Ayelet Waldman's Homebound Reading List

MacDowell: We Are Here

MacDowell Fellow and author Ayelet Waldman (03, 04, 06, 10, 12, 17) is the author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life, the novels Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and Daughter's Keeper, as well as of the essay collection Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace. She is the editor of Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons and of Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.

Waldman starts off our new venture in supplying weekly lists of favorite reading, listening, viewing, contemplating with a collection of books and authors perfect for reading when self-isolating. “This,” she says, “is a short of list of women writers whom I adore.”

• Jane Gardam, anything, but especially Old Filth. Gardam is deliciously snide and witty.
• Lore Segal. Why haven't enough of us heard of her? Her novel Shakespeare's Kitchen was nominated for the Pulitzer in 2008 and it's fantastic.
• The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. I find the other novels a bit...well. Let's just say this one is my favorite. It's also why we only have four kids.
• Pat Barker, especially the Regeneration Trilogy. I do love a World War I novel, and this is a mighty fine set of them.
• All of Lorrie Moore. I know, I know. Old news. But the stories, especially "People Like Us Are The Only People Here" is worth about a million re-readings.