Accessibility links
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

Tuesday

You Must Read These Gleefully Deranged Stories

Stranger Things Promo hide caption

toggle caption

Review

You Must Read These Gleefully Deranged Stories

Reading Kelly Link's writing isn't really like reading at all — it's more like experiencing the strangest dream of your life. Writer Karen Russell says the uncanny short stories are genre-bending, mind-blowing masterpieces of the imagination that draw on fable and myth to achieve an unbearably painful realism.

You Must Read These Gleefully Deranged Stories

Listen · 4:00
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/135703690/137859537" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Saddle Up For A Wild Western Ride, L'Amour Style

Louis L'Amour authored 17 rugged Western novels about the gun-slinging Sackett clan. He died at age 80 in 1988. John Hamilton hide caption

toggle caption
John Hamilton

Review

Saddle Up For A Wild Western Ride, L'Amour Style

The gun-slinging glory of Louis L'Amour Westerns might be romanticized past the point of reality, but not even American history scholar Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman can resist the pull of their ruggedly glamorous adventures that sweep across the Great Plains.

Saddle Up For A Wild Western Ride, L'Amour Style

Listen · 3:14
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/134632486/136368704" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Wednesday

In Memory Of A Mentor: 'So Long,' William Maxwell

Novelist and editor William Maxwell died in 2000. He was 91 years old. Wyatt Counts/AP hide caption

toggle caption
Wyatt Counts/AP

Review

In Memory Of A Mentor: 'So Long,' William Maxwell

As an aspiring writer, William Lychack was lucky enough to be mentored by his literary hero, longtime New Yorker editor, William Maxwell. Maxwell's novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, is a meditation on loss and forgiveness; Lychack says every page is touched by care, like rooms of a beautiful house.

Monday

Review

Move Over, Tiger Mom: This Mother's 'On Fire'

If Amy Chua's tale of overachievement, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, left you looking for a different image of an Asian-American family, writer Ben Ryder Howe recommends Mother on Fire. Sandra Tsing Loh tells the story of her refreshingly "average" Asian-American family.

Move Over, Tiger Mom: This Mother's 'On Fire'

Listen · 3:05
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/134059609/135997541" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Wednesday

Lit Novelist Confesses Nerd Love For Sci Fi Classic

Review

Lit Novelist Confesses Nerd Love For Sci Fi Classic

Karel Capek's The Absolute at Large demonstrates how weighty social satire can be slipped into genre fiction. Writer Cara Hoffman says the surrealist speculation in this 1920s sci-fi novel is so prescient, it feels like it could have been written today.

Lit Novelist Confesses Nerd Love For Sci Fi Classic

Listen · 4:00
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/135241076/135610674" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Return To The Prairie To Revisit 'My Antonia'

Review

Return To The Prairie To Revisit 'My Antonia'

Willa Cather's pioneer tale is often considered a young adult novel — but don't be fooled by the deceptively simple prose. Writer Bradford Morrow says older readers who return to the subtly sophisticated narrative will find new perspectives on their own journeys.

Return To The Prairie To Revisit 'My Antonia'

Listen · 3:59
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/133811309/135930219" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Review

Poetry With An Edge: The Acerbic Wit Of Alan Dugan

In honor of National Poetry Month, former poet laureate Robert Pinsky shares the work of one of his favorite writers, Alan Dugan, who died in 2003. Pinksy says Dugan was an amusing, soulful and engagingly nasty poet who sang the truth — often with a splash of high-grade vinegar.

Poetry With An Edge: The Acerbic Wit Of Alan Dugan

Listen · 2:52
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/134745994/135186304" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Review

Head Over Heels For 'Boys Over Flowers'

Japan has been devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami — but author Marie Mutsuki Mockett has faith in the resilience of the Japanese people. She recommends Yoko Kamio's manga series, Boys Over Flowers, about a young heroine, who embodies Japanese perseverance.

Head Over Heels For 'Boys Over Flowers'

Listen
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/134563204/135449921" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

Tuesday

Well-Written 'Letters': Saul Bellow Shows Us How

Review

Well-Written 'Letters': Saul Bellow Shows Us How

The famed writer doled out hundreds of letters to friends, enemies, multiple wives, ex-wives and lovers. Writer Rebecca Newberger Goldstein recommends a hefty collection of Bellow's works of correspondence — brimming with savory morsels of masterful prose.

Well-Written 'Letters': Saul Bellow Shows Us How

Listen · 2:49
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/134432921/134574499" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Monday

'Oreo': A Satire Of Racial Identity, Inside And Out

Review

'Oreo': A Satire Of Racial Identity, Inside And Out

Fran Ross' Oreo is an uproarious look at American identity, through the eyes of a biracial girl. The funny, poignant novel was largely ignored when it was published in 1974 — but writer Mat Johnson says the time for the quirky novel is now.

'Oreo': A Satire Of Racial Identity, Inside And Out

Listen · 3:59
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/134204725/134399700" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Thursday

Review

A Haunting Tale To Judge 'The Quick And The Dead'

In The Quick and the Dead, Joy Williams fixes a gaze of cold but evocative detachment on the lives of an eclectic cast of characters living in the arid Southwest. Writer Sarah Braunstein says the surreal novel uses wit, candor and virtuosic prose to delve into "our subterranean selves."

A Haunting Tale To Judge 'The Quick And The Dead'

Listen · 4:00
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/133960311/134210037" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Wednesday

A Harsh Tale Of War, But An Unforgettable Read

Review

A Harsh Tale Of War, But An Unforgettable Read

How can we understand the experiences of those who have lived through war? What do they have to teach us? Author Hilary Thayer Hamann's favorite book attempts to answer these questions, and reinforces just how beautifully implausible life during conflict can be. It's The War by Marguerite Duras.

A Harsh Tale Of War, But An Unforgettable Read

Listen · 3:58
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/133811002/137509352" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript