25 Authors and What They're Currently Reading in Celebration of "Get Caught Reading Month"
25 Authors and What They're Currently Reading in Celebration of "Get Caught Reading Month"
May is "Get Caught Reading Month!" In celebration, I asked twenty-five of your favorite authors what book they’re reading right now. You just might find your next TBR in this list!
I want to note that I do not get paid to do these posts, I just love authors and the book industry. However, they do take time and energy to create. If you want to donate a few dollars to my coffee fund, which keeps this blog going, you can do so here: https://venmo.com/AshleyHasty or here: http://paypal.me/hastybooklist..
Kathleen Courtenay Stone
I'm reading two books at once, and loving how they enhance one another. One is Eleanor, David Michaelis's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. The other is White Houses, Amy Bloom's novel about Eleanor's intimate relationship with Lorena Hickok. "Hick" is a figure in the biography, but she begins to fade out of Eleanor's life midway through the book. Bloom, however, places Hick at the center of her story when, in the aftermath of FDR's death, Hick is reminiscing about the intense romantic and sexual relationship she once had with Eleanor. The story is grounded in actual events and people but told through intimate details that are imagined and dramatized. Quite successfully, in my opinion. It's a fascinating juxtaposition to the well-researched biography. Michaelis agrees that the relationship was one of sexual intimacy. He goes on to wonder why it faded, raising the question whether Eleanor wanted to be close. Both are great reads. Each stands on its own, but together they're really powerful.
Edwin Wong
E.O. Wilson's SOCIOBIOLOGY, 25th anniversary edition. SOCIOBIOLOGY, originally published in 1975, is one of the groundbreaking works by one of the 21st century's greatest scientists (Wilson recently passed away at age 92 on December 26, 2021). In SOCIOBIOLOGY, Wilson creates a new discipline that argues for a biological basis for animal behaviors from insects through the great apes all the way to humans.
Julia Brewer Daily
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann is a family saga of immense proportions. Full of Texas characters, rivalries, and secrets, Swann bases the story on classical mythology and keeps the reader wanting to know the next drama unfolding around every curve. A remarkable debut for a teacher and editor to so many, she now has her place in the sun.
Joseph Shrand, MD
Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Chronicles.
Linda Stewart Henley
The Final Case by David Guterson
Dustin Grinnell
I admire literary works from the existentialist tradition, which prompt us to examine our lives through the lens of the universal concerns of human existence: anxiety, isolation, death, freedom, and meaninglessness. Such works often zoom out from current events to matters that concern all humankind—matters that aren’t limited by race, gender, class, or sociocultural background. Who are we? Where are we going? For what purpose?
Such works include Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, which examines the quest for meaning in life’s absurdity, and Albert Camus’s The Stranger, which dramatizes the futile attempt to impose rationality on an irrational universe. Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra encourages us to avoid conformity, become individuals, and strive to fulfill our highest potential. In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy reminds us that death is inevitable and encourages us to remember this to live more fully.
A book I’m reading right now that also does this powerfully is the 2016 piercing memoir When Breath Becomes Air by neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, who writes about his diagnosis with terminal cancer at the peak of his surgical career. Kalanithi weaves together philosophical reflections and stories of his patients to illuminate the only thing we have in common—our mortality—and how it spurs us all, in ways both minute and monumental, to pursue lives of meaning. The book brought me to tears and reminded me that I’ll die one day, inspiring me to make the best use of my time.
Ellen Alpsten
Elodie Harper - The Golden Door . I love Historical Fiction and like reading its most brilliant author's as I learn so much from them. The line between inspiration and imitation is famously thin, but you can take something away from everything you read. Like my own heroines in 'Tsarina' and 'The Tsarina's Daughter', Elodie's character Amara is a woman who fights against the odds, who has to wage her emotions against the necessities of life and who has a strong first person narrative, evoking worlds long past. What is no to like? Well done, Elodie!
Diane Barnes
The Last Chance Library, Freya Sampson
Laurie Buchanan
TELL ME THE TRUTH by Matthew Farrell is the second book in the Adler and Dwyer series. Farrell's intricate storyline is fast-paced with blindsiding twists. If you love suspense, this adrenaline pumper's for you.
Kimberly Brock
Mustique Island by Sarah McCoy
I'm loving my mental trip to Mustique Island-hanging out with former Texas beauty queen Willy May, not to mention cameos by Princess Margaret and dreamy beaches. As always, Sarah McCoy's writing is transportive and especially warm when depicting the complicated love between mothers and daughters. I can’t wait to go back to Mustique each night when I return to these pages!
Lexie Elliott
I'm reading 'Hamnet' by Maggie O'Farrell, which was the oh-so-well deserved winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. It's set in Shakespeare's Stratford, and is astonishingly beautiful and poetic and gripping - I can't think why it took me so long to pick it up! I'd be surprised if I read anything else that's even close to as good as 'Hamnet' this year.
Audrey Wick
Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East by Ralph S. Hattox . . . Everyone needs a little nonfiction in their reading diet, and this book is perfect for me. It quenches my interest in coffee but is also a surprisingly fast read with lots of insight on the history of coffee as well as some of its more colorful uses. I especially enjoyed learning about the birth of coffeehouses. It puts a new spin on the ones I have visited, especially when traveling internationally.
