’s The Sicilian Inheritance as one of these books once they crack it open, but I’d love to know - what was the last book you couldn’t stop reading, couldn’t stop talking about, and couldn’t stop thinking about once you finished?
Demon Copperhead. I loved the characters, especially Demon. And it was one of the best portrayals of trauma and multigenerational drivers of health that I’ve read.
I love Barbara Kingsolver and I love the idea of this book. I was not in a place to read it when I tried because of the heavy and unfortunately real traumatic subject matter. Maybe I'll give it another go.
I think it's really wise to gauge this for yourself. It's a tough read at times, though I ultimately found it hopeful. There is much to potentially be re-traumatizing for readers, so I appreciate this caution.
+1 for SICILIAN! And you and I have already discussed SPLINTERS by Leslie Jamison but whew that book embedded in my brain!
On a very much lighter note, I just started THE CHARM OFFENSIVE by Alison Cochrun, and it is delightful for anyone who needs their brain to just hang out in a fun frothy place for a minute.
Came here to say SPLINTERS. Currently listening to it and blown away by how Leslie Jamison so eloquently captures so many things I’ve felt/experienced. Tons of quotable lines and phrases.
Unexpectedly, due to its dark content, desolate setting, and lack of dialogue, I still think about Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff months after finishing it. Anyone else?
I kept waiting for something different to happen in this book. And it didn't. That is what made it intriguing. There was no easy way through for The Girl.
I have been heavily influenced by Substack in my recent reading :
This American Ex-wife, Class by Stephanie Land and most recently all of ACOTAR after the recent Culture Study podcast about it. All very different but I really enjoyed them all!
Currently reading A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future by Perri Klass, which is a tough read but also fascinating.
I LOVED You'll Grow Out of It! Have you also read her book I'll Show Myself Out?
How the Other Half Eats by Priya Fielding-Singh is also an excellent read if you're interested in motherhood & income disparity with regards to food purchasing/eating habits.
I.... hated Good Inside. I quit about 1/4 of the way in. I have very complicated feeling about Dr. Becky in general but I just cannot read another navel gazing parenting book.
Ann Patchett’s TOM LAKE and Chloe Caldwell’s collection of essays I’LL TELL YOU IN PERSON. Tom lake I read months ago, but I’m still reflecting on it. I just read I’ll Tell You in Person last week, after watching all five seasons of Broad City while my partner was away for 4 weeks and it felt like a lovely expansion on NYC + late twenties media.
Time’s Mouth by Edan Lepucki- time travel, a lady cult, coming of age; Do I Know You by Sadie Dingfelder (out soon) - a funny and sciency memoir about faceblindness and other things; Group Living and Other Recipes by Lola Milholland, a crisply written, fresh and page-turning set of essays on ways to live in community. (Also out soon).
So do I admit that I came on the thread and scanned it and then did the worst thing and searched my name to see if anyone was reading my book and FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER someone was?! LOL. No? I was not doing that! Never.
Yaaaay! It was so good and vivid and emotional. One of the best books I’ve read in ages. Everyone who likes really well-written and exciting books should read this ASAP. For people who like Station Eleven or The Last Policeman or Future of Another Timeline or All the Birds in the Sky. I cared so much for the characters! I could see all of the scenes playing out (and I can’t always do that!) Looooove!
YES! I loved this book, it took me forever to pick it up but I'm so glad I did. I am in awe of how Van Pelt depicted each of the characters, wove their stories together, and made me care about each of them.
thinking about books i still think about and don't disappear from my head immediately even if they were fun reads -
FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD by Louise Erdrich - pregnant woman in slowly devolving apocalypse dystopia, deals with the MC's experience of being Native American and adopted to a white family, really beautiful prose
DETRANSITION, BABY by Torrey Peters - a man who detransitioned from being a trans woman has an unintended pregnancy with his girlfriend, they start talking to his trans ex-girlfriend to process, many relationship dynamics ensue in present and flashback. the entire read i had no idea if i liked any of the characters or agreed with any of what they said, and the ending does have kind of a "so what was that all for" quality - BUT definitely worth the read in terms of compelling + readable + unique
THE CHRISTMAS ORPHANS CLUB by Becca Freeman - found family and friendship drama in a satisfying happy ending way! there is romance but the central romance is the friend group. i couldn't get a library hold during Christmas season but greatly enjoyed reading in February
for fantasy enjoyers - WAYWARD CHILDREN series by Seanan McGuire (first book is EVERY HEART A DOORWAY) - series of portal fantasies focusing on different young (usually queer girl) characters. each character has their own fantasy universe they've traveled to, and they end up back on our Earth and going to a school to process being kicked out and waiting to go back. there's a new one up to 9 novellas now every January and i look forward to the next one as one of my first books of the year immensely. they're all set in the same universe and will make more sense read in order, but they mostly all have a different MC even as recurring characters come back often. short in a way that does leave you wanting more but not in a frustrating way
I love WAYWARD CHILDREN. I think they do what classic fairy tales do: show a world where terrible things happen, but clever young people persevere. However, “happily ever after” is never quite what anyone imagined, and sometimes the terrible things are in the “real” world instead of the fantasy world - or everywhere!
