Novels

• 1973 Judah the Pious Atheneum (Macmillan reissue 1986 ISBN 0-8398-2913-2)
• 1974 The Glorious Ones (ISBN 0-06-149384-8, Harper Perennial reissue 10/07)
• 1977 Marie Laveau Berkley Publishing Corp. (ISBN 039911873X
• 1981 Household Saints St. Martin's Press (ISBN 0-312-39341-5)
• 1983 Hungry Hearts Pantheon (ISBN 0-394-52767-4)
• 1986 Bigfoot Dreams Pantheon (ISBN 0-8050-4860-X)
• 1992 Primitive People Farrar Straus & Giroux (ISBN 0-374-23722-0)
• 1995 Hunters and Gatherers Farrar
• 2000 Blue Angel Harper Perennial (ISBN 978-0060953713)
• 2003 "After" HarperCollin's (ISBN 0-06-008082-5)
• 2005 A Changed Man HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-019674-2)
• 2008 Goldengrove HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-621411-4)
• 2009 "Touch" HarperTeen (ISBN 978-0-06-137517-0) (young adult literature|young adult novel)

Short story collections

• 1988 Women and Children First Pantheon (ISBN 0-394-56573-8)
• 1997 Guided Tours of Hell Metropolitan (ISBN 0-8050-4861-8)
• 1998 The Peaceable Kingdom Farrar Straus & Giroux (ISBN 0-06-075404-4)

Children's books

• 2005 Leopold, the Liar of Leipzig HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-008075-2)

Nonfiction

• 2002 The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-019672-6)
• 2003 Gluttony Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-515699-4) (second in the Seven Deadly Sins series)
• 2003 Sicilian Odyssey National Geographic (ISBN 0-7922-6535-1)
• 2005 Caravaggio : Painter of Miracles Eminent Lives (ISBN 0-06-057560-3)
• 2006 Reading Like a Writer HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-077704-4)
• 2009 Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife HarperCollins (ISBN 0-06-143079-X)

Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife

Book reviews

• April 17, 2005 "'The Peabody Sisters': Reflected Glory": The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, by Megan Marshall, Houghton Mifflin (ISBN 0-395-38992-5)
• May 22, 2005 "'Oh the Glory of It All': Poor Little Rich Boy": Oh the Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey, Penguin (ISBN 1-59420-051-3)
• June 12, 2005 "'Marriage, a History': Lithuanians and Letts Do It," Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, Or How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz, Viking (ISBN 0-670-03407-X)
• August 14, 2005 "'Eudora Welty': Not Just at the P.O.," New York Times: Eudora Welty: A Biography, by Suzanne Marrs, Harcourt Trade (ISBN 0-15-100914-7)
• December 4, 2005 "Slayer of Taboos," New York Times: D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider, by John Worthen, Basic Books (ISBN 1-58243-341-0)
• April 2, 2006 "Science Fiction," New York Times: The Book About Blanche and Marie, by Per Olov Enquist, Translated by Tiina Nunnally, Overlook (ISBN 1-58567-668-3)
• July 9, 2006 "The Folklore of Exile," New York Times: Last Evenings on Earth, by Roberto Bolaño, Translated by Chris Andrews, New Directions (ISBN 0-8112-1634-9)
• December 2008 "More is More: Roberto Bolaño's Magnum Opus", Harper's Magazine: 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (ISBN 0-374-10014-4)
• Dec/ Jan 2010 "Altar Ego," Bookforum: Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller, Nan A. Talese (ISBN 978-0-385-51399-9)