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You Must Read This "You Must Read This" presents conversations with writers about the books they love to read and recommend.
Special Series

You Must Read This

Writers recommend their all-time favorite books

Thursday

Review

A Wild, 'Burning' Journey Back To Old Mexico

Author Oscar Casares never used to be a reader — until the excitement of The Burning Plain and Other Stories showed him what he had been missing.

A Wild, 'Burning' Journey Back To Old Mexico

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Tuesday

Thursday

Review

'Sargasso' Re-Imagines The Madwoman Of 'Jane Eyre'

Jean Rhys' 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea endeavors to create a back story to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Though author Sara Paretsky usually resists such "vampire novels," she fell hard for Rhys' heart-chokingly urgent tale of Rochester's Madwoman.

'Sargasso' Re-Imagines The Madwoman Of 'Jane Eyre'

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Monday

When It Comes To Food, You Can't 'Beat This' Book

Review

When It Comes To Food, You Can't 'Beat This' Book

According to author Elizabeth Berg, Beat This! is more than just a cookbook — it's a humor book, a self-help book and a kind of bible.

When It Comes To Food, You Can't 'Beat This' Book

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Thursday

Review

Bradbury's Fiction Reignites An Author's Faith

Author Alice Hoffman says the world rendered in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 "is a place of great heart and wisdom, a universe of huge imagination where nothing is off-limits."

Bradbury's Fiction Reignites An Author's Faith

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Tuesday

Review

A Delightfully Evil Tale Of Pirates And Children

Finding a book that makes you feel like a kid again is no easy feat, but author Andrew Sean Greer says he found just that in Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica.

A Delightfully Evil Tale Of Pirates And Children

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Monday

Review

Head In A Fog? Reach For 'Herzog'

There's a little thing author Jeffrey Eugenides does when he can't write. When he's feeling sleepy, when his head is in a fog, he reaches across his desk, digs under the piles of unanswered mail, and unearths his copy of Herzog by Saul Bellow.

Head In A Fog? Reach For 'Herzog'

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Tuesday

Review

In Praise Of Ondaatje's Gloriously Intoxicating 'Lion'

Author Kamila Shamsie owns two copies of Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion so that no matter where she is, she can always slip into the novel's vital, heart-stopping world.

In Praise Of Ondaatje's Gloriously Intoxicating 'Lion'

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Monday

Review

Iceland's Stoic, Sardonic 'Independent People'

The main character in Halldor Laxness' novel Independent People is querulous, contrary, hard-hearted and stubborn — but author Christina Sunley can't get enough of him.

Iceland's Stoic, Sardonic 'Independent People'

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Monday

Thursday

Review

'Go With Me': A Wry Journey Deep Into Vermont

When a woman at a bookstore in Brattleboro, Vt., put Castle Freeman Jr.'s novel Go With Me into author Charles Bock's hand, he had no idea what a wry, primal, epic and impossible-to-put-down book he had just been given.

'Go With Me': A Wry Journey Deep Into Vermont

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Monday

Review

Out Of Africa And 'West With The Night'

Author Anne Cherian was 24 when she first read — and was enthralled by — Beryl Markham's autobiography West With the Night, a beautifully written retelling of the aviator's childhood in Africa and her daring solo flight across the Atlantic.

Out Of Africa And 'West With The Night'

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Wednesday

Review

A Journey From The Ghetto To The Ivory Tower

Ron Suskind's A Hope in the Unseen tracks a familiar story — an ambitious kid's escape from the inner city. Author Susan Jane Gilman says Suskind treats his subject with such care that this nonfiction tale has the impact of an epic novel.

A Journey From The Ghetto To The Ivory Tower

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Thursday

Review

The Birth Of Manhattan? A 'Delirious' Story

Author Eric Kraft describes Rem Koolhaas' Delirious New York as a "sometimes outrageous retroactive manifesto" about architecture and city planning — in short, a book not to miss.

The Birth Of Manhattan? A 'Delirious' Story

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Monday

Review

Irish At War: Poetic Prose In 'A Long Long Way'

R.L. Stine says Sebastian Barry's novel of the Irish during World War I is so exceptional and beautifully written that it reads like music.

Irish At War: Poetic Prose In 'A Long Long Way'

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