All Episodes
Zero to Well-Read — 61 episodes
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
17 Books to Better Understand America, with Sharon McMahon
Ask Us Anything: Anniversary Mailbag Edition
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, with Rob Harvilla
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Curating the Canon, with Gilbert Cruz
The Sci-Fi Novel That Predicted 2026
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Book vs. Movie: The Odyssey
How to Get More Out of Your Reading, and More From the Mailbag
The Odyssey of Homer
The United States Constitution, with Amanda Nelson
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
How to Tackle Intimidating Books, with Emily Wilson
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
How to Read Toni Morrison and Where to Start, with Namwali Serpell
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
A Classic Summer Read
Start Here: Welcome to Zero to Well-Read!
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
James by Percival Everett
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
How to Hone Your Reading Skills, What Makes a Good Reading Goal, and More from the Mailbag
Forever... by Judy Blume
The Book ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is Based On
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
1984 by George Orwell
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
"Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
How to Read More (and Better) in 2026
What We've Learned Returning to the Great Books
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
2025 Canon Contenders
Introducing Origin Stories
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Oedipus the King by Sophocles
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Welcome to Zero to Well-Read!