The Great Age of Storytelling (Knopf, forthcoming)
Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books (New York: Pegasus, 2015)
On Conan Doyle; or, The Whole Art of Storytelling (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011)
- Winner of the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical work
Classics for Pleasure (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007)
Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2005)
Bound to Please (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005)
An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003)
- Winner of the 2004 Ohioana Award for Nonfiction
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000)