Feeling stuck? Perhaps the right book is what you need

Below are some books I recommend for anyone who needs inspiration. This is a very-not-exhaustive list that I intended to keep adding to but rarely do.

Novel

  • The Old Fire, Elsa Shua Dusapin

  • The Exhibition of Persephone, Jessi Jezewska Stevens

  • All Fours, Miranda July

  • The Safekeep, Yael Van der Wouden

  • The Country Life, Rachel Cusk

  • Martyr! Kaveh Akbar

  • The Friend, Sigrid Nunez

  • What Are You Going Through? Sigrid Nunez

  • The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty

  • Outline, Rachel Cusk

  • Independence Day, Richard Ford

  • White Noise, Don Delillo

    ….Lots of others, etc.

Novel - Subgenre: Dark / Wit

  • Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh

  • The Idiot, Elif Batuman

Novel - Subgenre: Really f*cking beautiful writing

  • On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong

  • In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje

  • Veronica, Mary Gaitskill

  • The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante

Novel - Subgenre: Sensual-sexual

  • Normal People, Sally Rooney

  • Veronica, Mary Gaitskill

Novel - Subgenre: California

  • Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje

  • The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner

Novellas

  • Harvey (aka “White Noise”), Emma Cline

  • The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy

  • Cecelia, K-Ming Chang

  • Bounty, George Saunders (from the collection CivilWarland in Bad Decline)

Memoir

  • Reading the Waves, Lidia Yuknavitch

  • Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, Leslie Jamison

  • Easy Beauty, Chloé Cooper Jones

  • I Would Meet You Anywhere, Susan Kiyo Ito

  • Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner

  • 90 Days: A Memoir of Recovery, Bill Clegg

  • This Body I Wore, Diana Goetsch

  • Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje

  • Burning the Days, James Salter

  • The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr

  • Cherry, Mary Karr

  • Lit, Mary Karr

  • The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

  • My Broken Language, Quiara Alegría Hudes

  • Chelsea Girls, Eileen Myles (“a novel”)

  • A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip, Kevin Brockmeier

  • Motherhood, Sheila Heti (memoir-adjacent)

  • The Country of the Blind, Andrew Leland

  • The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch

  • Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain

Short Stories

  • Rock Springs, Richard Ford

  • Bliss Montage, Ling Ma

  • Liberation Day, George Saunders

  • Tenth of December, George Saunders

  • Homesick for Another World, Ottessa Moshfegh

  • No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July

  • Birds of America, Lorrie Moore

  • Black Light, Kimberley King Parsons

  • Fresh Complaint, Jeffrey Eugenides

  • Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro (or anything else by her)

  • Fortune Smiles, Adam Johnson

  • That Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

  • Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

  • Hunger, Lan Samantha Chang

Essays

  • In the Land of the Cyclops, Karl Ove Knausgaard

  • Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didion

  • The Hard Crowd, Rachel Kushner

  • The Braindead Megaphone, George Saunders

  • This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett

  • (Anything by) Annie Dillard

Books About Writing

  • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders

  • The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr

  • On Writing, Stephen King

  • Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

  • Body Work, Melissa Febos

Books About Life and Other Things that Made Me Cry

  • Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

More writing thoughts, etc.

My Substack