A poem by Anthony Walton, and discussions of complicated family dynamics in a novella by Ágota Kristóf, novels by Anne Tyler and Jemimah Wei, and a short story by Ayşegül Savaş

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Line was waiting for me at the factory entrance, leaning against the wall. She looked so pale and sad that I decided to stop and talk to her.
—From Yesterday, a novella by Ágota Kristóf, translated from the French by David Watson (Dover Publications, Inc., 2019). The book was originally published in Paris, France, as Hier (Éditions du Seuil, 1996). The English-language translation was originally published in London, England (Secker & Warburg, 1997).

Please note: although it's not as graphic as The Notebook Trilogy, this book does contain some subject matter that may not be suitable for everyone.     

I was in Istanbul for a few days and on my way to visit my grandfather. He'd moved in with my father at the beginning of the pandemic because we had been worried about him living alone, in the town by the Black Sea where he'd retired.
—From "Freedom to Move," a short story by Ayşegül Savaş, The New Yorker (July 22, 2024), pp. 50-54.

Arin was somewhere in Germany when my mother got sick again. She'd been sick before, but never like this, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she would change her mind and start asking for Arin. The prospect filled me with dread. My sister and I hadn't spoken for years, not since she first got famous, not even when my mother was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer a couple of years ago. Back then, too, I'd been afraid that if things got really bad, my mother would want Arin there.
—From The Original Daughter, a novel by Jemimah Wei (Doubleday, 2025). 

We are driving the Middle West, lost
as Oklahoma or Kansas slowly spins
—From "Dead Reckoning," a poem by Anthony Walton, The New Yorker (July 22, 2024), pp. 52-53. 

Bonus book to read again: 

While Cody's father nailed the target to the tree trunk, Cody tested the bow. He drew the string back, laid his cheek against it, and narrowed his eyes at the target. His father was pounding in tacks with his shoe; he hadn't thought to bring a hammer. He looked like a fool, Cody thought. He owned no weekend clothes, as other fathers did, but had driven to this field in his strained-looking brown striped salesman suit, white starched shirt, and navy tie with multicolored square and circles scattered randomly across it. 
—From Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, a novel by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). 

A poem by ethan s. evans, stories by Kelly Link, novels by Solvej Balle and Lily King, and books by Laura Ingalls Wilder

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when they started to build a data center on the infill lot at the end of our road . . . 
—From "you told me you wanted a baby," a prose poem by ethan s. evans, Sixth Finch (Winter 2026). 

At a table nearby three women were talking about a new pocket universe. A new diet. A coworker's new baby; a girl born with no shadow. . . . A long, lubricated conversation followed about over-the-counter shadows—prosthetics, available in most drugstores, not expensive and reasonably durable. 
—From Get in Trouble, a collection of nine stories by Kelly Link (Random House, 2015). This segment is from my favorite story, "Light," which closed the collection (pp. 287-333 in the hardcover). "Light" originally appeared in Tin House (Fall 2007).  

Nothing has changed and there is nothing I have to do. There are no books to be bought, no auctions to attend, no friends to visit. I have no pattern of sounds and silence around which to organize my day, I have no plans, I have no calendar. Time passes, but all it does is pour day after day into my world, it goes nowhere, it has no stops or stations, only this endless chain of days. 
—From On the Calculation of Volume II, a novel by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (New Directions, 2024). This is the second book in a series of seven and has been published by arrangement with Copenhagen Literary Agency. Originally published as Om udregning af rumfang II (Pelagraf, 2020). The excerpt above is from page 7 of the English-language paperback. 

Plaire is not a wealthy town. It is not one of those immaculate, romantic villages described in books about the south of France. 
—From The Pleasing Hour, a novel by Lily King (Grove Press, 1999). 

Bonus books to read again: 

All winter long, they had been crowded in the little kitchen, cold and hungry and working hard in the dark and the cold to twist enough hay to keep the fire going and to grind wheat in the coffee mill for the day's bread. 
—From Little Town on the Prairie, from the series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1941). My copy is from Harper Trophy (first printing, 1971) with illustrations by Garth Williams. I've also recently reread Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, and The Long Winter (referenced above, in this excerpt which appears toward the beginning of Little Town on the Prairie, on page 3). 

