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God | Elisabeth Eliot | About Great Books |
| 220 | The Peregrine | J.A. Baker | Goodreads 2 |
| 221 | The Poet of Tolstoy Park | Sonny Brewer | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 222 | The Point of Vanishing: A Memoir of Two Years in Solitude | Howard Axelrod | Goodreads |
| 223 | The Portable Thoreau | Henry David Thoreau | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 224 | The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment | Ekhart Tolle | Online Psychology Degree |
| 225 | The Remains of the Day | Kazuo Ishiguro | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 226 | The Sea, the Sea | Iris Murdoch | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 227 | The Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson Burnett | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 228 | The Secret History | Donna Tartt | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 229 | The Shadow of the Wind | Carlos Ruiz Zafon | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 230 | The Snow Goose | Paul Gallico | Goodreads 2 |
| 231 | The Solitude of Prime Numbers | Paolo Giordano | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 232 | The Solitude of Thomas Cave | Georgina Harding | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 233 | The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating | Elisabeth Tova Bailey | Goodreads |
| 234 | The Spear in the Sand | Raoul C. Faure | Goodreads 2 |
| 235 | The Stations of Solitude | Alice Koller | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 236 | The Stranger | Albert Camus | Goodreads 2 |
| 237 | The Strangest | Michael J. Seidlinger | Goodreads 2 |
| 238 | The Three Musketeers | Alexandre Dumas | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 239 | The Time Traveler’s Wife | Audrey Niffenegger | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 240 | The Tombs of Atuan | Ursula K. Le Guin | Publishers Weekly |
| 241 | The Trial | Franz Kafka | Goodreads 2 |
| 242 | The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise | Garret Keizer | Lone Wolf |
| 243 | The Wall | Marlen Haushofer | Publishers Weekly |
| 244 | The Wasp Factory | Iain Banks | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 245 | The way of the heart | Henri J M Nouwen | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 246 | The Well of Loneliness | Radclyffe Hall | About Great Books |
| 247 | The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 248 | The Woman Destroyed | Simone de Beauvoir | Goodreads 2 |
| 249 | The Woman in the Dunes | Kōbō Abe | Goodreads 2 |
| 250 | The Woman in White | Wilkie Collins | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 251 | Then We Came to the End | Joshua Ferris | Goodreads 2 |
| 252 | This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency | Anthony Papa | Goodreads |
| 253 | Thoughts in Solitude | Thomas Merton | What Shoul I Read Next? |
| 254 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra | Friedrich Nietzsche | Goodreads 2 |
| 255 | Till Tomorrow | Patrick Manzi | Goodreads 2 |
| 256 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 257 | To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | The Guardian |
| 258 | Too Loud a Solitude | Bohumil Hrabal | Goodreads 2 |
| 259 | Towards Another Summer | Janet Frame | Publishers Weekly |
| 260 | Ulysses | James Joyce | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 261 | Vanity Fair | William Makepeace Thackeray | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 262 | Villette | Charlotte Brontë | Goodreads 2 |
| 263 | Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich | Duane Elgin | Lone Wolf |
| 264 | War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 265 | Watership Down | Richard Adams | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 266 | Where God Begins to Be | Karen Karper | Lone Wolf |
| 267 | Winnie the Pooh | AA Milne | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 268 | Wittgenstein’s Mistress | David Markson | Goodreads 2 |
| 269 | Woodswoman I: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness | Anne LaBastille | Goodreads |
| 270 | Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte | The Bookshelf of Emily J. |
| 271 | Yalnızlıklar | Hasan Ali Toptaş | Goodreads 2 |
| 272 | Your Money or Your Life | Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin | Lone Wolf |
| 273 | Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence | George Michelsen Foy | Lone Wolf |
| 274 | Zorba the Greek | Nikos Kazantzakis | Goodreads 2 |
The Top Solitude Book Lists
| Source | Article |
| About Great Books | Top 10 Great Books About Loneliness: Self Help |
| Bustle | 13 Books To Read When You Have A Lot of Alone Time |
| Five Books | Sara Maitland recommends the best books on Silence |
| Goodreads | Best books about Solitude (non-fiction) |
| Goodreads 2 | Best books about Solitude (fiction) |
| Lone Wolf | 35 ENLIGHTENING BOOKS FOR INTROVERTS ON SILENCE, SOLITUDE AND SIMPLICITY |
| NPR | They Came From Inner Space: Three Books About Solitude |
| Online Psychology Degree | Top 10 Self-Help Books About Loneliness |
| Publishers Weekly | 10 Books About Loneliness |
| The Bookshelf of Emily J. | 100 BOOKS OF SOLITUDE |
| The Guardian | Top 10 books about being alone |
| The Hungry Reader | Top 5 Books on Solitude |
| What Shoul I Read Next? | Books with the subject: Solitude |
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