Tell me about a book that was so engrossing, you surprised yourself and read it in nearly a day or weekend. A morning-to-evening read, time-warping read, a spell-casting kind of read. A book you just couldn’t put down.
What about the book made that kind of magic possible?
Answering my own question, hehe, I'd like to recommend MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Aside from a devilishly brilliant concept — the main character's sister has an unfortunate habit of killing her boyfriends — I think the fact that Braithwaite has a background as a poet gave the book a kind of compact intensity. Every sentence felt charged in such a way that I was flung into the next sentence. I had no choice but to let the story take over. It wasn't up to me when I stopped reading.
Ooo so many, but most recently Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Multi generations, complex varied characters, contexts addressing colonization, oppression, assimilation and class disparity. Truly remarkable.
Pretty much any book where I know the author is gay, a character is gay, there is some theme of queerness - I just get so excited to finally be reading all the gay books! Even if it’s a YA novel or romance that isn’t particularly good, I’ll still power through it - I guess just making up for all the years when those books weren’t super available/accessible.
Apr 20, 2022·edited Apr 20, 2022Liked by Saeed Jones
Listen I hate to be that guy but Stephen King kept me up all night every time he published a new book for many, many years. I couldn't sleep until I was done. Period.
This may sound strange or whatever, but the most vivid memory I have of a book like that was Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. In my case, though, it wasn't just going through it in a weekend or a day. I intentionally read it one chapter at a time, one night at a time so I would retain more memories of the book.
I had to FORCE myself to stay on that regimen and it was really difficult for me to do so.
How We Fight For Our Lives was also a book I zoomed through.
What a wonderful question! Thank you for asking it! I’m gonna buy My Sister, The Serial Killer asap!
I have two - The Alienist and LA Confidential. The Alienist made me fall in love with reading again after college — I had started a new job and would sneak read a page when I had a spare minute. LA Confidential I read over a weekend - and I’m pretty sure I slept 0 hours!
I absolutely adored the Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I picked it up at Powells Books in December 2019 with no familiarization with Leigh or her other books. I was swept away by the magic of the story, the characters, Yale University and power and corruption and GHOSTS...and could not put it down!! I have been reading many memoirs that I love over the past 3 years but this fiction book just took me out of my head and into another world. I am breathlessly awaiting the 2nd book in the story (coming out in 2023).
Cliche, but the Ferrante novels. I read them all in about a month and could not talk about anything else, think about anything else. Really got sucked into both Sing, Unburied, Sing and Mexican Gothic to the point that I stayed up all night in a cold bath because I could not stop. More to come
There were two that I read in January that I did not want to put down: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I was sad to learn after I read the latter that it’s the only one of Harpman’s books that’s been translated into English… I’d love to read more of her work.
The one that comes immediately to mind is A Farewell to Arms. I think it swept me along because it's very romantic, but also Hemingway's style is so straightforward, nothing extraneous. The sentences are meticulously constructed, but not CHALLENGING. I don't savor the language like I do with someone like Toni Morrison or Dickens, both of whom I read slowly because they require more from me in a way that feels luxuriant, RICH. Hemingway's style is more ... utilitarian sounds rude lol. I mean, clean, or something. Morrison and Dickens are like sipping a fine whiskey. Hemingway is like taking a shot.
I love when I get an audiobook I can't stop - I'm just in a daze with my headphones at work or whatever, obsessed. I loved The Plotters by Kim Un-Su, and Flowers over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti (detective novels do it for me). btw I read Margo Jefferson's little piece in Harper's Bazaar last month and now I want to read her memoir - such rich and complex thoughts
I’m reading CONSTRUCTING A NERVOUS SYSTEM right now. Margo Jefferson is blowing my mind with how she creates a story of herself through her interactions with the art (and sometimes lives) of musicians and writers and other public figures. Her brilliance and the wholly unique structure are what are keeping me in her thrall.
Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY—I'm so jealous of people who haven't yet read that book, because it is such a lush and atmospheric and weird world to fall into. More recently, I loved the listening to BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall. Delightful characters and witty dialogue (rendered so well by Joe Jameson, who narrates the audiobook), and also deeply, deeply kind.
I just sped through “when I sing, mountains dance” by Irene Sola. Found her writing (at least in translation) to be so lyrical it was almost like hearing a song. And it felt like such a perfect combination of melancholy and hopeful, which I keep trying to hang onto in my day to day.
Also ripped through Benjamín Labatut’s “When We Cease to Understand the World.” Love how the chapters stand alone and also connect.
For me it’s books that feel immersive and strange and sometimes unsettling. Recently: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey and rereading NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series—even better the second time around!
Way back when I was in high school, I read Sleepers. I was so engrossed in it that one night I was reading it after a night out with friends, and kept on reading through the night into the next morning when my dad woke up early for work. He was convinced I'd stayed out all night and just snuck in, pretending to be reading. I'm now 42 and still not sure he believes me.
