Catching up

~ Book Club Mom ~ 26 Comments

Today I decided to catch up on reviews of a couple of books I’ve read (plus a show I watched) and when I looked through my notes, I discovered that it’s more than just a couple books: I have read six books since my last review! I need to break the habit of moving right into a new book before posting a review because now I’m faced with having to remember what I read.

I take good notes so I’ll be able to catch up, but it’s not going to happen in a day!

This post is just a check-in so you know I’m still out there and to tell you what’s coming up soon:

  • We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
  • The Best Lies by David Ellis
  • The Witch Elm by Tana French
  • The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
  • Heartwood by Amity Gage
  • A Very Typical Family by Sierra Godfrey

Thank you all for your patience while I work on a better schedule for reading blogs and writing posts. And even though I have a new book in the queue, I’m going to force myself to post these before I start!

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

What’s That Movie? Youngblood Hawke

~ Book Club Mom ~ 11 Comments

I finally got around to watching the movie Youngblood Hawke! You would think I’d watched it a long time ago, since the book is my all-time favorite book, but after a snafu in the nineties when we tried to record it on our VCR (haha!), life got busy and I forgot about it. I wasn’t sure it was even going to be good. But I was wrong: it was very good!

The 1964 drama film, directed by Delmer Daves, starring James Franciscus, Suzanne Pleshette, and Geneviève Page, and written by Daves and Herman Wouk, tells the story of Youngblood Hawke, a truck driver from the Kentucky coal mines who writes a novel and makes it big in New York. Wouk’s novel is loosely based on author Thomas Wolfe, an American novelist and short story writer.

Soon after Hawke arrives in New York, everyone wants a piece of him. He’s in love with his editor, Jeanne Green, but he can’t resist the lure of Frieda Winter, an attractive older married woman, who is eager to set him up in the Plaza and manage his affairs. The movie also features Hawke’s mother, played by Mildred Dunnock, who is obsessed with a lawsuit about mining rights, convinced she was bilked out of a huge sum of money by her dead husband’s unfriendly relatives.

The whole time we were watching it, actors with familiar faces kept appearing, including Mark Miller, the dad from the TV show Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and Werner Klempererfrom Hogan’s Heroes!

I only knew Suzanne Pleshette from The Bob Newhart Show and thought she was very good in her role as Hawke’s editor. As Jeanne, a woman who worked her way up in the publishing world and didn’t have a lot of money, she was a great contrast to her rival, Frieda, who came from money and lived a luxurious life.

The movie follows the main events of the book most of the time, but its Hollywood ending was different. I was a little disappointed by that, but it makes sense now that I’ve thought about it.

If you’re into old black-and-white movies, I recommend you try it out!

And if you want to read more about the book, check out my review here.

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

Ten books I’m waiting to read

~ Book Club Mom ~ 22 Comments

Today is a snow day where I live and what better thing to do than spend the morning browsing the library catalog for books I want to read. Now I have 10 on hold and will need to juggle them as they become available!

I’m particularly interested in reading these:

  • Buckeye by Patrick Ryan because I love World War II historical fiction
  • A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst because I can’t get enough of the boats-in-a-storm books
  • Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk because I read it a long time ago, loved it, and want to read it again
  • The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware because I liked The Woman in Cabin 10 and I think her books are a cut above the typical thriller.

Here’s my future haul: All descriptions are from Goodreads.

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff: One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan: In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship, out of harm’s way—until a telegram suggests that the unthinkable might have happened.

Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams: From the critically acclaimed author of No Exit and The Last Word comes a story of two friends who embark on an ill-fated caving expedition—and the dark truth of what happens deep underground.

The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill: In this debut, three adult sisters grapple with a shared tragedy over a Thanksgiving weekend spent in their childhood home, navigating complex relationships and old tensions.

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave: Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. My coworker recommended this and the next one. And since I enjoyed The Night We Lost Him (read my review here), they made it to my list!

The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave: Five years after her husband Owen disappeared, Hannah and her stepdaughter Bailey have settled into a new life in Southern California. Together they’ve forged a relationship with Bailey’s grandfather Nicholas, and are putting the past behind them. But when Owen shows up at Hannah’s new exhibition, Hannah knows that she and Bailey are in danger.

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk: Marjorie Morningstar is a love story. It presents one of the greatest characters in modern Marjorie, the pretty 17-year-old who left the respectability of New York’s Central Park West to join the theater, live in the teeming streets of Greenwich Village, and seek love in the arms of a brilliant, enigmatic writer. You know this is by the author of my #1 favorite book, Youngblood Hawke, right? Check out my review here.

A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst: The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.

The Storm by Rachel Hawkins: St. Medard’s Bay, Alabama is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel that’s survived every one of those storms, and Lo Bailey, the local girl infamously accused of the murder of her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984. I liked another of her books, The Heiress and you can read my review here.

