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A voracious reader, the president liked poetry, Civil War history and Southern fiction. He also sent Erica Jong a fan letter.

He wasn’t just prolific, publishing 32 books. His output also showed an unusual range that included memoirs and forays into historical fiction and even poetry.

Didion’s influential account of the era, “The White Album,” captures the ripples of terror provoked by the 1969 murders.

Her distinctive prose and sharp eye were tuned to an outsider’s frequency, telling us about ourselves in essays that are almost reflexively skeptical. Here’s where to start.

An indefatigable gardener, she was one of the first nutritionists to emphasize the connections between farming practices and consumers’ health.

An influential arts administrator and educator, he was a trusted confidant to countless writers, notably Philip Roth.

By merrily using fiction to dissect itself, he was at the vanguard of a movement that defined a postwar American style.

His sprawling and boisterous novel “The Sot-Weed Factor,” published in 1960, projected him into the ranks of the country’s most innovative writers.

He won a National Book Award for “Spartina,” beating out novels by Amy Tan and E.L. Doctorow. A longtime professor, he lived for a time without electricity on an island.

John D. MacDonald was eerily prescient about the risks of human-driven climate disasters in the region.