This novel is disturbing, uncomfortable, irreverent, and compelling. That, in many ways, tells you everything you need to know about Tampa and Alissa Nutting’s immense talents. Tampa by Alissa Nutting “There is a scene in Tampa where Celeste marks her territory, if you will, with her own vaginal moisture. In each story, Miller shows us how the world is as big as it is small.” -RG
The writing in this little collection is atmospheric and claustrophobic and illuminating and lovely. There are no easy, convenient endings for any of these characters but my goodness, how richly Min Jin Lee renders their lives.” -RGīig World by Mary Miller “Mary Miller is one of my favorite short story writers and in Big World, she writes about flawed, boozy women who make bad decisions and live to tell their tales. The prose is as edifying as it is absorbing. It is a multigenerational, sweeping saga of Koreans in Japan. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee “ Pachinko is the novel I tell anyone who will listen about. I was struck by the title, and then the stories, each focused on black girls and women, the worlds of those stories fully realized and held carefully in Johnson’s very talented hands.” -RG This book is unforgettable and heart wrenching and all I could ever want in a reading experience.” -RGīreak Any Woman Down by Dana Johnson “I first read this short story collection many years ago and it has stayed with me. I so admire how Yanagihara allows the melodrama into this story, and does so unabashedly.
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I’ll always love this book.” -RGĪ Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (also rec’d by Gabrielle Union) “I don’t mind emotional excess and in addition to being so very readable, with really interesting, complex, at times infuriating characters, “A Little Life” is full of emotional excess. And at the heart of it, passionate, unrequited love, and the quieter, more reserved love borne of duty. I love how Wharton finely details the lives of the New York wealthy, their intrigues, the ways they interact, the ways they indulge and deny themselves. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton “This is such an elegant novel. Read on for a list of her favorites, and for a deeper look at her process, check out her Masterclass on writing for social change. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory made me believe anything was possible if I allowed myself to believe.”įor a list of her top 10 books provided to NY-based bookstore One Grand, Gay included works that – like her own writing – touch on race, class, feminism and the human condition. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time helped me embrace my intelligence, showed me how I was not merely bound to this world, not at all. The Chronicles of Narnia made me believe I could slip into a wardrobe and emerge in a completely different world. I read stories, the titles of which I can no longer remember, about young girls embarking on thrilling adventures on wagon trains and fending for themselves, panning for gold. “I was a shy girl, but when I read, I was adventurous. In a 2014 Buzzfeed essay on the books that shaped her voice, author Roxane Gay offered an ode to the magic escapism of the written word:
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