I’ve generally felt mildly miffed when people refer to my books as guilty pleasures, feeling that the implication is that the reader considers them in the same light as cotton candy: delicious and fun to consume, but ultimately fluff. We haven’t started yet, but we’ve both been rather busy.ĭo you count any books as guilty pleasures? Now that said book is finished, though, I have a deal with one of my favorite booksellers, to read “Swann’s Way” together.

‘Red Comet’: Heather Clark’s new biography of the poet Sylvia Plath is daring, meticulously researched and unexpectedly riveting.

‘Intimacies’: Katie Kitamura’s novel follows an interpreter at The Hague who is dealing with loss, an uncertain relationship and an insecure world.

‘On Juneteenth’: Annette Gordon-Reed explores the racial and social complexities of Texas, her home state, weaving history and memoir.

‘How Beautiful We Were’: Imbolo Mbue’s second novel is a tale of a casually sociopathic corporation and the people whose lives it steamrolls.

Not necessarily literary fiction, as such, but authors who routinely play with language - I reread all of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels while writing the most recent book.Įditors at The Times Book Review selected the best fiction and nonfiction titles of the year. Yes, I do read more than one book at once, unless it’s really gripping.)Įarly on, though, I like to read fiction with a strong poetic feel, because the sense of beautiful language is catching (see “How We Fight for Our Lives,” noted above).

1 of the Inspector Maigret Omnibus by Georges Simenon and David Ebershoff’s “The 19th Wife.” Also “The Big Blue Jobbie,” by Yvonne Vincent. In the final few months to a year, though, I can’t risk reading anything I can’t put down to work, so I tend to read good, but less gripping books - or, if gripping, short ones. (I tend to have long processes.) Early on and through the middle, I read anything and lots of it.

What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

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