Samantha Harvey – Orbital (2023)
Writing that feels like it glitters and levitates.
Claire-Louise Bennett – Pond (2015)
“In solitude, you don’t need to make an impression on the world, so the world has some opportunity to make an impression on you.”
Miranda July – All Fours (2024)
Here we are, witnessing a masterful and unstoppable artist perfecting her craft.
Werner Herzog – Every Man for Himself and God Against All (2023)
Herzog has lived many lives and exudes an endless curiosity — as if, as a child, he fell into a Bavarian creek awash with potion and clambered out anew, like some German Obelix.
Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy (1987)
If Baumgartner was his latest effort, I wondered, what had the polished diamond looked like when it still was rough?
Miranda July – The First Bad Man (2015)
Peculiar, hilarious, disturbing and even ridiculous—but, incredibly engrossing.
Paul Lynch – Prophet Song (2023)
Relentless and unforgiving; a whirlwind of a novel about a country on the brink of totalitarianism.
Nan Shepherd – The Living Mountain (1977)
Spellbinding descriptions of walking the hills of the Cairngorms
Jo Ann Beard – Cheri (2023)
An elegant yet devastating novella in which Beard, somehow, makes the weight of it all feel bearable.
Deborah Levy – August Blue (2023)
A beautiful and atmospheric novel about a contemplative concert pianist.
Joan Didion – The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
Didion's powerful book on grief, injected with remarkable brevity, in which she guides readers through her experience with a striking sense of calm.
Anne Lamott – Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)
“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.”