"A novel set in Tudor England that continues to move me on each reading—a beautifully written and emotionally complex book about Anne Boleyn that is courageous enough to resist easy explanations of the English queen’s appeal and creates a woman who could change the course of history with intelligence, style, and nerve tinged with recklessness, and driven by a dark ambition that eventually devoured her."

"There is a scene in “Tampa” where Celeste marks her territory, if you will, with her own vaginal moisture. That, in many ways, tells you everything you need to know about “Tampa” and Alissa Nutting's immense talents. This novel is disturbing, uncomfortable, irreverent, and compelling. Nutting makes us complicit in Celeste's crimes and still, she leaves room for empathy where most writers would not."

"One of the few novels I’ve ever read twice (though it’s been about 20 years, so it might be time for a re-read). A philosophy book in the form of a novel that has very little to do with motorcycle maintenance. Instead, it has a lot to do with the elusive aspects of “quality,” and the importance of attitude in your approach to life."

"PG Wodehouse is not a writer for those who want to read about the rah-rah world of aristocratic fops, he’s a writer for those who love reading sentences that shimmer with brilliance and wit. He is the preeminent English stylist, and I find it impossible to read him without purring with pleasure and hooting with laughter. This particular Jeeves and Wooster novel is a real corker."

"It’s now my favorite novel—it’s just the greatest explosion of imagination, craziness, satire, humor, and heart…There are passages that have become everyday Russian sayings. For instance, ‘Manuscripts don’t burn.’ If it had ever come out that this book was being written, Bulgakov would likely have disappeared permanently. That phrase stands for the fact that nothing is more powerful or more indestructible than the written word."

"A big, bold novel that spans six decades of the 20th century and opens with one of my favorite lines in literature: ""It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me. Earthly Powers is like a big over packed old mansion you enter and never want to leave"

"Imagine being an 18-year-old girl, on holiday with two radical poets, and coming up with an idea for a Gothic horror novel which also more or less invents the genre of science fiction, which then goes on to become such a huge and enduring success, constantly open to reinterpretation and reimagining, that it still seems vivid and alive two hundred years later."

"One of the most prolific writers in history, Simenon is best known for his crime novels featuring the detective Maigret. “I’ll manufacture Fords for a while until enough money comes in,” he said once, “Then I’ll make Rolls-Royces for pleasure.” Dirty Snow is a Rolls. A slender novel about a petty criminal living in a nameless occupied city, this book punches well above its weight class."

"This epic saga sweeping through four generations of life among Kenya’s Kikuyu tribe is a novel of Steinbeckian stature neglected by literary connoisseurs. Huxley leads us into the Kikuyu world so that, when the British arrive, they seem as alien as invading Martians. Her descriptive powers rival Steinbeck’s, but her imagery is drawn from the Kikuyu mind. A felled tree ‘tottered like a drunken elder.'