Susan Edsall
Oct 101 min read
67
Recommendations
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Books that grab you by the heart and won’t release you until you read the final word—that’s what I’m always on the hunt for.
Here are some of my recommendations—most of them are books that aren’t being talked about right now, but either were some years ago or, in my mind, should have been. Trigger warning: Most of what I love is dark, taking you on a journey deep inside desire, shame, failure—sometimes finding redemption and sometimes not, but always finding empathy. They are stories about what it means to be human. Stories about how to survive.
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Wanna Play
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Several years ago I was at a friend’s house for dinner and he astonished me when he said, “I’m not creative. Never have been.”
I did not throw my glass of very fine scotch at his head. Rather, I said, “That’s ridiculous.” This man has a fabulous family who descend on the family home to celebrate holidays and, while there, collectively engage in writing and making movies, set up extravagant game shows as if they are on television, and tell stories as they roast marshmallows in a fire pit my friend built out under the trees for precisely that purpose.