I've read some things about the controversies surrounding these books. I agree that the stories include some shockingly racist language and thoughts (not from Laura herself but from others around her). Even within the books, though, there are multiple disagreements on this topic. In several scenes, Ma, who is a young woman often left alone in the middle of nowhere with tiny children, is clearly terrified of the Native Americans because of stories she's heard, not because of her own real-life interactions, which are largely benign. Pa, on the other hand, seems to have a positive and cordial relationship with the local Native Americans, and he reiterates this multiple times to Ma. 

It doesn't make sense to me to ban or remove or vilify these books or their author, who was of course in every way a product of her time. The stories provide a valuable opportunity to discuss historical differences of all kinds. For example, can we compare women and children's roles in society and in the home between then and now? Thoughts about many things have changed enormously since then. Talking about these differences seems better than pretending that they never existed.

One of the through lines is the significance of a loving family and supportive community. There are many times in these stories when having the help of friends and neighbors means the difference between life and death. The books also emphasize the importance of education and hard work. These values feel as important as ever. 

A set of three novels by Ágota Kristóf, a collection of reinvented fairy tales by Kelly Link, a short story by Devon Halliday, and memoirs by Emilia McKenzie and Mark Vonnegut

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We arrive from the Big Town. We've been traveling all night. Mother's eyes are red. She's carrying a big cardboard box, and the two of us are each carrying a small suitcase containing our clothes, plus Father's big dictionary, which we pass back and forth when our arms get tired. 
—From The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie, a set of three novels by Ágota Kristóf, a Hungarian writer who moved to Switzerland when she was twenty-one. The novels are sometimes referred to collectively as The Notebook Trilogy (Grove Press, 1997). They were translated from the French by, respectively, Alan Sheridan, David Watson, and Marc Romano, and are collected here in one long volume. The books were originally published individually in French as Le grand cahier, La preuve, and Le troisième mensonge (Éditions du Seuil, 1986, 1988, 1991).

Please note: this set of three novels contains a fair amount of violence and themes that may not be for everyone.

The white cat said that she could not possibly consider allowing him to leave for at least another day. And so he spent the evening in the company of cats, playing board games and drinking games, while his dogs lay panting and happy on the flagstones beside the hearth. 
—From White Cat, Black Dog, a collection of seven stories by Kelly Link (Random House, 2023). Each story is preceded by a black and white illustration by Shaun Tan. My favorite stories were the bookends of the collection, "The White Cat's Divorce" and "Skinder's Veil." This excerpt, from "The White Cat's Divorce," appears on page 15 of the paperback. I recommend this book in print and as an audiobook; both versions were excellent. The stories were narrated by, in order, Rebecca Lowman, Dan Stevens, Dominic Hoffman, Kristen Sieh, Ish Klein, Tanya Cubric, and Patton Oswalt (Books on Tape, 2023). 

Frank keeps his eyes moving in their steady rotation, fixing his face in an empty and unsuggestive smile. Whenever he sees the student now he feels a kind of mental tilt, a shiver of precarity, and he has to shake it off like a dream.
—From "Nothing That Counts," a short story by Devon Halliday, One Story, Issue 317 (September 19, 2024)

My dear friend Charlotte died one Wednesday in May 2018. She was 34 years old. . . . A humble comic could never do justice to who she was. It's not really about suicide or mental health, either. 
—From But You Have Friends, a graphic memoir by Emilia McKenzie (Top Shelf Productions, 2023).

June 1969: Swarthmore Graduation. The night before, someone had taken white paint and painted "Commence What?" on the front of the stage. The maintenance crew had dutifully covered it over with red, white, and blue bunting, but we all knew it was there. 
—From The Eden Express, a memoir by Mark Vonnegut (Praeger Publishing, 1975). This book has been reissued in print at least once or twice since then, but I was listening to the audiobook, which was narrated by Pete Cross (Dreamscape Media, 2017). 