Future Home of the Living God is a book I also read several years ago that I still think about, so intense and thought-provoking and disturbing, what a book.
I read CHRISTMAS ORPHANS just after Christmas, on a recommendation from Nora McInerny (Terrible, Thanks for Asking), and yes, it was just the light read I needed then. I think I will recommend it for my book group for next November-December.
I recently re-read Red State Christians by Rev. Angela Denker, and highly recommend it for anyone who want a nuanced examination of how Trumpism became the true faith of Evangelical Christians.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton- started slow but now I am staying up too late every night to see what happens (also no chapter breaks which makes that way too easy)
I finished The Women last week and am currently reading The Covenant of Water. He is such a beautiful writer. I wish someone would introduce him to an editor, because I just firmly believe no book needs to be more than 500 pages, but his words are so beautiful I still commit.
This was one of my favorite reads of the past few months. It was so well written and the story was compelling enough to keep me walking much longer than usual as I listened to the story.
Love all of these suggestions and agree with many of them. Also wanted to mention Four Thousand Weeks. Read it recently and think about it multiple times a day still.
OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA by Julia Armfield, which has elements of sci fi / horror, but is really about the nature of loss. On the shorter side, and really distinctive. I immediately put the author's previous book of short stories on hold for myself at the library.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. It has that tricky quality of being hard to read at points yet even harder to put down. The world is unlike our own, yet you can see how a few small tweaks could lead us down that path. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time after.
THE BEST MINDS: A Story of Friendship, Madness and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen. I almost didn’t read this because I thought it might be too heavy but I’m so glad I did. He articulates the context & issues with our mental health system so elegantly. I understood things in a way I never had before. Along with that, the personal nature of the story pulled me right in… I couldn’t put it down!
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel. It’s a really wonderful novel about a mother and her two daughters who lost their husband/father. Jane, the mother, embarks on an adventure to “de-extinct” a wooly mammoth and brings her daughters with her to Siberia to hunt for ancient DNA. On their trip, they actually end up…finding a wooly mammoth. What happens next? A great novel about relationships, climate change, parenthood, sisterhood, loss, and the ethics of bioengineering. It’s read almost like a thriller at times. It’s very good.
If you live in Texas or have ever lived in Texas or are interested in Red state politics, MR. TEXAS is a must-read. The story is true to life, the characters well drawn, and I felt like I was in Austin/West Texas as the story unfolded. The main character finds a way to collegially work on both sides of the aisle, so it is hopeful too!
Tim Alberta's book- The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory lays out in first-person detail how the Christian Nationalist movement has affected non-nationalist Christians.
Nina Simon's- Mother-Daughter Murder Night was a palate cleanser after thinking too long and hard about politics. I love how the mother-daughter relationship developed as they worked together to solve a murder when their granddaughter/daughter was a key witness. The story lends itself to good conversation about the power of forgiveness in strained relationships.
I am late to the party, but I read THE GUEST earlier this year and could not put it down.
Another good one is THEYRE GOING TO LOVE YOU. Its about family betrayal set against the backdrop of ballet and the AIDS pandemic in 80s NYC. Its so so so good. A perfect pick for book clubs too!
I am reading the new Tana French--she's always good for a slow burn Irish mystery/story about people's secrets. I love her attention to small tells when two people who don't trust each other are talking. Also reading All Things Are Too Small, essays by WaPo book critic Becca Rothfeld; they're very cerebral but also a bit saucy, and I'm into them. Also listening to Mary Gabriel's tome on Madonna on audio but the reader is so bad that I may have to give up--I'm at the Truth or Dare era, but the reader sounds like an AI phone person, with false cheer ("Sorry...I didn't get that...! Please dial zero....") and it's bringing me down. I highly recommend Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn, coming out in the next month or so? Very funny lesbians in hipster LA--I love Anna Dorn and I think this one will get her a wider audience.
