Here Are All the Books in FRIENDS — And its Best Bookish Moments

Episode 12: Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
Monica dates a fellow waiter at her themed diner, a “romantic” who writes poetry and says he thought the Baudelaire would be good, but that the translation was “no good.’ At first, Julio seems almost comically romantic (“I could write an epic poem about this lip”), but the friends are appalled when he stops having sex with her to write a poem that’s called “The Empty Vase”, and it more or less implies Monica is shallow (“now that I’ve touched you, you’re emptier still”). Luckily, when she calls him out on it, he clarifies — it’s about all women. Well. All American women. Super. Maybe the flowers of evil could go in the vase!

Episode 13: The Shining by Stephen King & Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
This is the single greatest bookish episode of Friends. After Rachel finds The Shining in the freezer, Joey tells her that it’s his favorite book — he reads it again and again — but that when he gets scared, he puts it in the freezer. Rachel says that the only book she’s read more than once is Little Women, so they decide to trade favorite books. (“These little women. How little are they? I mean, are they like, scary little?”)

Joey enjoys Little Women, although he’s confused about the details (Ross and Chandler have to break it to him that Jo is a girl, and Laurie a guy.) “No wonder Rachel had to read this so many times,” he grumbles. But when Joey spoils the “best part” of The Shining (despite his best attempts to “talk in code”), Rachel responds by spoiling Little Women — which is emotionally devastating. “Is that true?” Joey asks in tears. “Joey’s asking if you’ve just ruined the only book he’s ever loved that didn’t star Jack Nicholson,” Ross says, urging Rachel to take it back (which he does).

Rachel’s so jumpy reading The Shining that she threatens Monica with a potato masher. But it’s nothing compares to what Joey goes to. At the end of the episode, when he starts approaching…that part, he and Rachel make a tough decision: it’s time to put Little Women in the freezer.

Plus: Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession by Studs Terkel
Ross is hitting the books and showing his interest in current events with a 1992 new release and bestseller that he’s reading in the coffee shop. Particularly interesting since Friends wasn’t exactly the most diverse of shows!

Episode 13: What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff
Phoebe is preparing for triplets! In a later episode, when the friends are leaving for London, she asks Chandler to give her a hug goodbye — only to reveal it’s a trick to get him to bring her stuff before he goes, including this book.

Episode 22: How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan
Rachel is reading this book about a woman trying to get her life back after a bad break-up when she finds out that her still-freshly-ex-boyfriend Ross is bringing a date to Joey’s play, and decides she’ll need to find one too.

Plus: The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle
This book (by the author of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial) is an adult, comic story about a black bear who stumbles on a manuscript in the forest and decides to seek his fortune in Manhattan.

Episode 25: The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion
Rachel is reading a book about a woman uncovering a deep, dark conspiracy when Bonnie walks up and complains about sand in her hair — and Rachel plants the seed that she should shave her head again, the small act that pushes her and Ross back together (however briefly).

Season 4

Episode 5: Anthem by Ayn Rand
Rachel is reading this gigantic white hardcover (the book is just 105 pages, so why it’s this big I’ll never know) in the coffee shop while Ross brags about a girl’s phone number he got on a napkin. When she ignores him to pretend to read, he “drops it” casually onto her. At which point Phoebe sneezes into it. This book takes her a while to finish, and she’ll be reading it in episode 11 as well.

Episode 6: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Chandler gets a very, very special early edition for Joey’s girlfriend, Kathy, who he definitely is not-in-love-with. And what a present — the cheapest one I could find right now is $300.

Episode 15: Like a Hole in the Head by Jen Banbury
I have questions about this one! Here it’s clearly a joke about holes, as Monica is reading it after her obsessive quest to find the use for a light switch in their apartment, and has punched dozens of holes in the walls. She’s back reading it again in episode 17 when Phoebe comes in to pitch her knife business to help support Frank and Alice’s triplets.

Episode 21: Access London by Richard Saul Wurman
Chandler is reading this, which is ironic since he spends future episodes mocking Joey for being such a tourist in London.

Episode 24: Like a Hole in the Head by Jen Banbury
Remember, from before? It’s now in the hands of the passenger who Rachel keeps bothering with her story, at least until Hugh Laurie cuts in to tell her off. Someone from the show definitely knew this author, as she’s also named the fictional “renowned playwright” who wrote the wild play that Joey stars in throughout season 3.

Season 5

Episode 7: Practical Intuition in Love: Let Your Intuition Guide You to the Love of Your Life by Laura Day
Just before Rachel starts over-analyzing the behavior of the attractive neighbor Danny, Monica is reading this in the coffeehouse.

Episode 9: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë & Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Rachel agrees to take a course at the New School with Phoebe. But it doesn’t go to plan. Rachel doesn’t bother to read the book and then steals Phoebe’s analysis. So when she doesn’t read Jane Eyre either, Phoebe takes her revenge by feeding her false information. “The book is so ahead of its time,” Rachel says confidently to the professor. “Feminism, yes, but also, the robots.”

Episode 17: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Monica is reading it in the apartment as Phoebe says goodbye to her cop boyfriend…the cop boyfriend who will later shoot a singing bird in their apartment window, ending their relationship in seconds.

Episode 22: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Ross is reading this classic about interconnectedness and destiny, and famously about manifesting, as Joey wonders if his new movie will be his big break or not.

