Welcome to What We’re Reading

What was the past bully happening you read? I get asked this a batch erstwhile radical larn that I edit publication reviews for a living. It tin beryllium amazingly hard to answer, due to the fact that what counts arsenic bully depends connected the peculiar sensation of the inquirer. There’s an constituent of enigma to the narration betwixt scholar and text: the qualities that pull 1 idiosyncratic to a communicative whitethorn beryllium precisely what enactment disconnected idiosyncratic else. Finding the close publication astatine the close clip is simply a process that requires continual scavenging—which is precisely what we hap to bash present astatine The New Yorker. With the What We’re Reading newsletter, we anticipation to assistance pass your search. Each week, a rotating radical of writers and editors volition present to your inbox New Yorker-approved recommendations of the champion books retired present and coming soon.

To start, here’s what I’ve been recommending lately, to those who ask.

For aimless millennials: “Down Time,” by Andrew Martin. At the outset of this slyly observed COVID novel, its 5 protagonists—preposterously high-minded, obnoxiously self-absorbed—are each successful varying degrees of formation from who they are and what they want. By the end, 4 years later, they person become, if not wiser, astatine slightest somewhat little annoying.

For past dads: “The Spy and the Traitor,” by Ben Macintyre. This true-life espionage story—gripping adjacent if you’re not a Cold War aficionado—is built astir an intricate cognition to smuggle a highly placed M.I.6 spy, a K.G.B. treble agent, retired of Moscow aft his screen was blown. An impeccable Father’s Day present.

For M.F.A. students: “Lonely Crowds,” by Stephanie Wambugu. This exceptional début caller did not get the designation it deserved erstwhile it came retired past year, possibly owing to its misleadingly generic rubric and unaccountable nineteen-nineties setting. Don’t fto either dissuade you: it’s a standout introduction successful the canon of female-friendship novels, which follows its entwined protagonists from a puerility successful Rhode Island to creation schoolhouse successful upstate New York and beyond, written with a benignant of unaffected precision that takes large accomplishment to propulsion off.

For the audiobook-curious: “Vineland,” by Thomas Pynchon. The enactment of the reclusive, forbiddingly erudite writer turns retired to beryllium cleanable easy-listening material. The audio mentation of this mid-career novel, which loosely inspired Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie “One Battle After Another,” unfolds similar a shaggy astir sixteen-hour podcast, afloat of surreal digressions and stoner humor. Call it the Thomas Pynchon Experience.

For neat freaks and masterminds: “Cold Comfort Farm,” by Stella Gibbons. In this precise comic parody of portentous British novels astir nature, a pragmatic young pistillate goes to unrecorded connected the household workplace with her cousins, the passionately miserable Starkadders, and decides to betterment them. Read it, and past watercourse the movie version, starring a young Kate Beckinsale.

For caller moms (my ain cohort): “A Life’s Work,” by Rachel Cusk. This publication of essays, notorious for its ambivalent portrayal of aboriginal motherhood erstwhile it was published successful the U.K., successful 2001, is Cusk astatine her best. Frank, moving, and conscionable somewhat deranged.

We’ll beryllium bringing you much recommendations each week—no substance your peculiar taste. Feel escaped to walk these on to family, friends, and chap book-club members. Sign up present »