I love Tana French but I tried multiple times to read the new Cal Hooper series and had to stop. I live in Chicago where police are reviled and the fact the main character is a retired Chicago cop?!? I just could not empathize no matter how hard o tried. A major bummer since I do love her work.
Oh I totally get that--I think if I had any connection to Chicago it'd be hard for me. I think he's the least fleshed out character and his backstory rarely informs the story as you think it might! I am mostly there for the IRISH town (aren't we all).
Troubled by Rob Henderson. Definitely not light and very hard to read at times - the American foster care system is a disaster and our allegedly “pro family” politicians are worthless. Not only informative about those issues though, but about his theory of luxury beliefs. Don’t know if I agree but I’m still thinking about it a week later.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I would linger over a sentence, reread it over and over, marveling at the art. The voice of the narrator, the way it changed as he passed through the years from child through to adult was astounding. It made me want to write fiction just for the impossible reach of craft that brilliant. And the story it tells, wow wow wow.
The last book I read that fit your description was IN MEMORIAM by Alice Winn... it was getting rave reviews on Culture Study, and I read it just before Christmas. It lived up to the hype. Just a beautiful, devastating, read -- and the author wasn't even 30 when she wrote it!!
A fun one that I read last year (twice!) that's stayed with me and that I've recommended to others was KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE by Deanna Raybourn. Just a whole lot of fun, with some pity commentary about aging, corporations, sexism, etc. I would love to see a movie version (so long as it doesn't stray too far from the source material), and a sequel!
Current read: THE IMPROBABILITY OF LOVE by Hannah Rothschild. It started out slow, but midway through it got really interesting and now I'm close to the end and having a hard time putting it down. (Picking it up again as soon as I hit post! lol)
If graphic novels are allowed, then Kate Beaton's *Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.* It is such a beautiful and complex meditation on being a woman in a remote and toxically masculine resource extraction worksite, on having to leave home to enjoy economic opportunities, on blue-collar work and culture, on simultaneously caring for and helping to destroy the environment, and so much more.
Currently listening to The Idea of You because I’m the girl who wants to read the book before the Anne Hathaway movie comes out next month. It’s sexy, fanfic adjacent, and just a nice unrealistic place to escape to in my headphones.
Our book club is meeting tomorrow night and this thread is so wonderful for our next monthly suggestion <3<3
THE LIST by Yomi Adegoke. What happens when a feminist writer’s fiancé is included in a Shitty Media Men type list that goes public a month before their wedding day? What does it matter that the UK’s overlapping Black and African-immigrant communities see them as #BlackCoupleGoals ? The characters feel REAL and there were a couple of good twists I didn’t see coming.
Even though I felt ambivalent about it while I was reading, Teju Cole’s TREMOR keeps floating back up in the back of my mind.
“And yet for each problem there are better and worse solutions, so the people continue to search through the gods, through money, through poetry, through the movies, through the reading of leaves and clouds and constellations for ever-better paths out of the problems of being human.”
And for comfort and funzies! Any and all of the LADY VIOLET mysteries by Grace Burrowes. They helped get me through an unexpectedly tragic January *and* there are a whole bunch that don’t involve murder (I get bored of mysteries that are only about murder).
My whole book club was obsessed with Yellowface by R.F. Kuang a couple of months ago. Could not stop talking about it, and I still think about it all the time.
If you liked this, I recommend The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. You'll find they bear weird similarities, but different enough - I think I ended up liking the Plot even better.
Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar was so good, but I cannot stop talking about Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson. It’s part memoir part history and I can’t get over the way it validates the experience of being silenced and sidelined as a woman in the church
South of Broad by Pat Conroy. My all time favorite book. The setting is in Charleston, SC which is a place very near and dear to my heart. The writing is just beautiful.
I picked up five-year-old THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD by Claire Lombardo from the library in February, following a recommendation in one of Anne Helen Petersen’s What Are You Reading? threads. Fast forward to April and I hadn’t touched it, but it got tapped as the Reese Witherspoon book of the month so the library is now clamoring to get it back. Halfway through and really enjoying it - I love an intergenerational family drama - and bonus the central location is Oak Park, IL, where I live. I had no idea!
