Gary Shteyngart's Reading List

The author of the novel "Super Sad True Love Story" and, most recently, the memoir "Little Failure" likes books in which people suffer. "If there's no suffering, I kind of tune out."

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By the Book: Gary Shteyngart (2014)

NYT By the Book column (2014-01-30).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Middlemarch

George Eliot · 1871 · Buy on Amazon

""Middlemarch"! Can you believe I read the whole thing? When I finished it I expected a Publishers Clearing House-type van to pull up to my house and some British people to pop out and present me with a medal and a case of sherry."

Bad Monkey

Carl Hiaasen · Buy on Amazon

"Carl Hiaasen's "Bad Monkey" was my favorite book of 2013. He is the bard of South Florida. I've never had this much fun reading about a dismembered arm and a crazed chimp. I will read anything Hiaasen ever writes."

Pnin

Vladimir Nabokov · Buy on Amazon

"I've read Nabokov's "Pnin" so many times the book no longer has a spine. Has there ever been a better novel written about a fumbling Russian émigré?"

My Struggle

Karl Ove Knausgaard · Buy on Amazon

"After reading Karl Ove Knausgaard's memoir, "My Struggle," I was shocked to discover that people suffer in Norway as well. Good for them! Skal!"

The Great Railway Bazaar

Paul Theroux · Buy on Amazon

"Paul Theroux's "The Great Railway Bazaar" remains the Old Testament of the genre."

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