Kate Christensen's Reading List

"I taught it in my seminar last week. Our conversation crackled and popped — you know a book is good when an entire room full of astute readers gets excited about taking it apart to see how it works."

"This is a powerful novel about the dismantling of ego, the truth of love — I'm in awe of Murdoch's genius."

"The brilliant, heartbreaking, brutal "Sparrow," by James Hynes, a historical novel narrated by a young slave boy in the Roman Empire… the writing is exquisite. Hynes writes like no one else."

""Annie John," the best coming-of-age novel I've ever read — Jamaica Kincaid is incandescently honest about girlhood."

"I would venture to say "Middlemarch," because its philosophical and penetrating character studies might resonate more deeply for a reader with decades of perspective and experience."

""The Blue Flower," by Penelope Fitzgerald, brings me closer to anyone who recognizes it as the masterpiece it is."

"My oldest also loves being read Tove Jansson's "The Summer Book," one of my favorites."

"It was two books: The D'Aulaires' "Book of Greek Myths" and "Book of Norse Myths." I got them for Christmas from my mother's friend Christine when I was 10."