Claire Leavitt Claire Leavitt

Pleasure Reading 2023

What I read this year:
*reviews (mostly from the New York Times) linked*

  • Amy Taylor, Search History (2023): Decent, but forgettable.

  • Yomi Adegoke, The List (2023): Great premise (woman finds out her fiancé is on a Me-Too list of media abusers), but this was god-awful.

  • Daisy Alpert Florin, My Last Innocent Year (2023): Gorgeous, haunting “dark academe” debut novel set at the very end of the 20th century.

  • Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian (2021): Co-written novels are always dicey. The story is great—about the real-life librarian and director of the Morgan Library, Belle da Costa Greene, who was also Black masquerading as white—but the writing is terrible.

  • Katy Brent, How To Kill Men and Get Away With It (2023): A bizarre but addictive “Me Too” vigilante novel.

  • Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy (2023): The latest from my absolute favorite contemporary fiction writer.

  • Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman is in Trouble (2019): Not entirely successful, but a page-turner and, having grown up in New York myself, all too familiar in ways both comforting and not. Also loved the miniseries.

  • Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting (2012): Fun, and convincing.

  • Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (2022): I enjoyed it, but I can’t really defend it.

  • Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022): Fascinating and heartbreaking novel about two friends who design video games. I came away with a much greater appreciation for gamers.

  • Rebecca Makkai, I Have Some Questions For You (2023): Makkai’s “Me Too” novel. Too long, but still good.

  • R.F. Kuang, Yellowface (2023): Un-put-downable and a hilariously incisive satire of publishing.

  • Lis Smith, Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story (2022): Recommended by a student. Worth a read if you’re a political junkie. Also includes a lot of great tidbits about Pete Buttigieg, whom I love.

  • Alexandra Andrews, Who is Maud Dixon? (2021): Liked but didn’t love.

  • Clemence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant (2023): Over-hyped, IMHO.

  • Mohsin Hamid, The Last White Man (2022): A great premise wasted, IMHO.

  • Memoirs:

    • Prince Harry, Spare (2023): Obviously.

    • Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (2022): Read this in March, before his death. I wouldn’t wish his addiction on my worst enemy.

    • Britney Spears, The Woman in Me (2023): I’m a child of the ‘90s; what can I say?

    • Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor (2023): A must-read for anyone interested in oversight. And it included one of the best digs at Kevin McCarthy I’ve heard: “Kevin McCarthy…loved big retreats where the conference would spend days at a luxury hotel someplace. I think he imagined himself giving a TED talk as his communications staff filmed him telling members things like ‘I always say the thing is let’s keep our heads while everybody else is getting emotional and get the right people on the bus, and the others.’ Kevin tended to inject the phrase ‘and others’ or ‘and the others’ at the end of his sentences. I never understood who the others were, but Kevin talked about them all the time.”

    • John Boehner, On the House (2021): Surprisingly funny and very enlightening.

  • Thrillers:

    • Jennifer Hillier, Things We Do in the Dark (2022)

    • Lisa Unger, Secluded Cabin, Sleeps Six (2022): Skippable.

    • Peter Swanson, The Kind Worth Saving (2023): Disappointing, especially given how much I loved The Kind Worth Killing.

    • Peter Swanson, Every Vow You Break (2021)

    • Julia Bartz, The Writing Retreat (2023): Absurd, but fun.

    • Karen M. McManus, One of Us is Lying (2017), Two Can Keep a Secret (2019), The Cousins (2020), One of Us Is Next (2020), Nothing More to Tell (2022), and One of Us is Back (2023): All very quick, enjoyable YA reads.

    • Jessica Goodman, They Wish They Were Us (2020) and The Legacies (2023)

    • Sarah Goodwin, The Resort (2023): Even I, who am decidedly untalented at the whodunit game, guessed the twist in the first chapter.

    • Brooke Robinson, The Interpreter (2023): Forgettable.

Read More
Claire Leavitt Claire Leavitt

Pleasure Reading 2022

What I read this year:
*reviews (mostly from the New York Times) linked*

  • Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility (2022) and The Glass Hotel (2020): The former is the kind of novel I dream of writing.

  • Julia May Jonas, Vladimir (2022): Brilliant debut—and about academics.

  • Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing (2018): Finally read this one (after seeing the movie), and am glad I did. Very compelling.

  • Mark Leibovich, Thank You for Your Servitude (2022) and Tim Miller, Why We Did It (2022): Two books examining Republican elites’ kowtowing to Trump.

  • Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming (2022): Great debut about Puerto Rican siblings in New York.

  • Matt Haig, The Humans (2013) and How to Stop Time (2019): The latter had such a fascinating premise, but was under-realized.

  • Ben Rhodes, The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House (2018): Pretty standard political bio, with an amusing and memorable tidbit about Obama and Susan Rice dancing to Macklemore.

  • Danya Kukafka, Girl in Snow (2017) [skippable] and Notes on an Execution (2022): The latter focuses on the lives of three women intimately connected to a serial killer who is a day away from his execution. It’s so good, and will take over your life while you read it.

  • Emily Ratajkowski, My Body (2021): Much-more-insightful-than-anticipated musings from one of the world’s most beautiful women…because that’s a talent, too.

  • Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (2022): Stellar memoir by a truly beautiful writer about the long, trying road of diagnosing an autoimmune disease.

  • Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (2020): So good I ended up using it in my Intro to American Politics class this summer.

  • Peggy Orenstein, Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape (2016): Interesting, but not much new here.

  • Thrillers:

    • Ruth Ware, The Death of Mrs. Westaway (2018), One by One (2021) and The It Girl (2022) [my favorite of the three]

    • Ashley Winstead, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife (2021) and The Last Housewife (2022): The latter was inspired by the Sarah Lawrence cult.

    • Ellery Lloyd, The Club (2022)

    • Lucy Foley, The Paris Apartment (2022)

    • Kimberly McCreight, Friends Like These (2021): Has a twist that I genuinely didn’t see coming; highly recommended.

    • Andrea Bartz, We Were Never Here (2021) and The Lost Night (2019): Both focus on one of my favorite literary topics—female friendships.

    • Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, The Girls Are All So Nice Here (2021)

    • Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, The Golden Couple (2022) [my favorite of the three], The Wife Between Us (2018) and An Anonymous Girl (2019)

    • Peter Swanson, The Kind Worth Killing (2015) [incredibly twisty; couldn’t put it down], Eight Perfect Murders (2020), Nine Lives (2022) [skippable—a lame update on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None] and Before She Knew Him (2019)

    • Gillian McAllister, Wrong Place, Wrong Time (2022)

    • Vera Kurian, Never Saw Me Coming (2021)

Read More
Claire Leavitt Claire Leavitt

Pleasure Reading 2021

What I read this year:
*reviews (mostly from the New York Times) linked*

Read More
Claire Leavitt Claire Leavitt

Pleasure Reading 2020

What I read this year:
*reviews (mostly from the New York Times) linked*

Read More