Books
I’m very grateful for several wonderful bookgroups and the recommendations of friends over the years. Keep the suggestions coming!
2025
Playground, Richard Powers
Our Evenings, Alan Hollinghurst
Havoc, Christopher Bollen
Before We Turn to Dust, Clara Sneed
Outline, Rachel Cusk
Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Mothers and Sons, Adam Haslett
The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry
The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff
The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante (final book of the Neapolitan epic!)
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Elena Ferrante
The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny
2024
Small Rain, Garth Greenwell
The Story of a New Name, Elena Ferrante
My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
The Hypocrite, Jo Hamya
North Woods, Daniel Mason
Enlightenment, Sarah Perry
Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout
Intermezzo, Sally Rooney
Here One Moment, Liane Moriarty
Abide with Me, Elizabeth Strout; My early Strout is complete! Every one of them is well worth reading.
Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout
Death at the Sign of the Rook, Kate Atkinson
The Blackwater Lightship, Colm Toibin
Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor
The Burgess Boys, Elizabeth Strout
Feh: A Memoir,
Shalom Auslander
The Truths We Hold, Kamala Harris
All Fours, Miranda July; So smart, so uncomfortable. Her books are like her performance art, you kind of want to sneak out unnoticed, but end up glad you stayed.
The Sleepwalkers, Scarlett Thomas
Same As It Ever Was, Claire Lombardo
In Tongues, Thomas Grattan
James, Percival Everett
Good Material, Dolly Alderton
Long Island, Colm Toibin
The Giver of Stars, Jojo Moyes
Bad Animals, Sarah Braunstein
The Hunter, Tana French
A Dangerous Business, Jane Smiley
Someone Else’s Shoes, Jojo Moyes
Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Kevin Wilson
Family Family, Laurie Frankel
Trouble the Living, Francesca McDonnell Capossela
One Woman Show, Christine Coulson
My Ex-Life, Stephen McCauley
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived, Diane Flynt; The story of founding the first modern cidery in the south, and the lost history of southern heirloom apples. Great read and proud to know Diane!
The Wren, the Wren, Anne Enright
The Secret Hours, Mick Herron
Pineapple Street, Jenny Jackson
The Sentence, Louise Erdrich
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble, Stephen McCauley
Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
Day, Michael Cunningham
2023
Old God’s Time, Sebastian Barry
Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano
The Bee Sting, Paul Murray
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride
The Magic Kingdom, Russell Banks
Normal Rules Don’t Apply, Kate Atkinson
Horse, Geraldine Brooks
The Fraud, Zadie Smith
A Thousand Moons, Sebastian Barry
Small Mercies, Dennis Lehane
The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt
Crook Manifesto, Colson Whitehead
Tom Lake, Ann Patchett
The House of Broken Angels, Luis Alberto Urrea
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese
Still Life, Sarah Winman
The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor
The Master, Colm Toibin
The Last Word, Taylor Adams
Ways to Disappear, Idra Novey
The World According to Garp, John Irving
The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa
Mercury Pictures Presents, Antony Marra
The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
Take What You Need, Idra Novey
Bookish People, Susan Coll
Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris
I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
The Crow Trap, Ann Cleeves
Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr
Shrines of Gaiety, Kate Atkinson
2022
These Precious Days: Essays, Ann Patchett
The Magician, Colm Toibin
A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny
Lessons, Ian McEwan
Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson
Family Life, Akhil Sharma
Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead
Less Is Lost, Andrew Sean Greer
Lucy by the Sea, Elizabeth Strout
This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel
The Boys, Katie Hafner
The Magician, Colm Toibin
The Searcher, Tana French
What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty
Blue Lightning, Ann Cleeves
The Summer Place, Jennifer Weiner
The Heron’s Cry, Ann Cleeves
A Really Good Day, Ayelet Waldman
Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell
A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020), David Sedaris
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
The Candy House, Jennifer Egan
Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Fredrik Backman
Trust Exercise, Susan Choi
French Braid, Anne Tyler
Mouth to Mouth, Antoine Wilson
Wildcat, Amelia Morris
Joe Country, Mick Herron
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
The Madness of Crowds, Louise Penny
Night Boat to Tangier, Kevin Barry
What Comes After, JoAnne Tompkins
The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki
2021
Bewilderment, Richard Powers
London Rules, Mick Herron
Wintering, Katherine May
Our Country Friends, Gary Shteyngart
A Better Man, Louise Penny
A Gambler’s Anatomy, Jonathan Lethem
Oh William! Elizabeth Strout
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, Emma Straub
A Calling for Charlie Barnes, Joshua Ferris
The Morning Star, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Apples Never Fall, Liane Moriarty
Spook Street, Mick Herron