A story collection by Fumio Yamamoto, a novel by Solvej Balle, short stories by Camille Bordas and Emma Cairns Watson, and a poem by D. Nurkse

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As it was my birthday, our table was covered with plates and glasses from the full-course meal and a bottle of wine we usually would never order. In the seven years we'd been together, we'd had our share of arguments, but this was the first time the atmosphere between us had become so charged and heavy.
—From The Dilemmas of Working Women, a collection of five stories by Fumio Yamamoto, translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom (HarperVia, 2025). The book was originally published in Japanese as Planaria (Bungeishunju Ltd., 2000). Also, just a quick shoutout to the hardcover jacket designer, Sarah Kellogg, who used a photograph by Ulas & Merve (Merve Türkan and Ulaş Kesebir, a pair of London-based Turkish photographers who work together professionally). The cover is quite striking. Along with reading the print book, I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by Yuriri Naka. I really like listening to her. She narrated a different book that I listened to in 2025: Hunchback, a short novel by Saou Ichikawa (Hogarth, 2025). The HarperCollins page for The Dilemmas of Working Women has a sample of the audiobook as well as a sample of the print book. The segment above is from the title story and appears on page 162 of the hardcover. 

It is the eighteenth of November. I have got used to that thought. I have got used to the sounds, to the gray morning light and to the rain that will soon start to fall in the garden.
—From On the Calculation of Volume I, a novel by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (New Directions, 2024). This is the first book in a series of seven and has been published by arrangement with Copenhagen Literary Agency. Originally published as Om udregning af rumfang I (Pelagraf, 2020).

Repatriation—there's such a ring to it, such drama. I imagined maimed bodies in dirty tents, nurses changing brown, bloodied gauze, bending over beds to tell the wounded, "The call came in—you're going home." Yet I worked in Special Consular Services at our Embassy in Paris. The Americans I helped repatriate mostly broke legs in Pigalle or crashed rental cars in Normandy. 
—From "Chicago on the Seine," a short story by Camille Bordas, The New Yorker (June 17, 2024), pp. 46-52. 

Nadine had selected this service in particular because it was the only one that did not require you to submit your name or photograph. All you had to do was provide your phone number and your answer to the question, "If you had the opportunity to dissect another person, who would it be, and which part of their insides would you be most interested in looking at?"
—From "The Dissection Question," a short story by Emma Cairns Watson, One Story, Issue 310 (February 29, 2024).

There was a protest outside Thomas Jefferson 
and children were lying down histrionically, . . . 
—From "The Age of Miracle Weapons," a poem by D. Nurkse, The New Yorker (June 10, 2024), p. 43. 

Novels by Narine Abgaryan, Brenda Lozano, and Wallace Stegner, and graphic novels by Mimi Pond and Zuo Ma

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On Friday, just past noon, after the sun had rolled past its lofty zenith and begun sliding sedately toward the western edge of the valley, Anatolia Sevoyants lay down to breathe her last.
—From Three Apples Fell from the Sky, a novel by Narine Abgaryan, translated from the Russian by Lisa C. Hayden (Oneworld Publications, 2020). Originally published in Russian as С неба упали три яблока by AST Publishers, Moscow, in 2015.

On the morning of January 22, 1946, Gloria Felipe left the house wearing a pale blue dress with a matching bolero jacket and a navy hat; she carried a white purse under one arm and with the other held the hand of her daughter, the only one of her five children still too young to attend school. Little Gloria Miranda Felipe had turned two just three weeks earlier and that morning had gone with her mother to drop her siblings off in a new white dress with yellow flowers embroidered on the chest, made especially for her by her grandmother Ana María as a birthday gift.
—From Mothers, a novel by Brenda Lozano, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary (Catapult, 2025). 

Sally is still sleeping. I slide out of bed and go barefooted across the cold wooden floor. The calendar, as I pass it, insists that it is not the one I remember. It says, accurately, that it is 1972, and that the month is August. 
          The door creaks as I ease it open. Keen air, gray light, gray lake below, gray sky through the hemlocks whose tops reach well above the porch. More than once, in summers past, Sid and I cut down some of those weedlike trees to let more light into the guest cottage. All we did was destroy some individuals, we never discouraged the species. The hemlocks like this steep shore. Like other species, they hang on to their territory.
—From Crossing to Safety, a novel by Wallace Stegner (Random House, 1987).  

