The Book Lover’s Book Lovers
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What do we love even more than books? When our favorite authors recommend their favorite books. It’s a book lover’s dream! Here are five incredible writers who are consistently blowing our minds with their stellar book recommendations.
Emma Straub
We absolutely love Emma Straub’s The Vacationers and Modern Lovers, so of course we’re going to read whatever she recommends. She regularly appears on The Today Show, most recently recommending The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, What We Lose by Zinzi Clemons, and Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy. That last one sounds super scary, but we trust Emma Straub in all things literary. We’ll just turn on all the lights before we start reading it. In New York? Emma runs the Cobble Hill bookstore Books Are Magic and is on hand to share a book recommendation whenever you need it.
Brandy Colbert
As we count down the days to Little & Lion and recommend Pointe to everyone we know, Brandy Colbert is making everyone’s YA TBR longer and more intersectionally excellent – one tweet at a time. Brandy was the first person to introduce us to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo. And we cannot wait to read 16 Ways to Break a Heart by Lauren Strasnick. She talks about fellow writers with so much love and comradery – encouraging readers to get to know her literary friends through their writing. And we absolutely love it.
Sarah Enni
We did cartwheels when we found out Sarah Enni had a short story published in the devious YA anthology Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy. Since 2014, Sarah has been spreading the YA and middle grade gospel through her podcast First Draft. The show has featured over 100 authors talking about their process, their childhood, and anything else that might come up. Recent guests include Kara Thomas talking about Little Monsters, Danielle Paige talking about The End of Oz, and Jennifer E. Smith talking about Windfall. Sarah’s at work on a YA novel of her own – a novel we’re incredibly excited to read.
Scaachi Koul
Scaachi Koul’s Twitter feed is not only hilarious, but also filled with incredible book recommendations like We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby and The Windfall by Diksha Base. Her own collection of essays, One Day We’ll All be Dead and None of This Will Matter, is delightfully brash and hilariously honest, so we’re happy her book recommendations run in the same direction. Read Scaachi’s tweets for her laugh out loud observations about her father, stay for the A+ book recommendations.
Jami Attenberg
We’re huge fans of The Middlesteins and All Grown Up, so when Jami Attenberg wrote on Twitter about being friends with other writers, we paid attention. “I don’t think that I knew what it meant to be truly happy until I started making friends with other writers,” she shares. And that joy comes through in a tremendous way every time she recommends a book. She calls Matthew Klam “the wittiest of writers,” so of course we added Who is Rich? to our TBR immediately. She also recommends Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, who she met at a reading in Dublin. Writer friends are our favorite friends!