The Master, Colm Toibin
The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney
Real Tigers, Mick Herron
Modern Lovers, Emma Straub
Dead Lions, Mick Herron
The Damage, Caitlin Wahrer
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro
Under the Wave at Waimea, Paul Theroux
The Vacationers, Emma Straub
One Two Three, Laurie Frankel
All Adults Here, Emma Straub
How the Light Gets In, Louise Penny
The Secret Place, Tana French
The Most Fun We Ever Had, Claire Lombardo
The Recent East, Thomas Grattan
Faithful Place, Tana French
Writers & Lovers, Lily King
Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
The Book of Lost Light, Ron Nyren
The Magician’s Assistant, Ann Patchett
2020
Memorial, Bryan Washington
Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam
Cleanness,Garth Greenwell
The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk
That Kind of Mother, Rumaan Alam
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart
The Heart’s Invisible Furies, John Boyne
Just Like You, Nick Hornby
The Cruelest Month, Louise Penny
Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel
Utopia Avenue, David Mitchell
Squeeze Me, Carl Hiaasen
The Weekend, Charlotte Wood
Intimations: Six Essays, Zadie Smith
Love, Roddy Doyle
What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, Mark Doty
Inland, Téa Obreht
Still Life, Louise Penny
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin J. DiAngelo
Big Summer, Jennifer Weiner
Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
The Last Anniversary, Liane Moriarty
Who Do You Love? Jennifer Weiner
The Husband’s Secret, Liane Moriarty
American Spy, Lauren Wilkinson
What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell
How to Read the Air, Dinaw Mengestu
Clock Dance, Anne Tyler
Normal People, Sally Rooney
Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout
2019
The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
The Witch Elm, Tana French
The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin
The Overstory, Richard Powers
Lady in the Lake, Laura Lippman
Asymmetry, Lisa Halliday
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces, Michael Chabon
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan
Mrs. Everything, Jennifer Weiner
Becoming, Michelle Obama
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
Big Sky, Kate Atkinson (Jackson Brodie book 5)
Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan
The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai
Nine Inches: Stories, Tom Perrotta
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
Transcription, Kate Atkinson
Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith (really J K Rowling)
Summer, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Black Is the Body, Emily Bernard
The Uncoupling, Meg Wolitzer
Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
Nine Perfect Strangers, Liane Moriarty
Spring, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Winter, Karl Ove Knausgaard
2018
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
The Sparsholt Affair, Alan Hollinghurst
Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver
My Struggle: Book 6, Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Female Persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer
Imagine Me Gone, Adam Haslett
How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
Less, Andrew Sean Greer
Calypso, David Sedaris
Mrs Queen Takes the Train, William Kuhn
My Struggle: Book 5, Karl Ove Knausgaard
My Struggle: Book 4, Karl Ove Knausgaard
My Struggle: Book 3, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan
My Struggle: Book 2, Karl Ove Knausgaard
2017
Autumn, Ali Smith
My Struggle: Book 1, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Autumn, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Mrs. Fletcher, Tom Perrotta
Slow Horses, Mick Herron
Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks, and Me, Bill Hayes
Days Without End, Sebastian Barry
The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley
Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002), David Sedaris
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders
Bettyville: A Memoir, George Hodgman
Since We Fell, Dennis Lehane
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
The Mistress of Spices, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Idaho, Emily Ruskovich
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple
Moonglow, Michael Chabon
Swing Time, Zadie Smith
2016
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
Ann Patchett
LaRose
Louise Erdrich
Commonwealth
Ann Patchett
The Nest
Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins
A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki
Euphoria
Lily King
Undermajordomo Minor
Patrick deWitt
My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout
After You
Jojo Moyes
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi
The Portable Veblen
Elizabeth Mckenzie
A God in Ruins
Kate Atkinson
2015
The Golden Age
Jane Smiley
The Luminaries
Eleanor Catton
Early Warning
Jane Smiley
NW
Zadie Smith
Purity
Jonathan Franzen
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Rosie Effect
Graeme Simsion
This Is Where I Leave You
Jonathan Tropper
A Spool of Blue Thread
Anne Tyler
Funny Girl
Nick Hornby
The First Bad Man
Miranda July
The Paying Guests
Sarah Waters
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Richard Flanagan
2014
State of Wonder
Ann Patchett
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Joshua Ferris
Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?