I have retreated to the complete comfort food zone of Ann Patchett, currently an old paperback of "The Magician's Assistant" (you know it's from the '90s because the characters still smoke.)Such clear, lovely prose and well-told stories, absorbing characters. Contemporary fiction is exhausting me lately, just give me the deep satisfaction of an artful yet not "arty" seasoned novelist who really knows what she's doing.
I am looking for this experience with my next read so thank you for this thread! Currently reading BRAIDING SWEETGRASS which is so interesting and I'm learning a lot, but it doesn't keep me up past my bedtime like fiction.
I know, I feel late to it also. It is beautiful, and educational, and important, but none of those are actually the same as "it pulled me in from the first page". I *think* I might come to the end and feel it was too long. (I have almost never finished a non-fiction book and not felt that way!)
THE LIGHT PIRATE: maybe one of the best books I’ve ever read. I am biased as a 4th gen Floridian but it is such a haunting and beautiful look at what our state could look like as these hurricanes keep getting bigger and bigger. Totally got me into climate change dystopia 😂 and then promptly read and also loved THE DISPLACEMENTS. I found about that one when I wouldn’t stop talking about The Light Pirate to my librarian and she recommended it to me. God bless librarians.
For comfort reading, I will always go back to Ellery Adams’ cozy mysteries. I love her heroines so much that I sometimes imagine myself traveling to the settings and hanging out with them! They got me through the year after my mom died when I couldn’t bear to read anything remotely realistic or disturbing.
A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT and its sequel, A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY by Becky Chambers. A little futuristic but also so grounded and full of nature and life and comfort. These are very quick books, and they will forever be go-to comfort reads for me.
Demon Copperhead. I loved the characters, especially Demon. And it was one of the best portrayals of trauma and multigenerational drivers of health that I’ve read.
I love Barbara Kingsolver and I love the idea of this book. I was not in a place to read it when I tried because of the heavy and unfortunately real traumatic subject matter. Maybe I'll give it another go.
I think it's really wise to gauge this for yourself. It's a tough read at times, though I ultimately found it hopeful. There is much to potentially be re-traumatizing for readers, so I appreciate this caution.
I read the book & loved it, but I had to set it aside for awhile in the middle because it was just so much.
Hard agree. One of my favorite books of all time. I read it last year and still think about it frequently.
+1 for SICILIAN! And you and I have already discussed SPLINTERS by Leslie Jamison but whew that book embedded in my brain!
On a very much lighter note, I just started THE CHARM OFFENSIVE by Alison Cochrun, and it is delightful for anyone who needs their brain to just hang out in a fun frothy place for a minute.
my brain ALWAYS needs to hang out in a fun frothy place!
I loved THE CHARM OFFENSIVE! I find that about half my reading needs to be the lighter kind these days.
Came here to say SPLINTERS. Currently listening to it and blown away by how Leslie Jamison so eloquently captures so many things I’ve felt/experienced. Tons of quotable lines and phrases.
YES - and (especially for a memoir) it reads sort of like a thriller, you know? I found it so propulsive!
Unexpectedly, due to its dark content, desolate setting, and lack of dialogue, I still think about Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff months after finishing it. Anyone else?
Ahhhhh I need to read this - I love love loved The Matrix! (And Fates and Furies)
I just started matrix! So excited.
SO IMMERSIVE - loved it.
Oh good to hear, I just started reading Vaster Wilds earlier today.
I tore through Hello Beautiful earlier this week, and finished Tom Lake last week. A book I still think about years after reading is On Beauty.
Loved Tom Lake!
I kept waiting for something different to happen in this book. And it didn't. That is what made it intriguing. There was no easy way through for The Girl.
Vaster Wilds FTW! I mention it to everyone I know and warn them they both will not be able to stop reading and feel deep pain for The Girl
Agree--it was brilliantly done, I thought
I loved the book. It reminded me at times of the bleaker Cormac McCarthy novels, in a good way.
Loved Such a fun age by Kiley Reid for a good but quick read.
Her new one is great too!
I devoured that book!
I have been heavily influenced by Substack in my recent reading :
This American Ex-wife, Class by Stephanie Land and most recently all of ACOTAR after the recent Culture Study podcast about it. All very different but I really enjoyed them all!
Currently reading A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future by Perri Klass, which is a tough read but also fascinating.
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- Symphony of Secrets by Brendon Slocomb
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
- Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
- Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
- Horse by Geraldine Brooks
- The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
- Educated by Tara Westover
I know that’s a long list but those are the books I was wise enough to log in my Goodreads that I LOVE LOVE LOVED!
