.SOMETIMES RAW.

Every season, there are those books everyone starts buzzing about: Gone Girl! The Goldfinch! Fifty Shades of Grey. They explode all over your social media feeds and populate the front tables at your local bookstore. (And eventually, they turn into movies.) So, just in time for spring, I rounded up five of some big, and most talked about books…

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
There’s a good chance you’ve seen this book’s cover in my Instagram feed (or if you haven’t, that you will very soon). It graced the cover of last weekend’s Times Book Review, where it received paragraph after paragraph of glowing praise. The story of a marriage told first from the husband’s, then wife’s, perspectives presents two very different accounts of the same relationship. If you love inventive prose, emotionally complex characters, plots with intricate puzzle pieces — or simply reading about relationships — this one is for you. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.

Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford
Set in New York just before the 2008 recession, this debut novel (and instant bestseller) from a veteran New York Times writer has earned her the title of “a modern-day Edith Wharton.” Part social satire, part cautionary tale, Everybody Rise tells the story of Evelyn, a well-meaning but endearingly flawed protagonist who tries to make it in high society. With a tightly-wound plot and plenty of funny moments, I’m halfway through and enjoying it so far.

Purity by Jonathan Franzen
Hailed by critics as a “magnum opus,” the latest novel from the author of Freedom and The Corrections might be the most-hyped book of the season. The novel’s protagonist is Pip “Purity” Tyler, a young woman grappling with a pointless job, crippling student debt and a toxic relationship with her mom… along with plenty of sex, travel and murder. With his ambitious narratives and unmatched literary prose, Franzen has been called the finest writer of today. Like The Goldfinch in 2013, this is one of those tomes seemingly everyone will read. (Or pretend to read. Or purchase and keep telling themselves they’re going to read.)

A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
This debut novel from the books editor at Glamour has made appearances on countless “best of” lists and drawn comparisons to Bridget Jones’ Diary and I Don’t Know How She Does It. The book follows Alice, a mostly happily married mother of three, who is proud of her “balancing act,” until life inevitably gets in the way. People magazine hailed it as “a fresh, funny take on the age-old struggle to have it all.” The stream of glowing praise (and nearly 5-star Amazon rating!) have made it next on my list.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
The new nonfiction offering from the author of Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s first foray into “self help” territory. Drawing from her own experience, she promises an honest examination of the creative process, including how to find the “strange jewels” hidden within each of us. If it’s anywhere close to as inspiring as her TED talk on the subject, it’s sure to be wonderful. And after all, who couldn’t use a little (big) magic?

What are you reading these days? Are there any books you’re looking forward to checking out? I’d love to hear!

1. Peeing standing up.

2. Swinging it around like a helicopter.

3. Reaching things from the top shelf.

4. Wearing the same pair of pants to work all week.

5. Giving a presentation without being interrupted.

6. Getting a promotion.

7. Getting offered a salary commensurate with experience.

8. Getting paid more than they deserve for the work they’re doing.

9. Going their entire career without experiencing sexual harassment.

10. Being taken seriously at the doctor.

11. Getting there without a GPS.

12. Telling the GPS it’s wrong.

13. Dumping clean, unfolded laundry on the bed and calling it a day.

14. Washing one fork and saying they did the dishes.

15. Referring to time spent with their children as “babysitting.”

16. Forgetting their kid’s birthday.

17. Being forgiven for forgetting their kid’s birthday.

18. Taking an Uber alone after 9 pm.

19. Leaving their drink at the bar and going to the bathroom.

20. Walking down the street and not having an 85-year-old man drunkenly yell, “Hey sexy!”

21. Gaining ten pounds without being judged for the rest of their lives.

22. Baking five loaves of bread and eating them all in one sitting without shame.

23. Never getting asked about their “biological clock” and whether it is “ticking.”

24. Never getting asked if they think they really can “have it all.”

25. Not having to have an opinion about Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

26. Not having to pretend they liked Big Little Lies.

27. Getting elected to neighborhood watch.

28. Getting elected to the school board.

29. Getting elected to the state legislature.

30. Getting elected to Congress.

31. Getting elected to the Senate.

32. Getting elected president.

33. Achieving an orgasm. Every. Single. Time.

What books have you read lately? I’ve just finished one book and even though it was 832 looong pages it was totally worth it…

After seeing endless glowing reviews (“It’s not hyperbole to call this novel a masterwork — if anything that word is simply just too little for it,” one proclaimed) and getting the same recommendation from friend after friend for a couple of years, I finally made A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara my reading project. It was incredible — both the book and the experience of focusing on just one book. 

I don’t have a Kindle, so I lugged my brick of a book everywhere. It took up all the space in my bag, and preoccupied me during my lunch break at work, and on a short vacation (I felt like this). My ten-year-old wanted to know “How many stories” my book contained, and approximately every 25 minutes on the couch he asked me, “Do you want to read your grown-up book now?” Yes. Yes, I did.

Since reading  Gone With the Wind with rapt attention in the 90s, I’ve tackled many other big books. Anything from Murakami, to War and Peace, and Anna Karenina – just bring on the big books. Have you ever done that, or set yourself up for a reading project? My friend M. spent much of her time reading poems because she missed studying them in college. And a few months ago, another friend assigned herself epic cookbooks like Larousse Gastronomique and The Kitchen Diaries.

I love the idea of making a reading goal and going for it! This list by Italo Calvino (the new man in my life) makes me laugh: 

Sections in the bookstore —
– Books You Haven’t Read
– Books You Needn’t Read
– Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading
– Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written
– Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
– Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
– Books Too Expensive Now and You’ll Wait ‘Til They’re Remaindered
– Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback
– Books You Can Borrow from Somebody
– Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too
– Books You’ve Been Planning to Read for Ages
– Books You’ve Been Hunting for Years Without Success
– Books Dealing with Something You’re Working on at the Moment
– Books You Want to Own So They’ll Be Handy Just in Case
– Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer
– Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves
– Books That Fill You with Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
– Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time to Re-read
– Books You’ve Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It’s Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them

What about you? I’d love to hear which books you loved, or which ones you’re hoping to squeeze into the upcoming weeks of long days and warm nights.