Julie Otsuka's Reading List

"An everyday pickup line, but it worked," says the novelist Julie Otsuka, whose new book is "The Swimmers." "I haven't been in touch with him since, but I return to 'The Lover' every now and again, and never fail to fall under its spell."

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By the Book: Julie Otsuka (2022)

NYT By the Book column (2022-02-17).

Source: www.nytimes.com

To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life

Hervé Guibert · Buy on Amazon

""To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life," by the French writer Hervé Guibert."

Suicide

Edouard Levé · Buy on Amazon

"This book carved out a tiny hole in my heart… I've never read anything like it. It is, one could say, the ultimate work of autofiction."

Intimacies

Katie Kitamura · Buy on Amazon

"Katie Kitamura, whose recent novel "Intimacies" is both sleekly gorgeous — those sentences — and psychologically unnerving. She's an absolutely brilliant writer."

Fierce Attachments

Vivian Gornick · Buy on Amazon

"Nobody describes the passionate bond between mothers and daughters more brutally, or with more honesty, intelligence and style, than Vivian Gornick in her memoir "Fierce Attachments.""

The Lover

Marguerite Duras · Buy on Amazon

"I return to "The Lover" every now and again, and never fail to fall under its spell."

Here Is New York

E.B. White · Buy on Amazon

"A 1949 hardcover edition of "Here Is New York," by E. B. White."

Siddhartha

Hermann Hesse · 1922 · Buy on Amazon

"I also loved Hermann Hesse — "Siddhartha," "The Glass Bead Game.""

The Memory Police

Yoko Ogawa · Buy on Amazon

"Ogawa is a master of quiet dread and I am eager to read her latest book."

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