Roz Chast
The Bone Clocks
David Mitchell
The Children Act
Ian McEwan
At Night We Walk in Circles
Daniel Alarcón
The Good Lord Bird
James McBride
Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese
I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You
Courtney Maum
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt
The Snow Queen
Michael Cunningham
And the Dark Sacred Night
Julia Glass
Mommy Man: How I Went from Mild-Mannered Geek to Gay Superdad
Jerry Mahoney
The Light Between Oceans
M.L. Stedman
Me Before You
Jojo Moyes
We Are Water
Wally Lamb
Tenth of December: Stories
George Saunders
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules
Edited by David Sedaris
2013
You Remind Me of Me
Dan Chaon
Seating Arrangements
Maggie Shipstead
The Interestings
Meg Wolitzer
Necessary Errors
Caleb Crain
Bad Monkey
Carl Hiaasen
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls
David Sedaris
No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
Miranda July
Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood
Drew Magary
The Silver Linings Playbook
Matthew Quick
Life After Life
Kate Atkinson
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green
The Paris Wife
Paula Mclain
The End of Your Life Book Club
Will Schwalbe
2012
The Art of Fielding
Chad Harbach
The Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes
Sweet Tooth
Ian McEwan
Flight Behavior
Barbara Kingsolver
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Cheryl Strayed
Blue Nights
Joan Didion
Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change
Timothy D. Wilson
Bringing Up Bebe: The Wisdom of French Parenting
Pamela Druckerman
2011
Bangkok 8
John Burdett
A Gate at the Stairs
Loorie Moore
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
David Mitchell
Ivan and Misha: Stories
Michael Alenyikov
Tinkers
Paul Harding
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Jamie Ford
Then We Came to the End
Joshua Ferris
Solar
Ian Mcewan
Zeitoun
Dave Eggers
Wishin’ and Hopin’
Wally Lamb
The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman
South of Broad
Pat Conroy
2010
The Lacuna
Barbara Kingsolver
Let the Great World Spin
Colum McCann
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer
The Lazarus Project
Aleksandar Hemon
Case Histories
Kate Atkinson
One Good Turn
Kate Atkinson
Love the Jackson Brodie series!
Brooklyn
Colm Toibin
Little Bee
Chris Cleave
Bridge of Sighs
Richard Russo
The Song Is You
Arthur Phillips
Summertime
J. M. Coetzee
The Amateur Marriage
Anne Tyler
Alias Grace
Margaret Atwood
2009
Eventide
Kent Haruf
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Garth Stein
The Outlander
Gil Adamson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
America America
Ethan Canin
Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout
Emergency Sex And Other Desperate Measures
Kenneth Cain
The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga
Lush Life
Richard Price
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery
The Distant Land of My Father
Bo Caldwell
2008
The Echo Maker
Richard Powers
The Story of a Marriage
Andrew Sean Greer
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
Maggie Ofarrell
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Michael Chabon
Ten Days in the Hills
Jane Smiley
Loving Frank
Nancy Horan
The Gathering
Anne Enright
Forever
Pete Hamill
Dirt Music
Tim Winton
Restless
William Boyd
2007
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan
Shroud
John Banville
About Grace
Anthony Doerr
The Wonder Spot
Melissa Bank
March: A Novel
Geraldine Brooks
Palace Walk
Naguib Mahfouz
2006
Zorro
Isabel Allende
The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Jeannette Walls
Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Kim Edwards
Saturday
Ian McEwan
Last Orders
Graham Swift
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson
Giant O’Brien
Hilary Mantel
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
2005
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
Snow
Orhan Pamuk
China Boy
Gus Lee
The Other Boleyn Girl
Philippa Gregory
Happiness
Will Ferguson
Lying Awake
Mark Salzman
A General Theory of Love
Thomas Lewis et. al.
A change-your-life sort of book
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
Andrew Sean Greer
2004
The Stories of Wallace Stegner
Wallace Stegner
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Mark Haddon
The Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri
Empire Falls
Richard Russo
The Known World
Edmund Jones
Motherless Brooklyn
Jonathan Lethem
The Secret Lives of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
The Pieces from Berlin
Michael Pye
Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides
Where I Was From
Joan Didion
2003
The DaVinci Code
Dan Brown
The Red Tent
Anita Diamant
Educating Waverly
Laura Kalapian
John Adams
David McCullough
Caroline’s Daughters
Alice Adams
Booneville
Robert Mailer Anderson
The Girl from Zanzibar
Roger King
Pere Goriot
Balzac
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Dai Sijie
Fall on Your Knees
Ann-Marie MacDonald
2002
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Marriage
Alice Munro
Money
Martin Amis
The Dive from Claussen’s Pier
Ann Packer
How to Be Good
Nick Hornby
Kitchen Confidential
Anthony Bourdain
The Sea, The Sea
Iris Murdoch
The Human Stain
Philip Roth
Atonement
Ian McEwan
Second Hand
Michael Zadoorian
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
Eudora Welty
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
2001
The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes
Christopher Bram
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Michael Chabon
In the Name of Salome
Julia Alvarez
Prodigal Summer
Barbara Kingsolver
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers
The Bonesetter’s Daughter
Amy Tan
The Vision of Emma Blau
Ursula Hegi
Corelli’s Mandolin
Louis de Bernieres
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier
2000
Plainsong
Kent Haruf
Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris
Bodily Harm
Margaret Atwood
The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing
Melissa Bank
Timbuktu
Paul Auster
Different Seasons
Stephen King
American Pastoral
Philip Roth
Interpreter of Maladies
Jhumpa Lahiri
1999
Eucalyptus
Murray Bail
Harvest Son
David Mas Masumoto
Lost in Translation
Nicole Mones
Enduring Love
Ian McEwan
Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden
The Sweet Hereafter
Russell Banks
The Perfect Storm
Sebastian Junger
1998
A Civil Action
Jonathan Harr
Beloved
Toni Morrison
The Color of Water
James McBride
None to Accompany Me
Nadine Gordimer
Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer
The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy
Sacred Hunger
Barry Unsworth
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Kate Atkinson