Season 6

Episode 2: Like a Hole in the Head by Jen Banbury
It’s back! Rachel is reading this on the couch before Monica tells her that Chandler and her moving in together will mean Rachel has to move out.

Episode 12: Blue Dog Man by George Rodrigue and Tom Brokaw
Chandler is reading this just before they find out that Joey is working at Central Perk, while one of the amazing artworks by Rodrigue hangs behind him. His paintings, and this book, appear many more times throughout the series.

Episode 13: The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
Rachel reads this book of wisdom about how every motion of our life is toward happiness just before Jill, her sister, comes in to talk to her about whether she can go on a date with Ross. Was she choosing happiness when she sabotaged Jill and Ross? Quite possibly.

Plus: Rebuilding the Indian: A Memoir by Fed Haefele
In this memoir, an expectant dad restores a motorcycle, seeking the meaning of life — meanwhile, Chandler reads it while fending off the advances of sick Monica, who is determined to seduce him to prove she isn’t sick.

Episode 14: Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 Stories To Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit edited by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
After the friends discover that Chandler doesn’t cry at sad movie endings, old childhood photos, or anything else (seemingly), they declare him “dead inside.” Monica catches Chandler reading Chicken Soup for the Soul, and he tries to hide it (by sliding it under the couch, but it slides right out the other side). Bonus: it definitely has a vintage Border’s sticker on the back.

Season 7

Episode 15: Beethoven’s Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved by Russell Martin
Ross is reading this in the coffeehouse when Monica and Chandler tell him that he can not, in fact, play his bagpipes at their wedding. Because they hate them. Classic Ross to start trying to get back into music by diving into some intense musical history nonfiction…

Episode 16: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Rachel reads this before Ross comes in to confront her about Ben’s practical jokes. Maybe not a coincidence that in this episode, Rachel accidentally teaches Ben the annoying game where you repeat everything the other person’s saying. And that later in the episode, she has to try and figure out how to get him to stop!

Season 8

Episode 5: What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff
Rachel is reading this when Joey comes in and tells her that Cash is cute — and interested. Unfortunately, this book didn’t warn Rachel that some guys aren’t down to date a pregnant woman — or that it would make Ross hella jealous.

Episode 7: The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy: Or Everything Your Doctor Won’t Tell You by Vicki Iovine
In this episode, Rachel’s reading it when Joey asks her to keep living with him when the baby comes. I’m sure the tone of the book appealed to her — including the section about how to “stay stylish” while pregnant.

Episode 7: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
This classic makes a return when Phoebe tries to date her twin sister’s ex-fiancé, and they quickly discover it’s too weird.

Episode 8: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Bringing Up Baby by Kevin Osborn and Signe Larson
Rachel’s slow spiral into more and more “conversational” baby books is so enjoyable! She reads it as her dad rants on the phone, furious at her pregnancy and the fact that she and Ross aren’t getting married. She leaves the book with the phone to go to a movie with Phoebe.

Episode 9: What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff
To start the episode, Joey’s sitting in a chair reading it as Rachel gets ready. He says to Rachel: “Did you know that during pregnancy, your fingers swell up to twice their size, and never go back?” When Rachel panics and grabs the book from him, he laughs. “You fall for it every time!”

Episode 11: Will the Circle be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth and Hunger for a Faith by Studs Terkel
Ross loves him some Studs Turkel. As a professor of paleontology, maybe Turkel gives him the kind of present-day analysis he wants. He’s reading it as Mona comes in and suggests they send out a holiday card.

Season 10

Episode 4: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
When Joey doesn’t have a present for Emma’s 1st birthday, he decides in a panic to do a dramatic reading. His improvised reading of Love You Forever brings everyone at the party to tears, and it’s the only sighting of a real-life, identifiable book in season 10!

Plus: Notable Fake Books

In season 2, episode 19, the girls become obsessed with spirtual-feminist book Be Your Own Windkeeper, an empowering book that turns them all first against men, and then against each other.

In season 7, episode 12, Chandler can’t fall asleep. He tries to read Monica’s “boring book” to fall asleep, the one with “the two women who are ice skating and wearing those hats with the flowers on it.” But then the book got interesting (“Damn you, Oprah!”). They go to talk about the book and he immediately spoils it for her (“How bummed were you when the second sister died?”), and while he tries to get out of it by claiming that was in his book, Monica quickly calls his bluff (“The second sister dies in Archie & Jughead double digest?”) I searched and searched for this ice skating women book, but came to the conclusion it doesn’t exist (if you know what it is, please let me know immediately).

Don’t forget Ross’s dissertation, which reportedly is mind-numbingly boring, and is so hidden in the back shelves of the library that students like to meet up and have sex in the stacks. But he hasn’t always been a bore! His comic book Science Boy that he wrote as a teen makes an appearance in season 9, episode 15. He lost it when a big thug (who turns out to have been teen Phoebe) mugged him. Luckily, Phoebe saved it all these years, and restores it to its author.

In season 7, episode 2, Joey finds a romance paperback under Rachel’s pillow, in which Zelda gets spicy with the chimney sweep. And we can’t forget Euphoria Unbound by Chandler’s mother, iconic romance author Nora Tyler Bing (she shows off the cover of it on late-night tv, season 1, episode 11) — or the absolutely terrible attempt at a romance novel Rachel tries to write that’s riddled with typos.

Go out and enjoy some reading — or some Friends! I promise that the books will always, always be there for you.