98 Books Like They Never Learn

This was one of the hardest books to "get into," but a friend of mine told me to stick with it because the rewards of getting through the first quarter would be so great. I'm glad I did. It is an astounding piece of work, quite different from anything I've ever read before or since, and remains one of my top five books.

The tangents the book takes, and the blasé attributes of the leading character are superbly crafted. It was suggested it was "unfilmable," and there's one scene in particular I thought they'd never get away with, but if you look at the movie version carefully, it's in there. 

An engrossing read about a food critic’s life, bumpy career, and murders. There is death and consumption, sex and violence; there is depravity in the mundane. Sometimes voices sparkle, others pop off the page, and then there is Chelsea G. Summer’s Dorothy Daniels. She dug into my brain and picked at it like a scab. From the first page, Summers hooked me on a razor-sharp fishing line. Dorothy recounts stories like an old friend would—if your old friend would describe killing a man and her vagina in equal parts disturbing and eloquent language. There was disgust but also a sense of empowerment. I wanted all of her dirty little secrets. And oh, does Dorothy love to talk.

In most procedurals, you root for the “bad guy” to get caught. Noelle Holten created a killer you want to see get away, stay hidden in the shadows, and continue doing the good work. The story unfolds from the perspectives of battered women, the abusers, and the detective constable (UK term for lowest-ranking detective). Telling the story from so many points of view brings a level of tension that one finds in suspense or thriller novels, which is why it’s made it on this list. As I read the violence committed against innocent women, it was impossible not to echo many characters in the book as they grapple with wanting to find the killer. It’s that waffling that makes each horrible man’s death more satisfying than the last.

The biggest strength of this book is a large spoiler, which is a shame. I’d love to gush about it. You (should you choose to read it) get to learn about it as the work unfolds, though. For that, I’m jealous. Who doesn’t love to enjoy something so fun for the first time? The choice of victims and the reason for the kills makes the serial killer so compelling I rooted for the detective to always be one step behind. I loved him, don’t get me wrong. He is flawed and damaged, and I wanted him to succeed eventually. Thomas Holgate makes it easy to do that—want them both to “win”—as both have a point-of-view. The book was fun, interesting, and just a little brutal. 

I truly believe Kiley Reid is a national treasure. Her second book centers around a small southern college town, and as someone who attended one of those myself, I can tell you that it perfectly captures that spirit. Even though the book is more character study than plot-forward, the southern sorority girls, the writing professor, and the overworked RA all come together to make an absolute mess in the end.

Effortlessly weaving multiple narrators and storylines together, this book is everything I want satire to be. Each character is rich and fully realized, often dabbling in doing “bad” things but never making you quite dislike them. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun watching everything go tits up.

In its early decades, from the 1880s to the 1930s, Wellesley College boasted not merely a woman president but—alone among the “Seven Sisters”—an exclusively female faculty. Palmieri examines the impact of an all-woman community on the college’s students, professors, traditions, and development. A model exploration of campus culture, highly original, and a fascinating read.

Having loved Allende’s previous novels, this tale of history and suspense took me into the magical worlds of South American culture, to gain a better understanding of what the immigrant experience is really like for other people. Redacting from a reviewer’s comment, “this story filled with Allende's signature lyricism and ingenious plotting, teaches us what it means to respect, protect, and love.”

Pictures from an Institution, to my mind, is the best novel written by a poet. It’s comical, biting, engrossing, moving, and flat-out entertaining. Once again, we are back in academia, at a woman’s college based loosely on Sarah Lawrence, and never has academia been skewered more amusingly. Regarding the college, one character muses, “You Americans do not rear children, you incite them; you give them food and shelter and applause.” The novel’s jokes—aphorisms, wisecracks, putdowns—come so fast and furious one could lose track of the story, if the story itself were not so interesting…and jovial. It’s funnier than throwing a hardboiled egg into an electric fan. Pictures from an Institution is also learned and wise and, underneath the drollery, there is a basic humanism that does not allow you to dismiss the book as mere satire.

These are solid mysteries with plenty of twists and delightful primary characters.

Something about the voice of this series simply works for me. It's cozy without being too cutesy. The characters feel real. Even Sid, the living skeleton, feels like a real person, and the books might work almost as well if he was human, but he adds some fun and complications because he can’t let people see him.

Start at the beginning of the series and keep reading! It's worth it.

I loved this book, which I read shortly after recovering from my first major manic episode. I remember sitting on the patio of the LSU student union and thinking, “Yes, this!” again and again.

Written by a medical doctor (a psychiatrist), this memoir offers a unique view of bipolar disorder as Jamison herself has bipolar. I needed to know more about my diagnosis, and I needed to hear it from someone who had experienced it herself.