The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware: In this follow-up to the multi-million copy mega-hit The Woman in Cabin 10 from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware, Lo Blacklock returns to attend the opening of a luxury hotel, only to find herself in a white-knuckled race across Europe.

I’ve also read these books by Ruth Ware. Click on the links to read my reviews:

The It Girl
One by One
The Turn of the Key
The Woman in Cabin 10

While I’m waiting all these books, I won’t be idle because I have plenty of others waiting for me!

What’s up next on your reading list? Leave a comment!

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

How well read are you? Take this quiz and find out!

~ Book Club Mom ~ 39 Comments

Every year I take this quiz, but I’ve lost the record of my scores. I think I did a little better this year, but I’d have to dedicate the rest of my life to read them all. There are some books on this list I would never read, but I suppose if I did, that would make me a more well-rounded reader.

Want to see your rating? Take this quiz and feel free to leave a comment!

https://www.listchallenges.com/if-youve-read-10-of-these-books-youre-very

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

Blog views and other obsessions: a bot scraped my website!

~ Book Club Mom ~ 73 Comments

Last week I noticed an increase in views on my blog. At first, because the increase was nice, but not outrageous, I thought, “That’s great!” But as the days went on, my stats weren’t just booming. They had broken into the stratosphere! As much as I wanted to believe that tens of thousands of people were enjoying my posts every day, it seemed unlikely.

What was happening? I have the free version, so my stat insights are limited, but my first clue was that the number of referrers was way out of sync with the number of views. In addition, there were no likes or comments. I jumped on the WordPress chatbot (I know, ironic, right?) and figured out that the traffic was caused by aggressive scraping bots, programs copying blog content for AI training, spam sites, content farms, and SEO data mining.

I did more digging. There’s not much you can do except wait it out. My research tells me that sooner or later, most websites will experience scraping. And no one is trying to log in to my account. I have no spam. I have received no security alerts. My site isn’t slow loading and the traffic is focused on hundreds of posts, not just one. Those are the warning signs.

The storm is over. I’m back to my regular views. Phew!

Has anyone else experienced a huge uptick in stats? Give me a like or leave a comment to show me you’re human!

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

Watch me open a new prize from my Ultimate Reading Challenge book!!

~ Book Club Mom ~ 29 Comments

Hi Everyone!

Last week I attended a virtual author event featuring the Liz Moore. I’ve read and loved two of her books: The God of the Woods and Long Bright River. Watch me open my NEW reading prize from The Ultimate Reading Challenge book I won!

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

Book Review: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

~ Book Club Mom ~ 27 Comments

My Brilliant Friend
by
Elena Ferrante

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

I’m not sure why I had not already read My Brilliant Friend, but I’m so glad I finally got to it! Originally published in 2011, the book is the first of Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels spanning sixty years. The television series premiered on HBO in 2018 and completed its fourth season in 2024.

Set in an impoverished neighborhood of Naples, My Brilliant Friend follows the lives of two friends, Elena and Lina. The story begins in the present when Elena learns that Lila has disappeared, likely by choice. From here, the we return to the 1950s when Elena and Nina first become young playmates. Considered the brightest students in school, Lina’s genius puts her ahead of her friend. The friendship works, however, because the girls’ personalities complement each other nicely: Elena’s nature to please counters Lina’s difficult and scrappy personality, and Lina’s bravery gives Elena the courage she needs. Through their early years, the competition between them in the classroom keeps them both at the top, earning special recognition. The friendship changes, however, when they become teenagers and Elena continues with her education while Lina leaves school to work in her father’s shoe repair shop.

In addition to the story about Elena and Lina, Ferrante describes the city of Naples and the complex relationships that have developed over generations between eight families of grocers, carpenters, railroad workers, bakers, and fruit sellers, including mob boss Don Achille of the Caracci family and the mad widow of the Cappuccio family. As Elena and her friends become teenagers, they must confront decades-old feuds and alliances as well as the violence that shapes their lives. Elena must decide whether to continue studying while Lila weighs the benefits, and costs of marriage.

Book One ends just as Elena and Lila begin separate paths, with plenty of unknowns, including Lila’s disturbing reference to an overwhelming psychological experience of what she calls “disappearing margins.”

I recommend My Brilliant Friend to readers who like sagas about families and friendship. I just reserved Season One on DVD at the library and hope to read and watch the rest of the series in the coming year!

Book Two: The Story of a New Name
Book Three: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
Book Four: The Story of the Lost Child

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

Five biographies on my 2026 TBR list

~ Book Club Mom ~ 29 Comments

Although I mostly read fiction, I also like to dig into a good biography. Here are five I want to read in 2026. All links and descriptions are from Goodreads.

