Book recommendations

I always get asked for book recommendations; I never have any off the top of my head, and so here is a list of books that I believe will add some gloss and sparkle to your life. I tried to avoid the obvious--I haven't suggested you discover Steinbeck, or The Kite Runner, for obvious reasons. But here are some perhaps slightly lesser-known ones that you should snatch up immediately should you ever come across them in a used bookstore; the starred items are ones for which you should fight tooth and nail should another customer see them first. The second list is more for pleasure reading--not quite literary, perhaps, but wholly enjoyable.

Enjoy.

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The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Fidelity: Five Stories, by Wendell Berry*
Anything by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Come to Me, by Amy Bloom
Cathedral, Where I'm Calling From, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver *
My Antonia, by Willa Cather*
The Beauty of the Husband, by Anne Carson
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion* (really anything by her, except--I'm sorry--I really was underwhelmed by The Year of Magical Thinking)
Anything by MFK Fisher
Reasons to Live, by Amy Hempel
What's Eating Gilbert Grape, by Peter Hedges
You Are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett*
Who's Irish?, by Gish Jen
Waiting, by Ha Jin*
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
Anything by Alice Munro
Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami* (or anything else by him)
A Year in Provence, by Peter Mayle*
A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean*
Anything by Tim O'Brien* (especially Tomcat in Love, and The Things They Carried)
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett* (also Truth and Beauty, and The Magician's Assistant)
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson (Gilead is beautiful also)
Anything by Wallace Stegner* (especially Crossing to Safety, All the Little Live Things, and The Spectator Bird)
Old School, by Tobias Wolff
Our Kind, by Kate Walbert*

Tangerine, by Edward Bloor (for young adults)
Midwives, by Chris Bohjalian
Breathing Underwater, by Alex Flinn (also for young adults)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
Garlic and Sapphires, by Ruth Reichl (and Tender at the Bone, and Comfort Me With Apples)