Order of Book Series
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David Joy Books in Order

David Joy has written 6 books, published between 2011 and 2023. The first book is Growing Gills (2011) and the newest is Those We Thought We Knew (2023). Publication order is the reading order below.

Books
6
Published
2011–2023
Pages on record
712 in 3 of 6 books
Reading time
12–18 hours

Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 712 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 3 of 6 titles with a page count on record.

See all 6 books in order Printable David Joy checklist
Photo of David Joy, author

David Joy, born 1983, is an American fiction writer from North Carolina, and the Appalachian mountains of that state carry most of the work. Growing Gills (2011) opens the catalogue, with fly fishing and brook trout among its subjects, and the novels follow: Where All Light Tends to Go (2015), The Weight of this World (2017), The Line That Held Us (2018), When These Mountains Burn (2020) and Those We Thought We Knew (2023). Fathers and sons, drug dealers, criminals and coming of age recur. Joy studied at Western Carolina University under Ron Rash and writes for Garden & Gun, Time and The New York Times Magazine.

How many David Joy books are there?

David Joy has 6 books, released between 2011 and 2023.

David Joy Books in Publication Order

The table lists all 6 David Joy books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.

  1. Cover of Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy (2015)
  2. Cover of The Weight of this World by David Joy (2017)
  3. Cover of When These Mountains Burn by David Joy (2020)
  4. Cover of Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy (2023)
  1. 1
    Growing Gills2011 · 196 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2011196
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  2. 2
    Where All Light Tends to Go2015 · 260 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2015260
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  3. 3
    The Weight of this World2017 · confirmed 2/4
    2017–
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  4. 4
    The Line That Held Us2018 · 256 pages · confirmed 2/4
    2018256
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  5. 5
    When These Mountains Burn2020 · confirmed 2/4
    2020–
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK
  6. 6
    Those We Thought We Knew2023 · confirmed 2/4
    2023–
    Buy at Amazon USAmazon UK

David Joy books grouped by series

Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.

Standalone books

6 books

6 David Joy titles here are not listed as part of any series.

Do you have to read David Joy books in order?

No. No source lists any of the 6 David Joy books here as part of a series. The numbered table above gives them by publication date.

Where to start with David Joy

Start with Growing Gills (2011), the earliest published title.

What is the newest David Joy book?

Those We Thought We Knew (2023) is the newest David Joy book released so far.

Is there a new David Joy book coming?

No next David Joy book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.

David Joy at a glance

Paused
No new David Joy title has appeared for 3 years. The last was published in 2023.
Release pace
David Joy books have appeared about one every 2 years on average.
Length
712 pages across the 3 of 6 books with a recorded length, a median of 256 pages each.
Busiest decade
Most David Joy books, 4 of 6, were published in the 2010s.

What the David Joy books are about

5 of the 6 David Joy books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: appalachian mountains is tagged on 2 of 5. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.