What I Added to Up Next: What’s on Dish’s Nightstand in the PrimeCrush Bookshop.
Based on a combination of recommendations over the holidays from friends and family who are “great readers,” as well as reviewers I admire, I’ve added these books to my reading stack, as well as some others. (And *you* (yes you!) can support PrimeCrush by buying these through our bookshop using the links below. Thank you, thank you, thank you!)
Historical Fiction: What’s on Dish’s Nightstand
These are the historical fiction books I’ve already bought, or pre-ordered, for my Fall and Winter reading. I’m so excited about this reading list. Next week I’ll share some nonfiction picks, and last week I shared the fiction I have lined up.
Historical Fiction
Precipice Robert Harris by Robert Harris
A novel based on the real-life story of 26 year old Venetia Stanley’s affair with Prime Minister Asquith in 1914 on the verge of WWI.
The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers
As a Julia Child fan I, of course, knew that she worked in espionage and was involved in trading secrets while in Asia in WWII but I can’t wait to take a deep dive into this aspect of her absolutely fascinating life.
The Colony Club by Shelley Noble
A New York Gilded Age story about the inception of the Colony Club, the first all-women’s club.
Having read compelling biography of art collector Peggy Guggenheim and having visited her museum in Venice, I’m looking forward to this novel recreating her life.
Fall Fiction: What’s on Dish’s Nightstand
These are the fiction books I’ve already bought, or pre-ordered, for my Fall and Winter reading. I’m so excited about this reading list. Next week, I’ll share some historical fiction picks, and after that the nonfiction reads I’ve lined up. (We earn a nominal fee for purchases from the PrimeCrush Bookshop, which we are very grateful to you for, as it is currently our only source of income. Thank you for purchasing through our bookshop!)
Fiction
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
A Maine reunion with beloved characters Lucy Barton and Olive Kittredge from Pulitzer Prize-winning Strout. Yes!
Olive Days by Jessica Elisheva Emerson
Orthodox Jewish woman, clandestine atheist, wife swapping, passionate affair. Is this not a brilliant set-up to contrast our twin pulls toward obligation and desire?
The Women Behind the Door by Roddy Doyle
Give me a nuanced, complicated Mother-Daughter story written by a Booker Prize winner and I’m sold.
Don’t Be a Stranger by Susan Minot
Always hungry for well-written stories about women going through a midlife erotic obsession. Vicarious thrill, anyone?
I will read anything the great Rooney writes, including this one about family, grief and love.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Weddings are always a good backdrop for a funny, insightful consideration of the paths we’ve taken, or haven’t, and the one we’re on.
An Iranian immigrant goes on a sojourn to discover a family secret and ends up in the Brooklyn Museum. A National Book Award Nominee.
How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon For a certain set of women who got excited about Lyn Slater’s rise as a style influencer starting in 2015, the publication of her memoir chronicling the twists and turns in her life as she looks back on it post 70 is a hotly anticipated book.
Ian Fleming: The Complete Man I am so thrilled to dive into this biography of the creator of James Bond, written by the only Fleming biographer to have access to private family papers. Fleming was, by many accounts, a rascal, but an utterly compelling one.
The Paris Novel I’ve read every book Ruth Reichl has published (not to mention most of her restaurant reviews from her days at the New York Times), so the idea of a novel focused on a woman whose life blossoms while she lives, eats and celebrates in Paris seems like a sure thrill.
Real Americans Two New Yorkers from opposite sides of the track meet in the late 1990’s and fall in love. The manuscript for this book reportedly sparked a bidding war among publishers, and it’s a much hyped book that a friend says lives up.
Real Self Care I was at a dinner party recently where three (three!) therapists said that they have recommended this to their patients as a book that is actually helpful and not just another stupid, meaningless self-help trope. And then I read this quote from Jessica DeFino: "This book is for anyone who's ever removed a 'relaxing' sheet mask only to realize it hasn't transformed you so much as your trash can." I’m always up for some self-improvement. And god help me I need it.
Table for Two There is no way that Towles’s latest book will not be discussed at social gatherings with most of my NYC friends this summer. (Although one close friend in NYC who knows him well and has been to numerous dinner parties he’s been at says he’s a bit of a bore.)
The Wives: A Memoir I love the idea of a story that dives into the lives of military wives who keep their families and communities working while their husbands are stationed on foreign military bases over long periods of time. (Long time CRUSH Readers know that this is my own family’s story, as my father was a career officer in the US Air Force.)
A Court of Thorns and Roses Okay, this book is taking the world by storm. People—intelligent people!—have told me that it is un-put-down able. And CRUSH Readers, be forewarned, it’s basically fairy porn. Poolside reading, here we come.
A Hitch in Time by Christopher Hitchens I am as excited to dive into this new collection of previously published essays by Christopher Hitchens as I am for any single thing that awaits me this year. Here he covers politics (Thatcher, Clinton, Nixon, Kennedy) as well as culture (Tom Wolfe, the Academy Awards, P.G. Wodehouse), and all in his distinctive, thrashing style. (Which calls to mind the restauranteur Keith McNally’s recollections on his last dinner with Hitchens prior to his death: “[K]nowing he had a deadline for a Vanity Fair article the next morning, I imagined our dinner would be brief. It lasted five hours. He drank Johnny Walker scotch and red wine non-stop … enough to inebriate a basketball team … Next morning I called Christopher at 9am to remind him of his deadline. He’d written the article an hour earlier.”
The Fraud By Zadie By Zadie Smith Historical fiction on the top of a lot of “best of 2023” lists, this is a Dickensian novel that involves a novelist, a long-lost heir, a trial and (evidently) much more.
Kissinger By Walter Isaacson His recent death sent me to pick back up this sweeping 1992 biography of Kissinger’s personal and professional life.
The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World By Barry Gewen More a book in defense of Kissinger’s realpolitik approach to international relations than a biography, it’s a study on his belief that “the well-being of the state justified whatever means.”
The Secret Hours By Mick Herron. Based in Cold War Berlin (sold!), this is a standalone spy thriller from author of the Slough House series.
Excellent Advice for Living By Kevin Kelly. One of the ”favorite books of 2023” from The Marginalia‘s Maria Popova, who does a lot of wisdom-pondering. She shared this quote from Excellent Advice: “Listening well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them ‘Is there more?’ until there is no more.”
The Wager By David Grant. A good friend called this account of mutiny in the 1700’s on a British shipping vessel “riveting.” And it was also on so many “best books of the year” lists I had to take note.
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage By Ann Patchett. CRUSH Reader Natalie sent me this recommendation, a collection of essays from Patchett, a favorite writer. I am a sucker for true stories that stretch from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one.
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan “Gripping,” was the word I read most often in reviews of this book.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson There is not much I like understanding better than how we got to where we’re at here, in America.
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