★ 5Bel Canto
Ann Patchett
Bel Canto by Anne Patchett is, I think, her masterpiece. (And I’ve read all of her books!) The plot sounds like it’s ripped from an airport thriller: An opera singer is performing at a millionaire’s birthday party when terrorists take the entire mansion hostage. But what happens next is anything but predictable, and the prose is gorgeous. I read it every few years and recommend it to all of my friends.
★ 5Cherry
Nico Walker
An army medic comes home to opioid addiction and bank robbery. Raw, propulsive, and unnervingly close to the author's own life.
★ 5Circe
Madeline Miller
The witch of the Odyssey, finally given her own story. Lush, feminist, and totally absorbing.
★ 5Demon Copperhead
Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver reworks David Copperfield into Appalachia and the opioid crisis, and it's devastating. That kid's voice will wreck you.
★ 5The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery
I’m bringing my copy of The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, an unexpected and poignant novel about a 54-year-old apartment concierge in Paris who develops an unlikely friendship with a girl who lives in the building.
Fates and Furies
Lauren Groff
A marriage told first from his side, then hers — and hers changes everything. Groff's writing is dazzling; the second half is the whole game.
The Secret History
Donna Tartt
The Secret History by Donna Tartt is one of the books I’m jealous of other people for getting to read for the first time. In the opening sentence, you learn that a boy has been murdered, and the narrator, Richard, has helped murder him — the mystery, of course, is why. We go back in time, following Richard as he transfers to an elite New England college and becomes fascinated with a tight-knit, charismatic group of friends. The first time I read this book, I was completely carried away by the plot. The second (and third and fourth) times, I’ve been able to appreciate its exploration of beauty, morality, and the allure of belonging.
★ 5Happy All the Time
Laurie Colwin
Colwin writing about happy people in love, which sounds boring and is somehow the opposite. Warm, witty, and completely charming.
★ 5A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers
Eggers raising his little brother after both parents die, told with wild, self-aware energy. Funny and gutting.
★ 5The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Melissa Bank
A linked short story collection following one woman from her preteens to adulthood. Its exploration of love, dating, and ambition is sharp and funny and wonderfully honest; I’ve read it multiple times and always notice something different.
★ 5In Memoriam
Alice Winn
A devastating and gorgeous WWI story about two teenage boys who fall in love in the trenches. It will wreck you. If you finished Shuggie Bain, Demon Copperhead, and/or The Heart’s Invisible Furies, and wanted more, this one’s for you.
★ 5Life After Life (Todd Family, #1)
Kate Atkinson
Ursula Todd dies and is reborn again and again across the 20th century. Ingenious, and I couldn't stop.
★ 5Raising Hare: A Memoir
Chloe Dalton
A woman finds a newborn hare and, against the odds, ends up raising it. Gentle, patient, unexpectedly moving nature writing.
★ 5Loved and Missed
Susie Boyt
A grandmother takes in her granddaughter when her own daughter's addiction makes things impossible. Quietly devastating and so wise about the limits of love. Cried, naturally.
★ 5Matrix
Lauren Groff
Matrix is a mostly fictional novel about a real person: Marie de France, an orphaned poet and member of the twelfth century royal court who is banished to a nunnery. She’s an incredible protagonist: clever, ambitious, and fiercely independent. Anyone who fell in love with Circe’s dynamism will be captivated by Matrix.
★ 5Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides
The sweeping story of Cal, intersex, and three generations of a Greek American family. Eugenides makes the whole saga sing.
My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)
Elena Ferrante
The start of the Neapolitan novels — a fierce, complicated girlhood friendship in postwar Naples. Once I started I couldn't stop.
★ 5The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels, #2)
Elena Ferrante
Book two of the Neapolitan novels, and the Lila-and-Elena friendship only gets more intense.
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels, #3)
Elena Ferrante
Book three, and the friendship gets thornier and more real.
The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4)
Elena Ferrante
The finale of the Neapolitan quartet — a stunning, gutting end to Lenù and Lila.
★ 5Nothing to See Here
Kevin Wilson
A woman is hired to care for two kids who literally burst into flames when they're upset. Somehow this is a tender, hilarious book about love. Loved it.
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
The book opens in a Korean fishing village in the early 1900s. A teenage girl is pregnant and must flee to Japan. Min Jin Lee follows her family across four generations — each paying for what came before. It’s long, but it pulls.
★ 5Piranesi
Susanna Clarke
A strange, beautiful novel about a man who lives alone in a labyrinthine house filled with statues and tidal halls… and slowly comes to realize he doesn’t know who he is or how he got there. It’s unlike anything else, and somehow both deeply weird and deeply moving.
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
Ruth Reichl
Ruth Reichl ranks among the best food writers alive, which is why I gasped when my friend Lilly — a fantastic cook and ardent reader — hadn’t read her memoir. Save Me the Plums chronicles Reichl’s ten-year run as Gourmet Magazine editor-in-chief: the lunches, the feuds, the glorious excess of Condé Nast when the money still flowed. Lilly named it one of the best books she read last year.
★ 5The Tender Bar: A Memoir
J.R. Moehringer
Moehringer grew up fatherless, raised in part by the men at his uncle's bar. A warm, beautifully written memoir about the people who make you.