Jami Attenberg’s Book Recommendations

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

A Reason to See You Again by Jami Attenberg

$28 at harpercollins.com

Jami Attenberg is out with her seventh novel, A Reason to See You Again (Ecco). She’s also written a short story collection, a memoir, and a nonfiction writer’s guide (1000 Words).

The suburban Chicago-born and -raised, New Orleans-based (she lived in NYC for about 2 decades after a first visit to CBGBs in 1990) NYT bestselling author has a rescue dog, Leo; majored in writing seminars at Johns Hopkins; backpacked through Europe alone at 20 after studying abroad at University of East Anglia; learned to read at 3 or 4 from the back of cereal boxes; did a residency program on a Nebraska farm and taught a literary workshop in Lithuania; gave a talk entitled “How I Survived Being a Woman in Publishing”; kept a spreadsheet of answers she gave in interviews to avoid repeating herself; worked in advertising, at Word Bookstore in Greenpoint, and HBO, among other jobs; has held a reading series and a whiskey tasting on her NY rooftop (she and her neighbors were once evicted from their Williamsburg building because it wasn’t up to code); has a grapefruit tree in the backyard of her raspberry beret-colored Ninth Ward house; went viral for calling the cops on the guy who stole her yellow Schwinn after spotting it on Craigslist; pretended she was a psychic one Halloween; didn’t have a bed frame until she was 44; once lived on a houseboat in Puget Sound.

Fan of: Chicago fast casual chain Portillo’s (especially their Italian beef); aisle seats over window; giving away books; cold white wine on a summer day and swimming in the ocean; saints; black deli coffee and dipping things in cheese; gossip; Bota Bota Spa in Montreal.

Big believer in: The speed limit, parking karma.

Not so much: Closure, what happens at night, almonds.

Bad at: Cooking, long-term planning, being a team player and Reels, writing a ghost story.

Good at: Being a dinner party guest, throwing parties (she hosted an oyster festival in her backyard after the first round of booster shots); tossing stuff out. Her book picks below are keepers.

The book that:

…describes a place I’d want to visit:

Maurice Carolos Ruffin writes in The American Daughters about this little establishment called the Mockingbird Inn, set in the French Quarter in 1860. All the dark, sexy candlelit corners teeming with life and beauty and gossip—it was utterly captivating. I loved the way he writes about it all so intimately and lovingly even as there is suspense and intrigue hovering over the whole scene. Living in New Orleans, I always end up imagining what it was like so long ago and he invites us in.

....shaped my worldview:

I don’t know if it shaped my worldview, but it certainly helped clarify some things for me: Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger. She did the hard work of explaining the upside-downness of our current world by diving deeply into it in a personal and investigative way.

.…I recommend over and over again:

I always recommend Morgan Parker’s There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé when people are looking for something surprising and fresh to read. It’s an incredibly chic, witty, and moving poetry collection, meticulously crafted so you can read it purely on a language and line level, but you can also just love it for being so utterly of the moment.

...I read in one sitting, it was that good:

I’m finally on the Annie Ernaux train this year, and she has all these messy little dramas going on in her life that are just so exquisitely written, and they’re all short books you can read in one sitting. I just read The Possession and I was consumed by it. There’s a boxed set out now of all 13 of her books from Seven Stories Press that I might have to buy just so I can have a nice Ernaux snack whenever I feel like it.

....fills me with hope:

The intention, voice, politics, and general vibe of Sarah Thankam Mathews’s All This Could Be Different infused me with great hope when I read it. Not to mention she’s just an incredibly talented writer—I’ll be thrilled to read whatever she writes in the future.

.…made me laugh out loud:

I just read Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and it was so fresh and funny and written with real verve. I did not think I would ever care about professional wrestling and yet she has somehow made it happen.

.…I swear I’ll finish one day:

Bolaño’s 2666. Once a year I pick it up and read 50 pages or so and then my brain melts, and I have to put it away again. But I haven’t given up on it yet. Life is long—or longer than 2666 at least. (I hope.)

.…broke my heart:

I mean, anything by Jesmyn Ward. Do I have to pick just one? I think I’d pick Sing, Unburied, Sing, because I love a good ghost story, too.

…I first bought:

The first book I ever bought—with change I had saved up from babysitting!—was Joyce Carol Oates’s The Goddess & Other Women. I can still picture it sitting on the shelf at the used bookstore near my house, calling to me. Oates was already so accomplished by then at such a young age, and, living in a small town in Illinois, I found it inspiring to think about someone like her. Out there, a woman was writing up a storm.

....I last bought:

I just bought Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, which I had never read before. I am interested in breaking new form in my current project, and it was recommended to me as a great model. I basically can read like 5 pages of it at a time, and then I just need to go daydream for a while.

....I consider literary comfort food:

Writers & Lovers by Lily King filled me with this delightful hum throughout my reading of it. Just a great and loving book about being a writer and a person.

...I brought on a momentous trip:

I remember taking Just Kids by Patti Smith with me on a road trip down the coast of California when I was kind of dazed and possibly a little lost in my career, in my life, and that story, even though it’s about the struggle of being an artist, and especially a young artist, really grounded me in my desires. It just articulates so candidly the experience of finding your voice in the world.

The literary organization/charity I support:

Cave Canem is a wonderful organization that offers support to emerging Black poets through fellowships, residencies, and more. It’s exciting to watch who they’re working with every year. All our favorite future poets are being mentored right now.