Ranking Author Audrey Niffenegger’s Best Books (A Bibliography Countdown)
“What are Audrey Niffenegger’a Best Books?” We looked at all of Niffenegger’s authored bibliography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!
We took all of the books written by Audrey Niffenegger and looked at their Goodreads, Amazon, and LibraryThing scores, ranking them against one another to see which books came out on top. The books are ranked in our list below based on which titles have the highest overall score between all 3 review sites in comparison with all of the other books by the same author. The process isn’t super scientific and in reality, most books aren’t “better” than other books as much as they are just different. That being said, we do enjoy seeing where our favorites landed, and if you aren’t familiar with the author at all, the rankings can help you see what books might be best to start with.
The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
The Top Book’s Of Audrey Niffenegger
7 ) Her Fearful Symmetry
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 7
- Amazon: 6
- LibraryThing: 5
Six years after the phenomenal success of The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger has returned with a spectacularly compelling and haunting second novel set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London. When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina are semi-normal American teenagers–with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their cozy home in the suburbs of Chicago, and with an abnormally intense attachment to one another. The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the building’s other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martin’s devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt’s neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including–perhaps–their aunt, who can’t seem to leave her old apartment and life behind. Niffenegger weaves a captivating story in Her Fearful Symmetry about love and identity, about secrets and sisterhood, and about the tenacity of life–even after death.
6 ) The Adventuress
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 4
- Amazon: 4
- LibraryThing: 7
The author of the New York Times bestseller The Time Traveler’s Wife returns with another evocative “novel in pictures,” the much-anticipated follow-up to 2005’s The Three Incestuous Sisters. The Adventuress follows the dreamlike journey of an alchemist’s daughter. After she is kidnapped by a lascivious baron, she turns herself into a moth and flees to the garden of a charming butterfly collector named Napoleon Bonaparte. The story of how the two become lovers, and how their affair ends in tragedy and transcendence, is told through Niffenegger’s spare prose and haunting aquatint etchings. With a stunning and distinctive visual style reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey, this gothic romance packs the emotional heft of the world’s great fairy tales. It will delight fans of the author’s previous works and enchant an entirely new legion of readers.
5 ) The Three Incestuous Sisters
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 6
- Amazon: 2
- LibraryThing: 6
The Three Incestuous Sisters is an evocative, illustrated book by the best-selling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger. Reminiscent of the gothic style of Edward Gorey, Niffenegger’s visually stunning narrative affirms her genius as a storyteller. These rich pages present the tale of three very different sisters: one who is beautiful, one who is smart, and one who is talented. A melodrama of sibling rivalry unfurls as one sister is driven mad with jealousy due to the passionate love affair of another. Escalating to a dizzying climax, the romance of the two lovers ends in sabotage, shame, and despair. Haunting illustrations and lyrical prose depict a timeless tale of love, revenge, and ultimately, transcendence. The Three Incestuous Sisters is a unique and lavish tour de force, which showcases Audrey Niffenegger’s incredible talent as an artist and a writer.
3 ) Ghostly : A Collection of Ghost Stories
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 3
- Amazon: 7
- LibraryThing: 3
Collected and introduced by the bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry–including Audrey Niffenegger’s own fabulous new illustrations for each piece, and a new story by her–this is a unique and haunting anthology of some of the best ghost stories of all time. From Edgar Allan Poe to Kelly Link, M.R. James to Neil Gaiman, H.H. Munro to Audrey Niffenegger herself, Ghostly reveals the evolution of the ghost story genre with tales going back to the eighteenth century and into the modern era, ranging across styles from Gothic Horror to Victorian, stories about haunting–haunted children, animals, houses. Every story is introduced by Audrey Niffenegger, an acclaimed master of the craft, with some words on its background and why she chose to include it. Audrey’s own story is “A Secret Life With Cats.” Perfect for the classic and contemporary ghost story aficionado, this is a delightful volume, beautifully illustrated by Audrey, who is a graphic artist with great vision.
3 ) Raven Girl
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 5
- Amazon: 4
- LibraryThing: 4
Once there was a Postman who fell in love with a Raven. So begins the tale of a postman who encounters a fledgling raven while on the edge of his route and decides to bring her home. The unlikely couple falls in love and conceives a child — an extraordinary raven girl trapped in a human body. The raven girl feels imprisoned by her arms and legs and covets wings and the ability to fly. Betwixt and between, she reluctantly grows into a young woman, until one day she meets an unorthodox doctor who is willing to change her. Complete with Audrey Niffenegger’s bewitching etchings and paintings, Raven Girl explores the bounds of transformation and possibility in a dark fairy tale full of wonderment and longing.
2 ) The Night Bookmobile
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 2
- Amazon: 3
- LibraryThing: 2
First serialised in the Guardian, The Night Bookmobile tells the story of a young woman who one night encounters a mysterious disappearing mobile library that happens to stock every book she has ever read. Seeing her history and her most intimate self in this library, she embarks on a search for the bookmobile. Over time, her search turns into an obsession as she longs to be reunited with her own collection and her memories.
1 ) The Time Traveler’s Wife
Review Website Ranks:
- Goodreads: 1
- Amazon: 1
- LibraryThing: 1
A funny, often poignant tale of boy meets girl with a twist: what if one of them couldn’t stop slipping in and out of time? Highly original and imaginative, this debut novel raises questions about life, love, and the effects of time on relationships. Audrey Niffenegger’s innovative debut, The Time Traveler’s Wife, is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing. The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s marriage and their passionate love for each other as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals—steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
Audrey Niffenegger’s Best Books
Audrey Niffenegger Review Website Bibliography Rankings
Book | Goodreads | Amazon | LibraryThing | Overal Rank |
The Time Traveler’s Wife | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
The Night Bookmobile | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Ghostly : A Collection of Ghost Stories | 3 | 7 | 3 | 3 |
Raven Girl | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
The Three Incestuous Sisters | 6 | 2 | 6 | 5 |
The Adventuress | 4 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
Her Fearful Symmetry | 7 | 6 | 5 | 7 |