Homegoing is SO SO GOOD
So much overlap in my recent reading list that I need to add the ones I haven't read to mine!
Recently loved:
WELLNESS by Nathan Hill
YOU'LL GROW OUT OF IT by Jessi Klein
GOOD INSIDE by Dr. Becky
TRUST by Hernan Diaz (probably the best book of the last 5 years)
Oooo have you read THE NIX by Nathan Hill?! One of my fave books of the last 10 years. Even better than WELLNESS, imho.
I LOVED You'll Grow Out of It! Have you also read her book I'll Show Myself Out?
How the Other Half Eats by Priya Fielding-Singh is also an excellent read if you're interested in motherhood & income disparity with regards to food purchasing/eating habits.
I.... hated Good Inside. I quit about 1/4 of the way in. I have very complicated feeling about Dr. Becky in general but I just cannot read another navel gazing parenting book.
Just here to second Homegoing!! I read it a couple years ago and still think about it. Sooooo good.
Sooo good! I devoured Halloween weekend October 2021 and I still think about it often!
Ann Patchett’s TOM LAKE and Chloe Caldwell’s collection of essays I’LL TELL YOU IN PERSON. Tom lake I read months ago, but I’m still reflecting on it. I just read I’ll Tell You in Person last week, after watching all five seasons of Broad City while my partner was away for 4 weeks and it felt like a lovely expansion on NYC + late twenties media.
yesssss - have you read chloe's THE RED ZONE? really blew me away re: everything we don't know about periods.
also i'm reading jennifer romolini's AMBITION MONSTER right now and if you want more NYC media stuff, it's SOOOOO good.
I loved it!
I’ll check it out!
i resisted for a long time so i'm late to the game, but i'm finally reading the ACOTAR books 🫣 and truthfully...really enjoying them so far
I read “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” last fall and still think about it all the time.
I love this book SO SO much. It was one of my faves the year I read it!
I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. All of the characters had such emotional depth.
And so much artistry—the way she wove in the strawberry thief pattern blew my mind.
Time’s Mouth by Edan Lepucki- time travel, a lady cult, coming of age; Do I Know You by Sadie Dingfelder (out soon) - a funny and sciency memoir about faceblindness and other things; Group Living and Other Recipes by Lola Milholland, a crisply written, fresh and page-turning set of essays on ways to live in community. (Also out soon).
LADY CULTS YES PLEASE
AND time travel? This book has my number!
So do I admit that I came on the thread and scanned it and then did the worst thing and searched my name to see if anyone was reading my book and FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER someone was?! LOL. No? I was not doing that! Never.
Thank you for reading my book! :)
I LOVED California and am excited to read Time's Mouth. So happy to see you pop in here and thanks to @Miriam for the reading rec.
Oh my goodness--wow! What a day I am having! :)
It's a very good book!!!
Yaaaay! It was so good and vivid and emotional. One of the best books I’ve read in ages. Everyone who likes really well-written and exciting books should read this ASAP. For people who like Station Eleven or The Last Policeman or Future of Another Timeline or All the Birds in the Sky. I cared so much for the characters! I could see all of the scenes playing out (and I can’t always do that!) Looooove!
Ahhh, this is making my day, my year, my life! Thank you so much! So glad it resonated with you. xoxo
So many good recommendations above!!! One that I saw missing that I LOVED was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 🐙
ooooh yes!
YES! I loved this book, it took me forever to pick it up but I'm so glad I did. I am in awe of how Van Pelt depicted each of the characters, wove their stories together, and made me care about each of them.
thinking about books i still think about and don't disappear from my head immediately even if they were fun reads -
FUTURE HOME OF THE LIVING GOD by Louise Erdrich - pregnant woman in slowly devolving apocalypse dystopia, deals with the MC's experience of being Native American and adopted to a white family, really beautiful prose
DETRANSITION, BABY by Torrey Peters - a man who detransitioned from being a trans woman has an unintended pregnancy with his girlfriend, they start talking to his trans ex-girlfriend to process, many relationship dynamics ensue in present and flashback. the entire read i had no idea if i liked any of the characters or agreed with any of what they said, and the ending does have kind of a "so what was that all for" quality - BUT definitely worth the read in terms of compelling + readable + unique
THE CHRISTMAS ORPHANS CLUB by Becca Freeman - found family and friendship drama in a satisfying happy ending way! there is romance but the central romance is the friend group. i couldn't get a library hold during Christmas season but greatly enjoyed reading in February
for fantasy enjoyers - WAYWARD CHILDREN series by Seanan McGuire (first book is EVERY HEART A DOORWAY) - series of portal fantasies focusing on different young (usually queer girl) characters. each character has their own fantasy universe they've traveled to, and they end up back on our Earth and going to a school to process being kicked out and waiting to go back. there's a new one up to 9 novellas now every January and i look forward to the next one as one of my first books of the year immensely. they're all set in the same universe and will make more sense read in order, but they mostly all have a different MC even as recurring characters come back often. short in a way that does leave you wanting more but not in a frustrating way
I love WAYWARD CHILDREN. I think they do what classic fairy tales do: show a world where terrible things happen, but clever young people persevere. However, “happily ever after” is never quite what anyone imagined, and sometimes the terrible things are in the “real” world instead of the fantasy world - or everywhere!
