Chloe Benjamin’s Bedside Table
Author of The Immortalists shares her favorite reads of 2018, so far
Chloe Benjamin is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Immortalists, a #1 Indie Next Pick, #1 Library Reads pick, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, and Amazon Best Book of the Month.
Her first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. Her second novel, The Immortalists, was published in January 2018.
Check out Chloe’s Bedside Table Picks, which include all of her favorite books that she’s read so far this year!
CHLOE’S PICKS:
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
I’m a sucker for character-driven epics, and John Boyne’s latest did not disappoint. The Heart’s Invisible Furies is both a panoramic look at over sixty years of Irish history and an intimate portrait of one man’s transformation — and it’s also damn fun to read, the rare book that can make you laugh and cry in one sitting.
The Ensemble by Aja Gabel
Speaking of character-driven epics, Aja Gabel’s debut had me from the first page. The Ensemble follows four members of a string quarter as their lives weave together, personally and professionally, over decades. Gabel, a former cellist, writes about music with an insider’s creativity and precision, and she’s just as astute psychologically.
Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro
As erotic as it is intellectual, Fire Sermon tells the story of a brief but consuming affair. Reading Jamie Quatro’s turbulent, daring novel gave me the sense, over and over again, of reading something I knew to be true but which I’d never before heard someone admit out loud.
James Baldwin: Collected Essays
It’s hard to read Baldwin and not feel morally, mortally shaken. So eloquent are his sentences, so profound their truthful punch, that I feel equal parts awed by his genius and despondent that his assessment of America — prophetic, indeed — rings as true today as it did in his lifetime.
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
Oh, this book! Like many, I came to it after watching the movie, wanting more of Elio and Oliver but not expecting the novel to be so dazzling on its own terms — I keep wondering why it wasn’t more well-known prior to Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation. CMBYN feels Nabokovian in its obsessive interiority, its playful and rapturous language, its impressionistic imagery: it is luscious and lovely, dripping with pleasure and tension and atmosphere, the kind of book I could go on reading forever.
If you like what you read, give us a 👏 so other readers can enjoy it, too!
For more literary content, follow Strand on Instagram 📷, Twitter 🐥, and Facebook 👤. Plus, sign up for our 📩 Strand Insider newsletter 💌!
