Reading Lists!

 Like any of us have time to read these days - or, rather, the quiet time away from the screen to read a book. Like the fool I am, I keep reading what amounts to journalism on the internet.

My reading list is what I started and have not finished. That is long enough of a list.

But in the interest of encouraging you to read, having reading lists flowing into my inbox, I will put you wise to these lists, hoping you do better than I do:

From Write or Die:

Nirica Srinivasan, interviews editor

Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett — I was so excited to hear a new Claire-Louise Bennett is on the way this year, so I'm revisiting Checkout 19, the first thing I read by her — a delightfully strange, shifty sort of stream-of-consciousness book, about art and imagination and writing and reading.

Kailey Brennan DelloRusso, editor in chief

I was so excited to stumble upon Girls with Long Shadows by Tennessee Hill at the library the other day. Summertime always makes me want to read stories about girlhood and this one caught my attention right away with its Texas golf course setting, story of girl triples without names and the sibling dynamic I was looking for as I gear up to write my second novel.

Suzanne Grove, fiction editor

Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje — My great-grandfather was born in Bubnjarci, a Croatian village bordering Slovenia. I grew up hearing stories about life there, so I'm always seeking novels and novelists with that Croatian connection. The novel begins, "Sometimes I stalk my ex-husband." Of course you have to keep reading.

Shelby Hinte, senior editor

I am currently trying to live and breath rewriting my next novel, so I am reading a chapter out of Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being each morning for a little pre-writing pep talk, and I am rereading Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies for a lesson in structure. I've been surprised at how my view of the characters and their marriage is wildly different 10 years later. (Maybe because I read it during the first year of my marriage, and now, 11 years married, I am currently separated from my husband...a fact that is also responsible for the major overhaul of my WIP.)

Nicholas Claro, fiction reader

I just finished Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash and I'm now reading Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle.

Jessica Bao, essay reader

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Jo-tzu— Originally written in Mandarin Chinese as an imagined translation from a 1940s Japanese text, the book follows the travels of young novelist Chizuko as she explores Taiwan—then under imperialist Japanese occupation—with local translator Chizuru. Led by Chizuko’s impressive and frankly aspirational appetite, the two women eat their way around Taiwan in chapters titled after various wonderful food items. They also grow carefully and heartrendingly closer than perhaps their time allows. And while Taiwan Travelogue made my mouth water (Ohh the bah-sò-pn̄g of my childhood) and my throat parched, perfect for a summer day, it was also so tender that it cracked my heart in two.

(I had the privilege of reading the original Mandarin text alongside the English one, flipping between my ironically more fluent second language and my mother tongue. There are nuances in the translations—diegetic or otherwise—that I will talk about for hours with anyone willing. Literally, just dm me.)

 A Reading List for Disability Pride Month 2025 (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses)

Private Eye reading recommendations from the '70s to now

reading lists (Literary Hub)

Summer Reading Reset (Democracy in Color) (Podcast)

sch