yes!! the fairy tale quality is something i love and don't personally see in fantasy that much
Future Home of the Living God is a book I also read several years ago that I still think about, so intense and thought-provoking and disturbing, what a book.
I read CHRISTMAS ORPHANS just after Christmas, on a recommendation from Nora McInerny (Terrible, Thanks for Asking), and yes, it was just the light read I needed then. I think I will recommend it for my book group for next November-December.
I recently re-read Red State Christians by Rev. Angela Denker, and highly recommend it for anyone who want a nuanced examination of how Trumpism became the true faith of Evangelical Christians.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton- started slow but now I am staying up too late every night to see what happens (also no chapter breaks which makes that way too easy)
The Women by Kristin Hannah. And The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.
I finished The Women last week and am currently reading The Covenant of Water. He is such a beautiful writer. I wish someone would introduce him to an editor, because I just firmly believe no book needs to be more than 500 pages, but his words are so beautiful I still commit.
The Frozen River was an amazing historical fiction read
This was one of my favorite reads of the past few months. It was so well written and the story was compelling enough to keep me walking much longer than usual as I listened to the story.
Love all of these suggestions and agree with many of them. Also wanted to mention Four Thousand Weeks. Read it recently and think about it multiple times a day still.
OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA by Julia Armfield, which has elements of sci fi / horror, but is really about the nature of loss. On the shorter side, and really distinctive. I immediately put the author's previous book of short stories on hold for myself at the library.
I read this months ago and I still think about it. It's so so good and I've never read anything like it before or since.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. It has that tricky quality of being hard to read at points yet even harder to put down. The world is unlike our own, yet you can see how a few small tweaks could lead us down that path. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time after.
yes! i thought it would take me awhile to read because of the darkness of the concept, but it was both disturbing yet very readable and compelling.
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Such an interesting read about a complex family.
Wanted to know so much more about the main characters sister
love love love family sagas (and ann patchett!)
That was the best book I read that year, hands down! I also loved "Tom Lake."
THE BEST MINDS: A Story of Friendship, Madness and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen. I almost didn’t read this because I thought it might be too heavy but I’m so glad I did. He articulates the context & issues with our mental health system so elegantly. I understood things in a way I never had before. Along with that, the personal nature of the story pulled me right in… I couldn’t put it down!
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel. It’s a really wonderful novel about a mother and her two daughters who lost their husband/father. Jane, the mother, embarks on an adventure to “de-extinct” a wooly mammoth and brings her daughters with her to Siberia to hunt for ancient DNA. On their trip, they actually end up…finding a wooly mammoth. What happens next? A great novel about relationships, climate change, parenthood, sisterhood, loss, and the ethics of bioengineering. It’s read almost like a thriller at times. It’s very good.
If you live in Texas or have ever lived in Texas or are interested in Red state politics, MR. TEXAS is a must-read. The story is true to life, the characters well drawn, and I felt like I was in Austin/West Texas as the story unfolded. The main character finds a way to collegially work on both sides of the aisle, so it is hopeful too!
Tim Alberta's book- The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory lays out in first-person detail how the Christian Nationalist movement has affected non-nationalist Christians.
Nina Simon's- Mother-Daughter Murder Night was a palate cleanser after thinking too long and hard about politics. I love how the mother-daughter relationship developed as they worked together to solve a murder when their granddaughter/daughter was a key witness. The story lends itself to good conversation about the power of forgiveness in strained relationships.
I am late to the party, but I read THE GUEST earlier this year and could not put it down.
