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Charles Yu's Reading List

“If they ever realized how happy it makes me,” says Yu, whose new novel is “Interior Chinatown,” “they might start feeling like they’re being duped.”

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By the Book: Charles Yu (2020)

NYT By the Book column (2020-01-23).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Nothing to See Here
Kevin Wilson · Buy on Amazon
"Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson (which I already finished, but keep going back to for individual sentences that crack me up)."
Watchmen
Unknown · Buy on Amazon
"It's totally blowing my mind."
American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods
Bonnie Tsui · Buy on Amazon
"A couple of books that really helped (which are epigrammed in the novel) were 'American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods,' by Bonnie Tsui."
Cover of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Erving Goffman · Buy on Amazon
"I also reread Erving Goffman's 'The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life,' in which, as the title suggests, Goffman lays out a framework of self as a kind of performance."
Cover of The Intuitionist
The Intuitionist
Colson Whitehead · Buy on Amazon
"The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead. Read those in college or shortly after. Those are probably already in the canon. My canon, anyway."
Cover of Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut · 1969 · Buy on Amazon
"Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. Read those in college or shortly after. Those are probably already in the canon. My canon, anyway."
Cover of Neuromancer
Neuromancer
William Gibson · Buy on Amazon
"I recently reread 'Neuromancer' and some other William Gibson for an essay. Without a doubt, he's already in the pantheon for science fiction/speculative fiction, but as weird as it might sound, I think he's still underrated."
Cover of Animal Farm
Animal Farm
George Orwell · 1945 · Buy on Amazon
"This year my kids and I read 'Animal Farm' and 'The Old Man and the Sea' together."
Cover of The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway · 1952 · Buy on Amazon
"This year my kids and I read 'Animal Farm' and 'The Old Man and the Sea' together."
Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood
Lisa Damour · Buy on Amazon
"I found it really helpful, but I especially loved a definition of emotional intelligence cited in the book: seeing yourself from the outside, and seeing others from the inside."

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