Stephanie Danler’s Bookshelf
Author of ‘Sweetbitter’ shares 30 eclectic picks about desire, loneliness, and being a woman
Stephanie Danler is the author of the international and New York Times bestseller, Sweetbitter, and the creator and Executive Producer of the television series based on the novel for Starz. Her work has appeared in The Sewanee Review, Vogue Magazine, Travel and Leisure, Bon Appetit, O Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, and Lit Hub. She is at work on a book of non-fiction, and is based out of Los Angeles, California.
In these books there’s lots about desire. Lots about loneliness and loss. Lots about women, in various stages of transformation.
“30 books feels generous, but it’s an impossible task. Books towards what purpose, I kept asking. For vacation and pleasure? Books that have been forgotten and deserve an audience? Books that made me a better writer and thinker? 30 poetry collections wouldn’t even be enough! I settled on a mix of all of the above, moving through my shelves with the mandate that I had to choose books that changed me and that I’ve either read more than once or given as a gift more than once. In these books there’s lots about desire. Lots about loneliness and loss. Lots about women, in various stages of transformation. As a person who has been browsing at The Strand most Wednesday mornings for the past fifteen years, I have now reached the pinnacle of my career and will gratefully retire. Happy Reading.”
— Stephanie
Stephanie’s Bookshelf
1: Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
2: Dear Darkness by Kevin Young
3: The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher
4: Plainwater by Anne Carson
5: Citizen by Claudia Rankin
6: The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson
7: Abandon Me by Melissa Febos
8: Democracy by Joan Didion
9: Dispatches by Michael Herr
10: The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
11: Pitch Dark by Renata Adler
12: Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
13: Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran
14: If Beale Streets Could Talk by James Baldwin
15: Human Dark with Sugar by Brenda Shaughnessy
16: The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector
17: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
18: Reconnaissance by Carl Phillips
19: Bestiary by Donika Kelly
20: What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
21: Not One Day by Anne Garreta
22: Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
23: The Pure and the Impure by Colette
24: Half-Light: The Collected Poems of Frank Bidart
25: Crush by Richard Siken
26: Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
27: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
28: Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles
29: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
30: The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
BONUS BOOKS!
31: Nox by Anne Carson
32: Speak Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
33: Anagrams by Lorrie Moore
34: Down and Out in London and Paris by George Orwell
35: Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
36: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
See all of Stephanie’s Picks!
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