Another good one is THEYRE GOING TO LOVE YOU. Its about family betrayal set against the backdrop of ballet and the AIDS pandemic in 80s NYC. Its so so so good. A perfect pick for book clubs too!
you're the second person to rec this to me - a friend of mine called it "the perfect novel"!
You will not be disappointed Sara!
I am reading the new Tana French--she's always good for a slow burn Irish mystery/story about people's secrets. I love her attention to small tells when two people who don't trust each other are talking. Also reading All Things Are Too Small, essays by WaPo book critic Becca Rothfeld; they're very cerebral but also a bit saucy, and I'm into them. Also listening to Mary Gabriel's tome on Madonna on audio but the reader is so bad that I may have to give up--I'm at the Truth or Dare era, but the reader sounds like an AI phone person, with false cheer ("Sorry...I didn't get that...! Please dial zero....") and it's bringing me down. I highly recommend Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn, coming out in the next month or so? Very funny lesbians in hipster LA--I love Anna Dorn and I think this one will get her a wider audience.
that title alone is pure magic! (perfume and pain)
I love Tana French but I tried multiple times to read the new Cal Hooper series and had to stop. I live in Chicago where police are reviled and the fact the main character is a retired Chicago cop?!? I just could not empathize no matter how hard o tried. A major bummer since I do love her work.
Oh I totally get that--I think if I had any connection to Chicago it'd be hard for me. I think he's the least fleshed out character and his backstory rarely informs the story as you think it might! I am mostly there for the IRISH town (aren't we all).
Troubled by Rob Henderson. Definitely not light and very hard to read at times - the American foster care system is a disaster and our allegedly “pro family” politicians are worthless. Not only informative about those issues though, but about his theory of luxury beliefs. Don’t know if I agree but I’m still thinking about it a week later.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I would linger over a sentence, reread it over and over, marveling at the art. The voice of the narrator, the way it changed as he passed through the years from child through to adult was astounding. It made me want to write fiction just for the impossible reach of craft that brilliant. And the story it tells, wow wow wow.
Obsessed with Demon Copperhead! I have family from that area of the country which made the whole tale even more compelling
The new Tana French book. Can’t put it down
Ooooh it's been too long since I read a Tana French book! This is a good reminder.
The last book I read that fit your description was IN MEMORIAM by Alice Winn... it was getting rave reviews on Culture Study, and I read it just before Christmas. It lived up to the hype. Just a beautiful, devastating, read -- and the author wasn't even 30 when she wrote it!!
A fun one that I read last year (twice!) that's stayed with me and that I've recommended to others was KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE by Deanna Raybourn. Just a whole lot of fun, with some pity commentary about aging, corporations, sexism, etc. I would love to see a movie version (so long as it doesn't stray too far from the source material), and a sequel!
Current read: THE IMPROBABILITY OF LOVE by Hannah Rothschild. It started out slow, but midway through it got really interesting and now I'm close to the end and having a hard time putting it down. (Picking it up again as soon as I hit post! lol)
If graphic novels are allowed, then Kate Beaton's *Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands.* It is such a beautiful and complex meditation on being a woman in a remote and toxically masculine resource extraction worksite, on having to leave home to enjoy economic opportunities, on blue-collar work and culture, on simultaneously caring for and helping to destroy the environment, and so much more.
oooooh that sounds fascinating!
Currently listening to The Idea of You because I’m the girl who wants to read the book before the Anne Hathaway movie comes out next month. It’s sexy, fanfic adjacent, and just a nice unrealistic place to escape to in my headphones.
Our book club is meeting tomorrow night and this thread is so wonderful for our next monthly suggestion <3<3
I also just read and couldn't put down The Sicilian Inheritance! But other recent favorites have been Go As a River and The Great Reclamation. :)
THE LIST by Yomi Adegoke. What happens when a feminist writer’s fiancé is included in a Shitty Media Men type list that goes public a month before their wedding day? What does it matter that the UK’s overlapping Black and African-immigrant communities see them as #BlackCoupleGoals ? The characters feel REAL and there were a couple of good twists I didn’t see coming.
Even though I felt ambivalent about it while I was reading, Teju Cole’s TREMOR keeps floating back up in the back of my mind.
“And yet for each problem there are better and worse solutions, so the people continue to search through the gods, through money, through poetry, through the movies, through the reading of leaves and clouds and constellations for ever-better paths out of the problems of being human.”
