The Library

On The Nightstand (Adult):

Seriously, the stack is this high. Maybe yours is higher.

•  Bowlaway, Elizabeth McCraken
• Becoming, Michelle Obama (will never leave the nightstand–a staple!)
•  Change Your Brain, Change Your Grades, Daniel G. Amen (I have a kid)
• The Library Book, Susan Orlean
• Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver
• Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Broken Earth Trilogy, NK Jemisin
• Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly
• The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson (any nightstand’s ultimate staple)
• Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (will never leave the nightstand)
• Building Your Child’s Self-Esteem, Dorothy Corkille Briggs (stays on nightstand!)
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (can never get enough of JANE JANE JANE JANE)
• The Ocean World, Jacques Cousteau (will be reading in perpetuity)

On The Nightstand (Children’s/YA–see also “…filed children’s/YA” below)

Look–we moved recently and I’m still trying to find my nightstand reads

• The Pendragon series (we are embarking on this series for Family Book Club)
•  Forever Rick Riordan
• The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
• The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert
• The Jamie Drake Equation, Christopher Edge
• The Language Of Spells, Garret Weyr
• The Midnight War Of Mateo Martinez, Robin Yardi
• A Diamond in the Desert, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (MUST-READ–will stay on nightstand for inspiration)
• Destiny, Rewritten, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (exquisite–will also keep on nightstand for inspiration)

Read And Filed To The Livingroom Bookshelves–Or Not… (Adult):

• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
• We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (you can’t not read this book)
• All the Single Ladies, Rebecca Traister (you can’t not read this book)
• The Snow Child and To The Bright Edge Of The World, Eowyn Ivey (exquisite, both–you can’t not read these books or anything else she get out here)
• How To Party With An Infant, and The Descendants and House Of Thieves (I always look forward to Kaui’s work)
• All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (I’ve been keeping up with his work since The Shell Collector)
• Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple (instant favorite)
• The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton (genius)
• The Rehearsal, Eleanor Catton (see above)
• All of Louise Penny’s novels
• The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson (I survived)
• State Of Wonder, Ann Patchett (can’t watch the movie)
• The Goldfinch, Donna Tart (gah! but will keep)
• The Signature Of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert (gah! but will keep)
• The Descendants, Kaui Hart Hemmings (so much more rewarding than the film–and I loved the film)
• The Tiger’s Wife, Tea Obrecht (OMG, read like breathing)
• Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand (see above Obrecht)
• The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows (always be a re-read and a favorite–movie was charming, but nothing beats the book)
• A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson (bildungsroman on speeeeeeed!)
• Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin (lived in Oxford when I was a child—perception of Lewis Carroll now changed forever…gah!)
• All Ngaio Marsh. How did I miss her, especially being an Agatha Christie-maniac?

Read/Filed/Already On Living Room Bookshelves For Unknown Period Of Time… (Children’s/YA):

•  The Secret Commonwealth (see below)
• Dust, by He Who Should Always Be Named
• The Girl Who Drank The Moon, Kelly Barnhill
• Inkheart, and everything else by Cornelia Funke
• The Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escapes, Peter Brown
• The One And Only Ivan, K.A. Applegate (I wish K.A. was my friend)
• All of Rebecca Stead’s books (can’t wait for more from this author)
• All of Jeanne Birdsall’s books
• Doll Bones, Holly Black (those crazy boat-stealing kids!)
• Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech (QUEEN Sharon Creech)
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly (instant classic, instant personal favorite)
• The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart (TLS! I would have written you fan letters if you’d been writing when I was a kid)
• All the Miss Peregrine books, Ransom Riggs
• Goblin Secrets, William Alexander
• The Year the Swallows Came Early, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (5 gold stars)
• Veronica Rossi’s trilogy
• The Fires Beneath the Sea, Lydia Millet (another YA author writing middle grade–or is it the other way around?)
• Liesl & Po, Lauren Oliver (see Lydia Millet)
• The Book Of Three, Lloyd Alexander (all the books are must-reads)
• The Changeling and The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder (no, not every chapter ends with a page turner—why? Because the author is extremely busy TELLING A STORY, the way authors used to before being told that if a first page doesn’t grab the reader, the manuscript goes in the trash. ZKS wrote a book a year for 42 or so years—a book a year–forever one of my heroes).
• The City Of Ember, Jeanne DuPrau
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a character passing out so many times in one novel)
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson
• The Giver, Lois Lowry
• The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
• The Cuckoo Tree, Joan Aiken
• The Tail Of Emily Windsnap, Liz Kessler
• A Wind In The Door, Madeleine L’Engle (have you read it again, too?)

Poetry:

• RIP Mary Oliver. You helped.
• Blud, Rachel McKibbens
• The Traps, Louise Mathias
• The Glimmering Room, Cynthia Cruz
• Small Porcelain Head, Alison Benis White
• Stag’s Leap, Sharon Olds
• Randall Jarrell, The Woman At The Washington Zoo
• Above All Else, The Trembling Resembles A Forest, Louise Mathias (look–if you love poetry, you must read Louise’s chapbook–case closed)
• Twin Cities, Carol Muske-Dukes
• Black Hope, Marsha de la O
• Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, Dianne Seuss (title poem a mindblower)
• The Sleep Hotel, Amy Newlove Schroeder (a luminous debut)
• Dearest Creature, Amy Gerstler (I hope I meet her some day)
• Glass Town, Lisa Russ Spaar (I always return to it)
• Always returning to Sarah Hannah’s books. They haunt me.

Music

• Tame Impala
• Bent
• Adele
• Florence And The Machine
• Bjork
• Cheryl Crow
• Courtyard Hounds (they make me cry—but then, I cry at Curious George…)
• Elbow
• Lord Huron
• Fleet Foxes
• Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs
• Jesca Hoop
• Cold War Kids

Feel free to recommend a read in the comments section of this page. Thank you!