Claire Messud's Reading List

"Maaza Mengiste's amazing 'The Shadow King.'"

"this year, I've reread both 'Anna Karenina' and 'War and Peace'"

"this year, I've reread both 'Anna Karenina' and 'War and Peace'"

"I'd say probably Vasily Grossman's 'Stalingrad,' which I read last winter."

"One favorite is Alain-Fournier's 'Le Grand Meaulnes'... a beautiful and mysterious story about the end of childhood."

"In sixth grade, my friends and I memorized the 'I Have a Dream' speech — not because we were required to but because his words moved us so powerfully."

"it's a novel that speaks so powerfully to the middle of life, to a time when your memories of youth are vivid but distant, and mortality is on the horizon before you."

"One of the best I received from him was 'At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches,' by Susan Sontag."

"A Wizard of Earthsea"

"Watership Down"