8 of Anthony Bourdain's Favorite Books

Anthony Bourdain brought a lot of himself into his work. Over the years, the chef and television host became known for telling stories about a kind of travel that took him not only to far corners of the world, but deep into the heart of the human experience, with all its joy and pain. 

Bourdain, a cult figure for journalists and travelers of all kinds, was unsurprisingly asked often about the books he loved. And as a lifelong avid reader, he frequently spoke and shared about his diverse love of literature. 

As a child, he was “a fast, voracious and precocious reader as a child [who] loved stories of adventure and lurid horror,” he told The New York Times. Over the years, he developed a love for everything from spy fiction to classic literature and obscure research topics. In 2011, he even launched his own publishing imprint within Ecco, part of HarperCollins.

From George Orwell to Joyce Carol Oates, from travel writing to crime fiction, Bourdain stacked his shelves with a wide array of books. Each one provides a small window into his worldview and influences. Here are eight of his favorites.

1. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas // Hunter S. Thompson 
2. Junky // William S. Burroughs
3. The Quiet American // Graham Greene
4. Between Meals: An Appetite For Paris // A.J. Liebling
5. How to Live, Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer // Sarah Bakewell
6. The White Album // Joan Didion
7. True Grit // Charles Portis
8. The Friends of Eddie Coyle // George V. Higgins

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas // Hunter S. Thompson 

Bourdain’s style of no-holds-barred, boots-on-the-ground journalism quite clearly hearkens back to the work of Hunter S. Thompson, who pioneered gonzo journalism in the late 1950 and ‘60s. Thompson’s breakout work was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, an unhinged and lurid account of several drug-addled reporting trips Thompson took. The story blurred fact and fiction and peered into the putrid epicenter of American excess. Bourdain called this “the book that probably influenced me more than any other,” and referred to Thompson as “a prose stylist and a personality who changed my life.” 

Junky // William S. Burroughs

Similar to Thompson, Burroughs’ work mixed fact and fiction and peered unflinchingly into the vulgar, out-of-control world of extreme drug use. Junky is a semi-autobiographical work that was loosely based on Burroughs’ own experiences with addiction to morphine and heroin, and while it is less experimental than some of Burroughs’ later works, such as Naked Lunch, its grotesqueness helped set the tone for Burroughs’ work to come. 

Bourdain once described this book as “filthy, dangerous, depraved, groundbreaking, and funny as hell.” For a young Bourdain, Burroughs—excessive, shocking, and resolutely nonconformist as he was—became an early idol. Burroughs was “not an ideal role model, I grant you,” the chef reflected. But he was “a writer I very much looked up to and wanted, for better or worse, to emulate.”

The Quiet American // Graham Greene

In 1951, the British novelist Graham Greene visited Vietnam, which was then part of French Indochina, the French colonial federation comprised of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In Vietnam, where France and the communist-led Viet Minh were at war, Greene surprised himself and “fell in love” with the country. 

He went on to pen The Quiet American, a book that explores the collapse of French colonialism in Vietnam and critiques America's creeping interventionalism in the nation. It portrays a character whose deluded American exceptionalism makes him blind to the damage he does to the Vietnamese around him.

Bourdain, who shared a deep love for Vietnam and a strong disdain for Western exploitation and colonialism, unsurprisingly appreciated this book—not only for its political messages but for its portrayal of the nation, which he found rang true to life.

“Drama, romance, tragic history in SE Asia? I’m there! I re-read it frequently. Particularly when visiting Vietnam,” Bourdain once said. “To me, The Quiet American is a happy book. I read it every year. It nails Vietnam. It’s still there, that Vietnam. It’s a perfect metaphor; he loves a woman who can never fully love him back. It is a perfect metaphor for colonialism and Western adventurism in the East. I don’t care, I just want to be there.” 

Between Meals: An Appetite For Paris // A.J. Liebling

Unsurprisingly, Bourdain—who made it his life’s work to tell stories about the world through the lens of food—appreciated good writing about eating, drinking, and dining. His unequivocal favorite was A.J. Liebling’s 1959 memoir Between Meals: An Appetite For Paris, in which the New Yorker staff writer recalls his experiences eating his way around Paris. 

Here, Liebling tells the story of his “apprenticeship in the fine art of eating” and blends vivid, joyous descriptions of food with witty, incisive insights into the people and places he visits. “No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures; no ascetic can be considered reliably sane,” writes Liebling at one point. This quote seems to align quite well with Bourdain’s own ethos.

This book is “‘food writing’ at its very, very best,” Bourdain once said. “Never surpassed. What all writing about eating should be.” He reflected further on the work to The New York Times. “A. J. Liebling’s “Between Meals” is his memoir of meals in Paris before and after the war, and it’s fantastic,” Bourdain said. “He was an enthusiastic lover of food and wine, very knowledgeable but never a snob. It’s the benchmark for great food writing.”

How to Live, Or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer // Sarah Bakewell

When asked by The New York Times if there was a book on his shelf that might surprise readers, Bourdain responded by mentioning the author Eve Babitz—and this nonfiction work by Sarah Bakewell. How to Live tells the life story of the Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne, who lived amid a civil war in the 16th century and wrote wide-ranging essays that explored some of life’s biggest questions, from how to get along with others to how to handle loss. It also intersperses pieces of Montaigne’s own work and reflects on his legacy over time. 

Bourdain was a big fan of the book, and told The Times that he “stole a tattoo design” from it. The tattoo in question was a reproduction of a coin that, according to Bakewell’s book, Montaigne had emblazoned with the Greek word epoché (ἐποχή), which essentially means “I suspend judgment.”

The White Album // Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s The White Album is an anthology of previously published essays that explore the 1960s in all its idealism, darkness, and complexity. Written in Didion’s trademark elegant, intense, and incisive style, the essays blend personal narrative with political commentary and weave in plenty of reflections on cultural and psychological fragmentation and human existence at large. 

Bourdain was a great admirer of Didion’s immaculate prose, once saying, “I wish I could write like Joan Didion.” He later told The Los Angeles Times that he was a major fan of essays, and subsequently described himself as a “huge Joan Didion fan.”

True Grit // Charles Portis

Another one of Bourdain’s favorite fiction books was Charles Portis’ 1968 classic True Grit. The book tells the story of Mattie Ross, who leaves home to avenge her father’s murder at the age of 14. Bourdain called the book “a masterpiece. Don’t settle for seeing the film versions,” he urged, noting that the book has “one of the great heroines of all time” and calling it a “magnificent book filled with great dialogue.” 

The Friends of Eddie Coyle // George V. Higgins

Bourdain read widely across many genres, and one particular type of novel he enjoyed was crime fiction. He also wrote crime fiction himself, and his first published novel was Bone in the Throat: A Novel of Death and Digestion, a thriller that told the story of a chef navigating a murder at his workplace. 

As far as inspirations went, Bourdain was especially fond of George V. Higgins’ 1971 book The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which he called “the best, most realistic crime novel ever” and claimed had the “best dialogue in a crime novel ever.” The book takes place in 1960s Boston and follows a series of mobsters and police as they navigate various crimes. It was adapted into a film in 1973, which Bourdain loved so much that he modeled a Boston-based episode of No Reservations after its cinematography.