More recently, Nickel Boys and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
Answering my own question, hehe, I'd like to recommend MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Aside from a devilishly brilliant concept — the main character's sister has an unfortunate habit of killing her boyfriends — I think the fact that Braithwaite has a background as a poet gave the book a kind of compact intensity. Every sentence felt charged in such a way that I was flung into the next sentence. I had no choice but to let the story take over. It wasn't up to me when I stopped reading.
Ooo so many, but most recently Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Multi generations, complex varied characters, contexts addressing colonization, oppression, assimilation and class disparity. Truly remarkable.
Pretty much any book where I know the author is gay, a character is gay, there is some theme of queerness - I just get so excited to finally be reading all the gay books! Even if it’s a YA novel or romance that isn’t particularly good, I’ll still power through it - I guess just making up for all the years when those books weren’t super available/accessible.
I just finished A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James and it was magnificent. So engrossing, beautiful, and terrifying.
Listen I hate to be that guy but Stephen King kept me up all night every time he published a new book for many, many years. I couldn't sleep until I was done. Period.
Also, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
Bird Box by Josh Malerman grabbed me by the neck and wouldn't let go. I called in sick to finish it.
This may sound strange or whatever, but the most vivid memory I have of a book like that was Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. In my case, though, it wasn't just going through it in a weekend or a day. I intentionally read it one chapter at a time, one night at a time so I would retain more memories of the book.
I had to FORCE myself to stay on that regimen and it was really difficult for me to do so.
How We Fight For Our Lives was also a book I zoomed through.
What a wonderful question! Thank you for asking it! I’m gonna buy My Sister, The Serial Killer asap!
I have two - The Alienist and LA Confidential. The Alienist made me fall in love with reading again after college — I had started a new job and would sneak read a page when I had a spare minute. LA Confidential I read over a weekend - and I’m pretty sure I slept 0 hours!
I absolutely adored the Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I picked it up at Powells Books in December 2019 with no familiarization with Leigh or her other books. I was swept away by the magic of the story, the characters, Yale University and power and corruption and GHOSTS...and could not put it down!! I have been reading many memoirs that I love over the past 3 years but this fiction book just took me out of my head and into another world. I am breathlessly awaiting the 2nd book in the story (coming out in 2023).
Cliche, but the Ferrante novels. I read them all in about a month and could not talk about anything else, think about anything else. Really got sucked into both Sing, Unburied, Sing and Mexican Gothic to the point that I stayed up all night in a cold bath because I could not stop. More to come
There were two that I read in January that I did not want to put down: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I was sad to learn after I read the latter that it’s the only one of Harpman’s books that’s been translated into English… I’d love to read more of her work.
The one that comes immediately to mind is A Farewell to Arms. I think it swept me along because it's very romantic, but also Hemingway's style is so straightforward, nothing extraneous. The sentences are meticulously constructed, but not CHALLENGING. I don't savor the language like I do with someone like Toni Morrison or Dickens, both of whom I read slowly because they require more from me in a way that feels luxuriant, RICH. Hemingway's style is more ... utilitarian sounds rude lol. I mean, clean, or something. Morrison and Dickens are like sipping a fine whiskey. Hemingway is like taking a shot.
NK Jemisin series and Chuck Wendig's "Wanderers", read during phase 1 of pando, too real but also "wait what?" nuggets.
I read Suleika Jaouad's memoir when it first came out in hardcover in one weekend. Her honesty in telling her story was compelling.
I love when I get an audiobook I can't stop - I'm just in a daze with my headphones at work or whatever, obsessed. I loved The Plotters by Kim Un-Su, and Flowers over the Inferno by Ilaria Tuti (detective novels do it for me). btw I read Margo Jefferson's little piece in Harper's Bazaar last month and now I want to read her memoir - such rich and complex thoughts
I’m reading CONSTRUCTING A NERVOUS SYSTEM right now. Margo Jefferson is blowing my mind with how she creates a story of herself through her interactions with the art (and sometimes lives) of musicians and writers and other public figures. Her brilliance and the wholly unique structure are what are keeping me in her thrall.
Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY—I'm so jealous of people who haven't yet read that book, because it is such a lush and atmospheric and weird world to fall into. More recently, I loved the listening to BOYFRIEND MATERIAL by Alexis Hall. Delightful characters and witty dialogue (rendered so well by Joe Jameson, who narrates the audiobook), and also deeply, deeply kind.
I just sped through “when I sing, mountains dance” by Irene Sola. Found her writing (at least in translation) to be so lyrical it was almost like hearing a song. And it felt like such a perfect combination of melancholy and hopeful, which I keep trying to hang onto in my day to day.
Also ripped through Benjamín Labatut’s “When We Cease to Understand the World.” Love how the chapters stand alone and also connect.
For me it’s books that feel immersive and strange and sometimes unsettling. Recently: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey and rereading NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth series—even better the second time around!
Way back when I was in high school, I read Sleepers. I was so engrossed in it that one night I was reading it after a night out with friends, and kept on reading through the night into the next morning when my dad woke up early for work. He was convinced I'd stayed out all night and just snuck in, pretending to be reading. I'm now 42 and still not sure he believes me.
More recently, Nickel Boys and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.