Carrie Preston

@carrie_preston

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories
Flannery O'Connor | 1977 | Fiction & Poetry
(0 Ratings)
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"The Grandmama of southern gothic literature, O'Connor unabashedly tackles faith and faithlessness head on. Grotesque, funny and oftentimes creepy, these stories draw a picture of a society on the brink of moral bankruptcy. I find them more relevant today than ever....even on a desert island."

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"I enjoy sci-fi thanks to my brother John's passion for it, and this was the first sci-fi book to hit my radar. It touches on so many things: politics, religion, paganism, revivalism, psychokinesis – and it even introduced a couple of things that didn't exist before: the waterbed (which came out a few years after the book), and the word "grok" which means "to understand something intuitively or by empathy.” There's a lot to grok in this book."

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The Places That Scare You
The Places That Scare You
Pema Chodron | 2001 | Mind, Body & Spiritual
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"Pema Chödrön is my self appointed guru. When I am feeling lost or ungrounded, I turn to her infinite wisdom. She makes Buddhism extremely accessible to the Western mentality. And she also has a wonderful sense of humor."

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Carrie Preston recommended Member of the Wedding in Books (curated)

 
Member of the Wedding
Member of the Wedding
Carson McCullers | 2001 | Fiction & Poetry, Young Adult (YA)
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"I’ve been fascinated by Frankie, the heroine of the book, ever since I was 14. McCullers really captures adolescence and, as Frankie puts it, that feeling of being “an unjoined person.” I would imagine on a desert island, I might want to be able to articulate those feelings of longing to belong."

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Carrie Preston recommended Cat's Eye in Books (curated)

 
Cat's Eye
Cat's Eye
Margaret Atwood | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry
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"This book, dark as it is, is an astute study of the cruelty that young girls perpetrate upon one another and how those experiences shape us as adults. It’s a real cautionary tale, but it’s beautifully done and makes one think of one's own past and the power of those formative experiences."

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The Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford University Press | 2010 | Reference
7.0 (1 Ratings)
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"If I’m going to be on a desert island with “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,” believe me I’m going to need this book, too. The forest of his words is sometimes pretty thick, and having a dictionary helps illuminate your way. I use the dictionary all the time when I’m reading or working on scripts."

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Carrie Preston recommended The Complete Works in Books (curated)

 
The Complete Works
The Complete Works
8.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Favorite

"Although I have been doing plays since I was eight-years-old, it was only when I started doing Shakespeare at age 19 at the Georgia Shakespeare Festival that I felt like my career started. I learned from master teachers at the University of Evansville, at Juilliard, at Shakespeare festivals all over the country, eventually landing at Shakespeare in the Park in NYC. That show transferred, so I got to make my Broadway debut doing “The Tempest” with Patrick Stewart. I owe so much to Shakespeare. Nothing is more humbling and more exhilarating than taking ahold of those sacred words and riding them like a wave. If I could only take one book to the island, this one would do just fine."

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Carrie Preston recommended Song of Solomon in Books (curated)

 
Song of Solomon
Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison | 1977 | Fiction & Poetry
7.2 (6 Ratings)
Book Favorite

"This books exists on a visceral level. It's scary and enlightening and enigmatic. It stuns, shatters and illuminates. Just when I think I have a handle on it, I see something else. And PS: No one gives awesome audiobook better than her."

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