Finishing my MFA, it was the fewest books I’ve read in three years, but that was honestly welcomed and there were many highlights, which are in bold, as in: you should definitely read this. The book of the year for me was The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. I’m honestly still thinking about it. But really everything in bold blew me away. Enjoy.
Something to do With Paying Attention by David Foster Wallace
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov (Annie Baker trans)
Maps of our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Story of a Marriage by Geir Gulliksen
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Wings of Effort Wings of Grace by Jan Birchfield
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones
A Thousand Years of Good Prayer by Yiyun Li
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Last Night by James Salter
Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Endless Love by Scott Spencer
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
We The Animals by Justin Torres
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
Speedboat by Renata Adler
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti