Story Insider: Recommends (Vol.02)

NEW! A curated collection of story recommendations from recent guests.

JULIA BARTON: I'm reading Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 2011 that I sadly failed to read until Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, gave it to me at the end of my fellowship there. The novel's structure is fascinating and challenging, and I'm in a much better place to absorb it now than when it came out (and when my kids were young and distracting!) I've really loved Egan's other, perhaps more straightforward works, such as Manhattan Beach. 

In terms of listening, I highly recommend the series Inconceivable Truth from Wavland and Matt Katz, who turns his investigative reporting skills on his own origins. It's well written and edited, has lovely scenes and the right pacing, including many — but not too many! twists and turns. The score is by the wonderful Hannis Brown. It's so great to hear a labor of love like this series well executed in all its complexities.

SHARLENE ALLSOPP: Right now, I'm in Paris on a writing residency - and love to read books set in locations that I am currently in -- both figuratively and physically! Right now, I am in Paris, so I am reading The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher. I am only a couple of chapters in but the emplacement is so cool. I will also read The Hunchback of Notre Dame while I'm here as I have never read it and the cathedral is visible from my street.

My big recommendation is to read Fragile Creatures by Khin Myint. It's an incredible debut and an incisive lived experience of suffering and racism in Australia with a considered and gracious tone. I am a huge fan of Khin's style.