15 Women Writers Discuss Their Favorite Overlooked Books
Two things that make any reader happy: an enticing recommendation from a fellow booklover and an underappreciated work that turns out to be a gem.
Ann Patchett is the author of
State of Wonder and co-owner of the
Nashville bookstore
Parnassus Books.
Many times people who know how to set the world on fire don't have a clue how to write, while those who can make a pretty sentence have nothing to say. What's
hard to find is someone whose life has been marked by a fully engaged
intellect and a taste for reckless adventure, who also knows how to shape
those experiences into heart-stopping prose. Geoffrey Wolff is that writer,
and it's high time his brilliant essay collection and memoir,
A Day at the Beach, moved from overlooked to celebrated.
A Day at the Beach offers up tales of
daring along with expansive thinking, the bright light of humor, and the dark
night of the soul, and delivers it all in writing sharp enough to cut your
fingers on. As far as I can tell, Wolff's made the most of every single
thing that's come his way. I love him for it.
From the
May 2015 issue of
O, The Oprah Magazine