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser: My sister gave me this book for Christmas a bunch of years ago and I must to get to it this year!

“Millions of readers of the ‘Little House’ books believe they know Laura Ingalls Wilder – the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains as her family chased their American dream. But the true story of her life has never been fully told. Drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries and public records, Caroline Fraser masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography, uncovering the grown-up story behind the best-loved childhood epic of pioneer life.”

Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke: I’ve always loved Truman Capote’s writing and books about him so I’m looking forward to reading more.

“From instant celebrity at age 23 to alcoholic loner by mid-life, Truman Capote streaked across the middle of this century on a comet of genius, self-destruction and fame. Drawing on interviews with Capote and with nearly everyone who knew him, and with exclusive access to personal papers, Gerald Clarke has written the definitive biography of an incomparable man and his time.”

Shackleton the Biography by Ranulph Fiennes: If you know me, you know I can’t resist a shipwreck story. I’ve been meaning to read this Shackleton biography for a long time and I’m sure I’ve talked about it on my blog before 😉

“To write about Hell, it helps if you have been there. In 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to traverse the Antarctic was cut short when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. The disaster left Shackleton and his men alone at the frozen South Pole, fighting for their lives. Their survival and escape is the most famous adventure in history. Shackleton is a captivating new account of the adventurer, his life and his incredible leadership under the most extreme of circumstances. Written by polar adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes who followed in Shackleton’s footsteps, he brings his own unique insights to bear on these infamous expeditions. Shackleton is both re-appraisal and a valediction, separating Shackleton from the myth he has become.”

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford: I don’t know anything about Edna St. Vincent, but the cover drew me in.

“Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.”

Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor by Andrew Lownie: I remember learning about Edward VIII’s abdication in high school and his marriage to Wallis Simpson, but I don’t remember much else so it will be fun to learn more.

“Traitor King, by Sunday Times bestselling author Andrew Lownie, looks at the years following the abdication of Edward VIII when the former king was kept in exile, feuding with his family over status for his wife, Wallis Simpson, and denied any real job. Drawing on extensive research into hitherto unused archives and Freedom of Information requests, it makes the case that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were not the naïve dupes of the Germans but actively intrigued against Britain in both war and peace.”

Do you like reading biographies and memoirs? Drop some recommendations in the comments!

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

Book Review: Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

~ Book Club Mom ~ 31 Comments

Close to Death
by
Anthony Horowitz

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

I really enjoyed this clever murder mystery set in Riverview Close, a small and exclusive locked-gate neighborhood outside London. The new neighbors, the Kenworthys, don’t really fit in with their cars, loud parties, and middle-of-the night comings and goings. And now they want to put in a pool! What a disturbance to everyone else’s lives!

Something must be done, so the established neighbors call a meeting, hoping they can persuade Giles Kenworthy and his family to be more considerate. But Giles, a hedge fund manager, is a no-show and that night he’s shot dead with a crossbow.

An up-and-coming London detective supposedly solves the crime, but it isn’t until a few years later that the case gets a second look, this time by mystery writer Anthony Horowitz (that’s right, he’s a character in this mystery series!). His “teammate” in the series, ex-detective Daniel Hawthorne, who assisted with the first investigation, sends him the files, and Anthony begins his next book. The two men are an unlikely duo. Hawthorne’s abrasive and secretive personality and Anthony’s writer’s ego lead to amusing conflicts as they rework the case and Anthony writes his book.

The neighbors are an interesting lot. Adam Strauss is a grandmaster in chess and his wife Teri manages his career. He needs complete silence to concentrate! The Bereford family feels the stress of their modern lives, with two careers and young children. Tom, a doctor, becomes particularly upset when the Giles blocks their shared driveway. Andrew Pennington, a retired criminal barrister, felt insulted when Giles thought he was a delivery guy on the Kenworthys’ move-in day. Was it racism? As a Black man, Andrew has experienced more than his share of subtle slights and jabs. May Winslow and Phyllis Moore are just two old ladies looking to live a quiet life, but they lock horns with Lynda Kenworthy when their dog creates a mess in the Kenworthys’ yard. And now that Felicity Browne is housebound with a debilitating illness, her husband, Roderick, a dentist, has devoted his time to giving her a life she can enjoy, including the peaceful view of their backyard, soon to be ruined by the Kenworthys’ pool.

In this locked-gate community, one of the neighbors is guilty. Who has the biggest beef with the Kenworthys and how did they get away with it? You’ll enjoy how Anthony works out the clues to uncover overlooked clues and solve the crime correctly, this time.

Close to Death is the fifth in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series and you don’t have to read them all, or in order, to enjoy them, as long as you understand that the author is a character in his own book. I read The Word Is Murder, the series starter last year, so I had a heads-up about his character, but you can get up to speed quickly as you read.

