Your Long-Weekend Reading List
With less than 350 pages apiece and stories that will ensnare and beguile you, these seven book selects are perfect for a three-day weekend—though we're not judging if you take extra time to absorb every sentence. Whether you're a fan of poetry or short stories, novels or memoirs, here's what we suggest diving into with that additional day off.
Mood Swings by Frankie Barnet
I’m obsessed with this highly satirical but fascinatingly astute book, but it might not be for everyone. In a pre-apocalyptic world (again…now?), all animals have been eradicated after a mass animal rebellion. Think: gangs of raccoons, vengeful birds, woodland creatures out for blood. A billionaire has promised a time machine to set everything straight, but in the meantime, a gig economy involving black-market houseplants and cosplaying as people’s pets is booming. It’s a commentary on capitalism, our social media–obsessed world, inequality, and nature—and it’s a full-on cringe riot.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
This collection of 12 essays by absolute literary icon Joan Didion spans her career from the 1960s until the early 2000s. If you’ve never read anything by her, it’s a wonderful introduction to Didion’s sharp wit, unique observation skills, and incredible style of writing that can break your heart and make you laugh until you cry in the span of a paragraph. In Let Me Tell You What I Mean, there are pieces on Martha Stewart and Hemingway, on the art of writing itself, on her life in California and summers in Hawaii, and much more. Take it one essay at a time.
Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith makes poetry feel so effortless and moving, so appropriate for our era, while also capturing a timeless essence of what it means to be alive. This is my favorite:
Poem Beginning with a Retweet
If you drive past horses and don’t say horses
you’re a psychopath. If you see an airplane
but don’t point it out. A rainbow,
a cardinal, a butterfly. If you don’t
whisper-shout albino squirrel! Deer!
Red fox! If you hear a woodpecker
and don’t shush everyone around you
into silence. If you find an unbroken
sand dollar in a tide pool. If you see
a dorsal fin breaking the water.
If you see the moon and don’t say
oh my god look at the moon. If you smell
smoke and don’t search for fire.
If you feel yourself receding, receding,
and don’t tell anyone until you’re gone.
James by Percival Everett
In a word, James is brilliant. It is darkly funny, deeply moving, and thought-provoking. The action-packed novel tells the story of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the enslaved runaway Jim’s point of view. By giving him a voice and agency, Percival breathes life and complexity into a once-flat character, rendering him heroic and intelligent and, above all, human.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Trigger warning for COVID-era content—but if you can work through the PTSD, you’ll find that Anne Patchett is a masterful writer with an uncanny storytelling ability that’s both complex and easy to digest. Tom Lake follows Lara, a mother of three girls who, during the lockdown of 2020 at their cherry farm in Michigan, recounts for them tales of her long-ago, short-lived career as an actress. In flashbacks, she describes her passionate love affair with Peter Duke, a fellow actor who would go on to become very famous. For a single summer in the 1980s, they were holed up at an idyllic, prestigious camp-style theater company at the namesake Tom Lake, putting on plays interspersed with dips in the water and off-stage drama. The book is lovely, fully enjoyable, and feels like a cozy blanket.
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as Told to Me) Story by Bess Kalb
When I read this book, it had been a while since I had ugly cried in a good way. Bess Kalb, a (hilarious) writer for the Jimmy Kimmel show, offers up this incredibly touching story about her relationship with her grandmother, Bobby. Writing in Bobby’s voice, she recounts a lifetime of love, adventure, and loss; family secrets and tales passed down through four generations of remarkable women. Her advice is priceless, including gems like: “Everyone needs the dress that makes her feel like she’s able to do anything she wants.” My advice? Don’t read this in public without tissues and sunglasses handy. By the end, you’ll want a Bobby all of your own.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go is one of those books I don’t want to tell you much about because you should just read it. In general, the story follows children attending a boarding school in rural 20th-century England. Something feels off about this place from the beginning, and you’ll be fascinated and horrified to find out why.
