St. Vincent's Reading List

Notable reader profiled on radicalreads.com. 36 favorite books recommended in their radicalreads feature.

Favorite books (2025)

Favorite books recommended by St. Vincent, as compiled by radicalreads.com. Source article: https://radicalreads.com/st-vincent-favorite-books/.

Source: radicalreads.com

White Girls

Hilton Als · Buy on Amazon

"Why did it take me this long to read White Girls by Hilton Als? Forgive me, universe."

Malcolm X At Oxford Union: Radical Politics In A Global Era

Saladin Ambar (READ: The Books Malcolm X Read In Prison ) · Buy on Amazon

A Lover’s Discourse

Roland Barthes · Buy on Amazon

Mythologies

Roland Barthes · Buy on Amazon

"Mythologies . I’d rather read a Barthes deconstruction of sports than watch sports. Nerd alert!"

The Aleph

Jorge Luis Borges · Buy on Amazon

The Night of the Gun

David Carr · Buy on Amazon

"David Carr’s book, The Night of the Gun , inspired my last record. So grateful to have known the brilliant and kind news man."

Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion (READ: Joan Didion’s Literary Influences ) · Buy on Amazon

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Joan Didion (also rec’d by Carrie Brownstein ) · Buy on Amazon

"Am pretty obsessed with Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem ."

The White Album

Joan Didion (also rec’d by Annie Clark & Kim Gordon ) · Buy on Amazon

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion · Buy on Amazon

Bossypants

Tina Fey (also · Buy on Amazon

"It perhaps goes without saying, but I read Tina Fey’s new book, Bossypants . It perhaps goes without saying that I loved it."

The Magus

John Fowles · Buy on Amazon

The Journals of Spalding Gray

Spalding Gray · Buy on Amazon

Black Like Me

John Howard Griffin · Buy on Amazon

The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway · Buy on Amazon

How Should A Person Be?

Sheila Heti · Buy on Amazon

"Just picked up Sheila Heti’s new book How Should A Person Be? and finished it in 24 hours."

Animal Love

Hal Herzog · Buy on Amazon

The Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

Werner Herzog · Buy on Amazon

Air Guitar

David Hickey · Buy on Amazon

Submission

Michel Houellebecq · Buy on Amazon

The Age of Spiritual Machines

Ray Kurzweil · Buy on Amazon

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain (also rec’d by Kim Gordon ) · Buy on Amazon

"It’s so good. It makes me want to read, just read."

Bark

Lorrie Moore · Buy on Amazon

I Am the New Black

Tracy Morgan · Buy on Amazon

The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning

Maggie Nelson · Buy on Amazon

Sex at Dawn

Christopher Ryan · 2010 · Buy on Amazon

"I’m going to go ahead and wholeheartedly recommend reading Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan."

Classic Works

Bertrand Russell · Buy on Amazon

The Collected Poems

Dylan Thomas (also rec’d by Steve Jobs ) · Buy on Amazon

When Marina Abramovic Dies

James Westcott (READ: Marina Abramovic’s Bookshelf ) · Buy on Amazon

The Collected Plays

Tennessee Williams · Buy on Amazon

"I was a lusty kid who loved Tennessee Williams plays. Sexy plays."

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, And The Prison Of Belief

Lawrence Wright · Buy on Amazon

Suggest an update?