I recommend this series to readers who like clever plots and interesting characters, with plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing. Even if you aren’t a big mystery reader, I think you would like this series.

Thanks for visiting—come back soon!

A huge list of classic (and future classic) books!

~ Book Club Mom ~ 31 Comments

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at lists of classic (and future classic) books and thinking about what books I may want to read (or read again) this year. I came upon this Penguin list of 100 Must-Read Classics, as Chosen by Our Readers and thought it was a good place to start.

Of course, lists are always subjective, so to add to the mix, I looked at these:

25 Modern Classics of the 21st Century
Future American Classics
Classic Books to Read at Least Once in Your Lifetime
200 Books That Shaped 200 Years of Literature
Library of Congress – Classic Books Online

I hope you enjoy looking at these lists as much as I have. I have a long way to go if I ever want to get through them!

Here are the ones I have read and reviewed on my blog:

I read these years ago:

  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen
  • Brave New World by Aldus Huxley
  • Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  • The Iliad by Homer
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
  • 1984 by George Orwell
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison
  • The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  • The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
  • Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
  • Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan
  • Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
  • Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  • Sula by Toni Morrison
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  • The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  • The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
  • The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Here’s what’s left: I’d better get started!

  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
  • Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
  • I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  • The Call of the Wild by Jack London
  • Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
  • The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
  • The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  • The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker
  • The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • Hard Times by Charles Dickens
  • David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  • Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  • Another Country by James Baldwin
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  • Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
  • Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
  • The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  • Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • Ulysses by James Joyce
  • East of Eden by John Steinbeck
  • Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
  • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
  • The Pursuit of Love/Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
  • The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
  • Orlando by Virginia Woolf
  • The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  • The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
  • Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
  • Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
  • The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
  • The Quiet American by Graham Greene
  • Perfume by Patrick Suskind
  • Silas Marner by George Eliot
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  • The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
  • The Castle by Franz Kafka
  • I, Claudius by Robert Graves
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  • A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  • The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
  • Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  • The Diary of a Nobody by G&W Grossmith
  • The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
  • Staying On by Paul Scott
  • Erasure by Percival Everett
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
  • Evicted by Matthew Desmond
  • Septology by Jon Fosse
  • My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard
  • The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
  • The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
  • Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
  • James by Percival Everett
  • Trust by Hernán Díaz
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
  • Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  • Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
  • Chéri and The End of Chéri by Colette
  • Women of the Harlem Renaissance
  • The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson
  • On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  • Passing by Nella Larsen
  • Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole by Mary Seacole in Many Lands
  • Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • Clotel, or the President’s Daughter by William Wells Brown
  • Our Nig, or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson
  • Felix Holt, The Radical by George Eliot
  • L’Argent by Emile Zola
  • The Claudine Novels by Colette
  • The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  • Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse
  • The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
  • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
  • In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
  • Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
  • East Goes West: the Making of an Oriental Yankee by Younghill Kang
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  • The Outsider and Others by H.P. Lovecraft
  • The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
  • Native Son by Richard Wright
  • The Street by Ann Petry
  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  • The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
  • Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks
  • Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
  • On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  • The Once and Future King by T.H. White
  • The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  • The Nine Guardians by Rosario Castellanos
  • Solaris by Lem Stanislaw
  • Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré
  • The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector
  • The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick
  • The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
  • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  • Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
  • The Book of Daniel by E. L. Doctorow
  • Maurice by E. M. Forster
  • The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
  • Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
  • The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
  • Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed
  • Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
  • Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
  • Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
  • The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
  • The Shining by Stephen King
  • The Stories of John Cheever
  • The World According to Garp by John Irving
  • Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
  • Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
  • Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
  • Obasan by Joy Kogawa
  • Concrete by Thomas Bernhard
  • Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
  • The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
  • The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende
  • The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
  • Cathedral by Raymond Carver
  • The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
  • Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson
  • Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
  • The Lover by Marguerite Duras
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
  • Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
  • To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life by Hervé Guibert
  • The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
  • American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
  • Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
  • Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
  • The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald
  • The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
  • The Secret History by Donna Tartt
  • A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
  • Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
  • In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
  • The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
  • That Time of Year by Marie Ndiaye
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
  • Underworld by Don DeLillo
  • My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
  • Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahri
  • Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
  • The Known World by Edward P. Jones
  • Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  • The Master by Colm Tóibín
  • The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
  • The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
  • A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
  • Event Factory by Renee Gladman
  • My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
  • Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
  • The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
  • The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
  • Outline by Rachel Cusk
  • A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
  • The Emmisary by Yōko Tawada
  • The Sellout by Paul Beatty
  • The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
  • Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
  • Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
  • Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
  • My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
  • Normal People by Sally Rooney
  • The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
  • Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
  • The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
  • Telephone by Percival Everett
  • Deacon King Kong by James McBride

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