And for comfort and funzies! Any and all of the LADY VIOLET mysteries by Grace Burrowes. They helped get me through an unexpectedly tragic January *and* there are a whole bunch that don’t involve murder (I get bored of mysteries that are only about murder).
holy shit THE LIST sounds SO timely and juicy and necessary!
ummmmm the lady violet covers are EPIC hahahaha (love me some cozy mysteries)
On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel (and Betty by her as well); these will stay with me forever.
My whole book club was obsessed with Yellowface by R.F. Kuang a couple of months ago. Could not stop talking about it, and I still think about it all the time.
ahhhhhhhh this thread is really giving me major TBR angst lol
If you liked this, I recommend The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. You'll find they bear weird similarities, but different enough - I think I ended up liking the Plot even better.
Oh well I’m so glad we’re reading for my book club soon!!!!
Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar was so good, but I cannot stop talking about Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson. It’s part memoir part history and I can’t get over the way it validates the experience of being silenced and sidelined as a woman in the church
Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch was so so so good, I tried to persuade all my friends to read it.
never will stop evangelizing nightbitch!
I love that it’s getting a film adaptation!
I KNOW
South of Broad by Pat Conroy. My all time favorite book. The setting is in Charleston, SC which is a place very near and dear to my heart. The writing is just beautiful.
Prince of tides is one of my favorites of all time ❤️
Yes, that was a really good one too! He is one of my all time favorite writers. His words and descriptions are just so beautiful, truly unmatched!
Loving Adam Rapp’s new novel Wolf At The Table - reading it rn with my tea, in fact!
books and tea - the best of friends :)
I love this segment of your Substack but now I have a reading wish list that is about a mile long! And oh, how I love a good wish list.
lol same!!!
I picked up five-year-old THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD by Claire Lombardo from the library in February, following a recommendation in one of Anne Helen Petersen’s What Are You Reading? threads. Fast forward to April and I hadn’t touched it, but it got tapped as the Reese Witherspoon book of the month so the library is now clamoring to get it back. Halfway through and really enjoying it - I love an intergenerational family drama - and bonus the central location is Oak Park, IL, where I live. I had no idea!
oh YES adore an intergenerational family drama!
I have retreated to the complete comfort food zone of Ann Patchett, currently an old paperback of "The Magician's Assistant" (you know it's from the '90s because the characters still smoke.)Such clear, lovely prose and well-told stories, absorbing characters. Contemporary fiction is exhausting me lately, just give me the deep satisfaction of an artful yet not "arty" seasoned novelist who really knows what she's doing.
oooooh yes yes yes I so hear you - I'm never not in the mood for comfort food reading!
I am looking for this experience with my next read so thank you for this thread! Currently reading BRAIDING SWEETGRASS which is so interesting and I'm learning a lot, but it doesn't keep me up past my bedtime like fiction.
I'm so mad at myself that I have yet to read BRAIDING SWEETGRASS because I know I'll love it!
I know, I feel late to it also. It is beautiful, and educational, and important, but none of those are actually the same as "it pulled me in from the first page". I *think* I might come to the end and feel it was too long. (I have almost never finished a non-fiction book and not felt that way!)
And Animal by Lisa Taddeo--I had to reread a few sections they were so good
this has been on my TBR list for SO LONG.
Yessss this one stuck with me as well
CUTTING TEETH by Chandler Baker. It’s funny and completely validating of the mind-f that is the modern motherhood experience.
ALWAYS here for that!
Oh I loved this book, it was very relatable as the mom of a 4 year old!
How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang and Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe!
I really loved Marie-Helene Bertino's Beautyland--otherworldly, lovely, plus lots of great Philly and 90s-era details.
oooooh
THE LIGHT PIRATE: maybe one of the best books I’ve ever read. I am biased as a 4th gen Floridian but it is such a haunting and beautiful look at what our state could look like as these hurricanes keep getting bigger and bigger. Totally got me into climate change dystopia 😂 and then promptly read and also loved THE DISPLACEMENTS. I found about that one when I wouldn’t stop talking about The Light Pirate to my librarian and she recommended it to me. God bless librarians.
For comfort reading, I will always go back to Ellery Adams’ cozy mysteries. I love her heroines so much that I sometimes imagine myself traveling to the settings and hanging out with them! They got me through the year after my mom died when I couldn’t bear to read anything remotely realistic or disturbing.
Demon Copperhead, Covenant of Water, Tom Lake, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT and its sequel, A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY by Becky Chambers. A little futuristic but also so grounded and full of nature and life and comfort. These are very quick books, and they will forever be go-to comfort reads for me.