The Weight of Heaven, by Thrity Umrigar
There is a bit of a sadist in me, especially when it comes to reading material. I can be drawn to the darkest stories, if only to vicariously experience my deepest nightmares from the safety of the page. I read The Year of Fog to drown in the idea of my child being kidnapped, and […]
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
When Death tells you a story, you have to listen. Especially when Death is also a poet and stuck in a dead-end job from which he can never take a vacation. The story Death tells might be set in Nazi Germany and it might be about a little girl named Liesel who’s lost her brother […]
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
Any book that opens with fork-stabbed poodle-death is story that must be read, if only to give the author the chance to redeem himself, which Haddon does, and much, much more. With the creation of 15-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone—self-proclaimed poodle murder-solver, who uses an emoji chart to translate human emotion and quadratic equations to […]
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
Telling the truth as a writer is one of the toughest goals we can set, and this is where Lamott begins. With each chapter, from “Shitty First Drafts” to “How Do You Know When You’re Done?” Lamott lays out the process of writing–both the mysterious and the mundane (mystane? munsterious?)—that anyone who’s attempted the task […]
Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks
Having lived through a plague (“lived”? Past tense? Please?) you’d think delving into the world of 1666 London during a wave of the Black Death would be the last thing we need, but no! It’s exactly the sort of catharsis many of us need. I read the novel a few years ago and was swept […]
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin
I was hooked on this book by the third page, and it’s because of this exchange: “You’ll notice I didn’t call you right away, Amelia,” he says. “I didn’t call you because I had met someone better, and when that didn’t work out, I decided to give you a second chance. So don’t be thinking […]
Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard
If you’re looking for a book that explores everything you love about the written word, this is the book for you, something Ms. Dillard sums up eloquently as she dedicates her book to the people who, “if you told them the world would end in ten minutes, would try to decide—quickly—what to read.” She refers […]
The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
It’s a terrible thing to admit that so far, the best thing about this book is that I got a signed copy of it after attending a book release event with Margaret Atwood (via Zoom, covid, blah). The whole time she was speaking, I was trying (and failing) to read the titles on the bookcase […]
Case Histories: A Novel (Jackson Brodie, 1), by Kate Atkinson
You know something is about to go horribly wrong from the first line of this crime fiction book, even though the line reads innocuously enough—“How lucky were they?”—which is a tribute to Atkinson’s deft skill. I won’t spoil this intricately-weaved set of stories except to say that style-wise, Atkinson does something in the books that […]
A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
This is one of those friend group books, where you meet one person, and they introduce you to a bunch of other cool people you’re so happy to hang out with. A Man Called Ove introduced me to Fredrik Backman, who has a bunch of other books I was excited to meet. The first book, […]