Lisa Braxton
Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson. It is thrilling to see Sadeqa come out with her latest novel that is getting all kinds of great attention because she told me about the idea before she'd written it when we were roommates at a writer's residency in New Mexico. I love the voice of the main character. Sadeqa crafts such good description that as I'm reading this period novel, I feel like I'm a fly on the wall watching everything that's going on.
Elaine Stock
The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline. Set in 1840, first in London then Australia, this story transports me to a different time and place, which I absolutely love! Although I'm a big reader and have enjoyed many novels, few have magically taken me away from current times and have enabled me to see a whole different lifestyle through the characters' eyes. That's another thing too: I also enjoy that these characters are the average "Jane Smith," rather than a glamorous person I'm unable to relate to. They're also forced into situations that make me, as a reader, cheer them on to overcome and to have a chance for a happily ever after. That is exactly what I strive for in writing my own novels and hope readers will discover this and can relate.
Idelle Kursman
I am reading The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey. Rei Shimura is a young Japanese-American teaching English in Japan. Although she does not make much money, Rei is determined to be independent and always speaks her mind. She gets involved in solving a murder and finds love during the course of the investigation. I love her concern for others and her chutzpah.
Melanie Mitzner
The Book of Casey Adair by Ken Harvey
The book explores a twenty-something’s passionate journey into the unknown where art, politics, life, and sexuality converge. Set in the 80s in Madrid, Boston, New York and Toronto, the epistolary novel, composed of letters and journal entries, brilliantly captures a host of colorful characters against the backdrop of political turmoil at home and abroad. The work goes beyond the pursuit of love and identity into the intricacies of learning how to love when so often we tend to sabotage what we want most. One of the most compelling aspects is the parallel of alienation and desperation to counter threats to democracy and end discrimination. All of which makes this work so topical today.
Amy Tector
I just gobbled up LETTERS TO AMELIA by Lindsay Zier-Vogel. This is my debut year and I've been reading a lot of wonderful debut authors. This book is a wonderful meditation on loss, love and life. It centers around a library tech working in a special collections library (my wheelhouse!) who connects with a cache of Amelia Earhart's lost letters. The library setting is wonderful and the insight into Amelia Earhart is fascinating.
Paulette Stout
I love reading the stories of fellow authors I've met on my writing journey. Even if we write fiction, so much of ourselves ends up on the pages we create. This is never more so then when writing memoir, which makes Sharon Dukett's memoir: No Rules such a revelation. It follows her whirlwind adventures as 16-year-old hippie hitchhiking across 1970's North America. Real, raw, and insightfully written, No Rules is an empowering read for women of any generation who seek the freedom and agency to live their own lives. What's more, her time capsule into the 1970's is real treat. Highly recommend!
Joyana Peters
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan- It's scarily real and close to where we COULD go as a society. Just plenty to think about and discuss with friends.
Mandy McHugh
On my kindle, I’m reading Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey and absolutely loving it. I was super excited to get my hands on this because Woman on the Edge is a masterclass in storytelling. Crisp writing, deliciously suspenseful, and unputdownable. I’m also reading Zoje Stage’s novella The Girl Who Outgrew the World. I am obsessed with Stage’s writing. She has a unique way of quietly building suspense and tension and leaves you unsettled in the best possible way.
Mary Camarillo
“The Family Chao” by Lan Samantha Chang. I love stories about dysfunctional families and the Chao family checks all the boxes. Years ago I workshopped an early draft of my novel with the wonderful Sam Chang and she was instrumental in helping me understand through lines. Ms. Chang was working on this novel back then too. So happy to have it in my hands.
Barbara Clarke
The Verifiers by Jane Pek. This is her first detective novel and a delight to read. During the lockdown, Agatha Christie's works - The Inspector and Miss Marple - were a tonic. I found this wonderful story - full of contemporary issues, humor, mystery, and a good plot much the same. I can only hope Jane has another one in the works. It has everything a reader would want and top of the list - fine writing and wit. Go, Jane!
Feyisayo Anjorin
I'm currently reading "Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty" by Alain Mabanckou.
It's a story set in 1979 Pointe Noire, Congo, the coming of age story of 10-year-old Michel, a kind-hearted but naive boy as he takes his earliest steps into the mysterious world of adulthood.
I love the author's narrative voice and how it makes it easy to love and care for Michel in a country oscillating between communism and capitalism.
I feel like I know Michel, and I have thoughts similar to his thoughts when I was his age, hence Alain Mabanckou, a resident of Lost Angeles and literature teacher at UCLA took me down memory lane in this book.
Farhad Dadyburjor
I'm currently reading 'To Paradise' by Hanya Yanagihara. It's the only book I've been eagerly awaiting this year, and much like her earlier book 'A Little Life', it is simply unputdownable!
Michelle Muriel
The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki
“I may live like an empress, but I’ve never asked an emperor to pick up the bill.” Now why wouldn’t I want to devour this magnificent (pun intended) read?
I am always for a novel that is a tribute to resilient, daring women in history. And as a writer of historical fiction, I know the time, dedication, and a bit of obsession it takes to scour historical documents, letters, books, photos, places, and archives for those nuggets that make for an intriguing, immersive story. I spent four years researching the mysterious early life of Claude Monet and his first model and wife, Camille Doncieux, in my novel WATER LILY DANCE. Writing biographical, historical fiction is a challenge and an author often travels down several rabbit holes, but Allison Pataki (with her six years in research for this novel!) does an outstanding job handling all the knowledge and bringing to life the fascinating journey of Marjorie Merriweather Post. I can’t wait to read more!
