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

Sunday September 15, 2013

Love Story Electrifies Beneath The Silhouette 'Of Venus'

Mark Baker/AP

Review

Love Story Electrifies Beneath The Silhouette 'Of Venus'

September 15, 2013 • Shirley Hazzard's 1980 novel Transit of Venus tells a sweeping, decades-long tale of two Australian sisters and three men, with a dash of astronomy thrown in. Author Roxana Robinson says the novel entranced her with tragedy, complexity and elegant, arresting prose.

Sunday September 1, 2013

A Return To Trollope: Did The Book Change — Or Did I?

cover detail cover detail hide caption

toggle caption

cover detail

Review

A Return To Trollope: Did The Book Change — Or Did I?

September 1, 2013 • Author Ann Kirschner first read Anthony Trollope's Palliser series as a graduate student. Now, returning to it after more than 20 years, she finds her impression of the Victorian tale has transformed along with her life.

Sunday August 11, 2013

Author, Feminist, Pioneer: The Unlikely Queen Of Sci-Fi

Andrew Ostrovsky/iStockPhoto.com

Review

Author, Feminist, Pioneer: The Unlikely Queen Of Sci-Fi

August 11, 2013 • Science fiction has long offered us the image of "the final frontier," but some sci-fi authors have mapped frontiers of their own. Author Stephen Burt says James Tiptree Jr. (pen name of Alice Sheldon) was a pioneer in writing about gender and sexuality when most sci-fi authors were male.

Sunday July 28, 2013

A World A Few Degrees Of Whimsy Away From Our Own

cover detail cover detail hide caption

toggle caption

cover detail

Review

A World A Few Degrees Of Whimsy Away From Our Own

July 28, 2013 • Bohumil Hrabal's novel, I Served The King Of England, about a Czech waiter who barely survives World War II, may sound dire but author Anthony Marra says that if you allow yourself to be sucked in, you'll enter a story so ethereal you'll practically float.

Sunday July 7, 2013

'Rock Crystal' Tells Of Catastrophe's Quiet Avoidance

iStockphoto.com iStockphoto.com hide caption

toggle caption

iStockphoto.com

Review

'Rock Crystal' Tells Of Catastrophe's Quiet Avoidance

July 7, 2013 • Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter's 1845 novella Rock Crystal is the seemingly simple tale of two children who get lost in a snowfall on Christmas Eve. But author Susan Choi says the story perfectly captures humanity at its humblest and most resilient.

Sunday June 16, 2013

Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop': Journalism Is A Duplicitous Business

iStockphoto.com

Opinion

Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop': Journalism Is A Duplicitous Business

June 16, 2013 • The fictional tale about war correspondents will make you laugh till the person next to you on the subway thinks you have problems. It is also, according to writer Alexander Nazaryan, an all-too-real parody of the glory days of print journalism.

Sunday June 2, 2013

Donald Justice's 'Collected Poems' Offer Refuge From The Rain

iStockphoto.com

Review

Donald Justice's 'Collected Poems' Offer Refuge From The Rain

June 2, 2013 • Donald Justice's poems are not interested in making us feel comfortable or special. Yet author Mary Szybist says there is something about them that she finds profoundly consoling.

Sunday May 19, 2013

Ghost Ships, Murders, Bird Attacks: Stories To Keep You Awake

iStockphoto.com iStockphoto.com hide caption

toggle caption

iStockphoto.com

Review

Ghost Ships, Murders, Bird Attacks: Stories To Keep You Awake

May 19, 2013 • Author Ethan Rutherford started reading Daphne du Maurier's collection of stories, Don't Look Now, while it was still light out and didn't move from his chair until dark. Each one features characters who endure the strange and the extreme, and who are forever changed by the events that befall them.

Sunday May 12, 2013

Marked By Darkness: A War Novel That Sheds Light On Past Hurt

cover detail cover detail hide caption

toggle caption

cover detail

Review

Marked By Darkness: A War Novel That Sheds Light On Past Hurt

May 12, 2013 • Andrzej Szczypiorski's The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is a book set in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Author Courtney Angela Brkic says reading it helped her understand her father, whose family had lived through the second world war.

Sunday May 5, 2013

Review

A Chatty, Pensive, 'Rude As A Goat's Beard' Child Soldier

May 5, 2013 • Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah Is Not Obliged recounts the story of a child soldier in Liberia. Author A. Igoni Barrett says in this book, horror and humor become bedfellows, making for a heartbreaking yet laughter-filled read.

Sunday April 14, 2013

Dreaming Of Justice: Hardscrabble Lives In Hallucinatory Prose

cover promo image

Review

Dreaming Of Justice: Hardscrabble Lives In Hallucinatory Prose

April 14, 2013 • Tomás Rivera's ... And the Earth Did Not Devour Him is the account of a boy bearing witness to the injustices faced by migrant workers in the mid-20th century. Author Alex Espinoza says this book showed him that storytelling doesn't have to be private, it can be revolutionary.

Sunday April 7, 2013

Review

In A Vivid Memoir Of Life In Pakistan, A Vortex Of Tragedies

April 7, 2013 • Sara Suleri Goodyear's heartbreaking memoir, Meatless Days, describes growing up in post-colonial Pakistan with an elegiac immediacy. Author Rajesh Parameswaran says the book does justice to the way memory actually lives in the mind.

Sunday March 31, 2013

In Alice McDermott's 'Charming Billy,' Love Turns To Grief

cover detail hide caption

toggle caption

Review

In Alice McDermott's 'Charming Billy,' Love Turns To Grief

March 31, 2013 • In this novel about sadness and delusion, critic Harold Augenbraum says, "love ... tatters its own lovers." What's your favorite tragic novel? Tell us in the comments.

Sunday March 17, 2013

'The Quick And The Dead': Parables Of Doom And Merry Rapture

cover detail hide caption

toggle caption

Review

'The Quick And The Dead': Parables Of Doom And Merry Rapture

March 17, 2013 • Joy Williams' The Quick and the Dead, about three motherless girls traveling through the desert, left author Domenica Ruta with more questions than answers. Do you have a favorite book that left you confused — in a good way? Tell us in the comments.

Sunday March 10, 2013

Review

Darkness Visible: 'He Died With His Eyes Open' Is A Crime Novel Like No Other

March 10, 2013 • Derek Raymond has been called the father of British noir. But author A.L. Kennedy says He Died With His Eyes Open is a crime novel so far beyond noir that there isn't even a word for that kind of darkness. Is there a book you find deeply disturbing but still love? Tell us in the comments.