Reading Recommendations from the staff of the American Writers Museum.
We can’t recommend these books highly enough! Check back every month for more reading recommendations, from classics that we reread over and over to new favorites. If you’re looking for your next book, you came to the right place.
Our December staff picks are also available on Bookshop.org, which benefits independent bookstores. We also strongly encourage you to support your local bookstore by visiting them in person or ordering online through them directly.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
Reading this book took me back to middle school when I first read The Hunger Games. It was so nostalgic, being able to drop back into that world but this time with a new perspective. Even more, it’s strange reading about a character you’ve only ever hated, learning to (I hesitate to say…) love them, and see their beginning.
—Maya, Marketing & Creative Associate
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis
From the publisher: “Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers. She has been called ‘an American virtuoso of the short story form’ (Salon) and ‘one of the quiet giants…of American fiction’ (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis’s short stories are collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance.”
—Christopher, Director of Operations
Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You by Lucinda Williams
From the publisher: “The iconic singer-songwriter and three-time Grammy winner opens up about her traumatic childhood in the Deep South, her years of being overlooked in the music industry, and the stories that inspired her enduring songs in this ‘bracingly candid chronicle’ (The Wall Street Journal)… Raw, intimate, and honest, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is an evocative reflection on an extraordinary woman’s life journey.”
—Cristina, Guest Services & Operations Supervisor
The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto by Jonathan Taplin
From the publisher: “A brilliant takedown and exposé of the great con job of the twenty-first century—the metaverse, crypto, space travel, transhumanism—being sold by four billionaires (Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreesen, Elon Musk), leading to the degeneration and bankruptcy of our society… The End of Reality is both scathing critique and reform agenda that replaces the warped worldview of ‘The Four’ with a vision of regenerative economics that seeks to build a sustainable society with healthy growth and full employment.”
Listen to Taplin, along with science fiction author Michi Trota, on this recent episode of AWM Author Talks, in which the two writers share their thoughts and feelings about AI and predictive programming in regards to the future of writing and creative expression.
—Nate, Digital Content Associate
Housemoms by Jen Lancaster
From the publisher: “Three grown women find escape and camaraderie on sorority row in a delightfully exhilarating novel about fresh starts, whether you want them or not, by New York Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster… Though CeCe’s not ready to sell her Chanel bag, she’s open to reinvention. Hayden might even admit she needs help in her new independent life. And Janelle’s due for a personal triumph. But big challenges loom between the alabaster columns of Eli Whitney University, unexpected and dicey enough to bring them all together—if only to keep them from falling completely apart.”
—Annie, Interim Assistant Director of Programming & Education
I’ll Take Everything You Have by James Klise
From the publisher: “From an Edgar Award-winning author, this historical noir novel follows the life-changing summer of sixteen-year-old Joe Garbe as he discovers queer community in 1930s Chicago and gets caught up in the city’s crooked underbelly… When danger closes in—from gangsters, the police, and people he thought were friends—Joe needs to pack up and get lost. But before he can figure out where to go, he has to decide who he wants to be. I’ll Take Everything You Have is a vivid portrayal of queer coming of age in Depression-era Chicago, and a timeless story of trying to make your future bright when the rest of the world is dead set on keeping it hidden in the dark.”
—Noelle, Education Program Coordinator
Joan Didion: The 1960s & 70s (LOA #325) edited by David L. Ulin
From the publisher: “Joan Didion’s influence on postwar American letters is undeniable. Whether writing fiction, memoir, or trailblazing journalism, her gifts for narrative and dialogue, and her intimate but detached authorial persona, have won her legions of readers and admirers… These books display Didion’s genius for finding exactly the right language and tone to capture America’s broken twilight landscape at a moment of headlong conflict and change.”
You can learn more about the life and legacy of Didion on the latest episode of our podcast Nation of Writers here, with featured guests Evelyn McDonnell (see below) and Cady Lang.
—Nate, Digital Content Associate
The Maybe Man by AJR (album)
AJR’s newest album dropped earlier this month and I have not stopped listening. This album feels like the next step in an incredible evolution for this band.
—Matt, Community Engagement Manager
Murdle: Volume 1 by G. T. Karber
From the publisher: “Join Deductive Logico and investigate murders most foul in Murdle: Volume 1. The first of their kind, these humorous mini-mystery puzzles challenge you to find whodunit, how, where, and why. Examine the clues, interview the witnesses, and use the power of deduction to complete the grid and catch the culprit. Together, you’ll uncover a buried secret beneath all of the murders and a message that can only be decrypted when you’ve solved them all.”
—Matt, Community Engagement Manager
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
From the publisher: “When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised. But the house has other plans… Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.”
— Noelle, Education Program Coordinator
To Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu
From the publisher: “In To Hold Up the Sky, Cixin Liu takes us across time and space, from a rural mountain community where elementary students must use physics to prevent an alien invasion; to coal mines in northern China where new technology will either save lives or unleash a fire that will burn for centuries; to a time very much like our own, when superstring computers predict our every move; to 10,000 years in the future, when humanity is finally able to begin anew; to the very collapse of the universe itself. Written between 1999 and 2017 and never before published in English, these stories came into being during decades of major change in China and will take you across time and space through the eyes of one of science fiction’s most visionary writers.”
—Cassidy, Guest Services/Operations Assistant
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
From the publisher: “Sam and Sadie—two college friends, often in love, but never lovers—become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before… Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.”
—Christopher, Director of Operations
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller
From the publisher: “David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him… When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet. Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.”
—Maya, Marketing & Creative Associate
Wonderworks: Literary Invention and the Science of Stories by Angus Fletcher
From the publisher: “Literature is a technology like any other. And the writers we revere—from Homer, Shakespeare, Austen, and others—each made a unique technical breakthrough that can be viewed as both a narrative and neuroscientific advancement… Wonderworks reviews the blueprints for 25 of the most significant developments in the history of literature. These inventions can be scientifically shown to alleviate grief, trauma, loneliness, anxiety, numbness, depression, pessimism, and ennui, while sparking creativity, courage, love, empathy, hope, joy, and positive change. They can be found throughout literature—from ancient Chinese lyrics to Shakespeare’s plays, poetry to nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and crime novels to slave narratives.”
—Carol, Institutional Giving Manager
The World According to Joan Didion by Evelyn McDonnell
From the publisher: “Joan Didion was a writer’s writer; not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist and screenwriter, but a keen observer who honed her sights on life’s telling details. Her insights continue to influence creatives and admirers, encouraging them to become close observers of the world, unsentimental critics, and meticulous stylists… The World According To Joan Didion is a meditation on the people, places, and objects that propelled Didion’s prose and an invitation to journalists, storytellers, and life adventurers to ‘throw themselves into the convulsions of the world,’ as she once said.”
As stated above, you can learn more about the life and legacy of Didion on the latest episode of our podcast Nation of Writers here, in which McDonnell is joined by TIME staff writer Cady Lang.
—Nate, Digital Content Associate
Visit our Reading Recommendations page for more book lists.