I had no practice at [breaking up with someone], so I did it over the phone. / My mom and my brother hated me. I didn't care. / That song had stopped! / I was so relieved . . . / that I went out and slept with the first whacked-out hippie I could find.
—From The Customer Is Always Wrong, a graphic novel by Mimi Pond (Drawn & Quarterly, 2017). 

Actually, all of this will be demolished. / There's going to be a factory here and the government is buying the land. Everyone's adding floors to their houses so they'll get more compensation. / You see those high-rises on the hill? Everyone will relocate there. 
—From Night Bus, a graphic novel by Zuo Ma, translated from the Mandarin by Orion Martin (Drawn & Quarterly, 2021). Originally published in Mandarin by Paper Farm Publishing. This omnibus volume was originally published as two separate books: Walk, a short story anthology (2013) and Night Bus, a graphic novel (2018). It helps to know that going in. 

Novellas by Irène Némirovsky and Roberto Bolaño, a graphic novel by Anna Härmälä, a story by Marcie Malone, and a story collection by Elaine Hsieh Chou

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I'm not talking about François and Hélène Erard, of course; I have never been in a home more pleasant, welcoming, intimate, warm and happy than theirs. But, in spite of everything, my idea of the perfect evening is this: I am completely alone; my housekeeper has just put the hens in their coop and gone home, and I am left with my pipe, my dog nestled between my legs, the sound of the mice in the attic, a crackling fire, no newspapers, no books, a bottle of red wine warming slowly on the hearth. 
—From Fire in the Blood, a novella by Irène Némirovsky, translated from the French by Sandra Smith (Knopf hardcover, 2007; Vintage paperback, 2008). Originally published in Paris, France, as Chaleur du sang by Denoël in 2007.

Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime. My brother and I had been orphaned. Somehow that justified everything. 
—From A Little Lumpen Novelita, a novella by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer (New Directions, 2014). Originally published by Mondadori as Una novelita lumpen in 2002.

He opened Poets and Painters to the classifieds. "Look here," he said, handing me my reading glasses. The right lens was greasy with chocolate wax. I soldiered on. This too is marriage.
—From "My Husband Told Me to Write a Story," a story by Marcie Malone, Fiction Attic (December 17, 2025). 

Finnish mothers get given a baby box by the state, and it's great. You get clothes, blankets, diapers, condoms . . . / and the box doubles as a safe bed for your baby. / Since the 1970s, the state has also given you a poster to remind parents to smile through the pain. 
—From Single Mothering, a graphic novel by Anna Härmälä (Nobrow, an imprint of Flying Eye Books Ltd., London, 2024). I know this isn't the focus of the book, but there are some notable differences between having a baby in Finland vs. the US, as evidenced in this segment (from page 47), where Mia is given a box of supplies. 

At the rear of the shop, down a dim hallway, was a studio where the manager lived with his wife, separated from the kitchen only by a curtain of wooden beads. They had worked for my grandparents for as long as LaLa could remember. I was introduced to them the way we were to all adults: "ShuShu" for men and "Ayi" for women. I never knew their real names. 
—From Where Are You Really From, a collection of six short stories and a novella by Elaine Hsieh Chou (Penguin Press, 2025). I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by Joel de la Fuente, Imani Jade Powers, Katharine Chin, and Natalie Naudus. This segment, which appears on page 7, is from "Carrot Legs," which was previously published (in a slightly different form) in Guernica.  

Fiction by Yoko Ogawa and Souvankham Thammavongsa, and graphic novels by Lee Lai and Fumio Obata

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I'm not sure how [Mina] came to love matchboxes the way she did or why the adults around her never put a stop to her obsession, despite the danger involved. But by the time I arrived at the house in Ashiya, it was clear that there was always a box of matches in Mina's pocket and that it was her responsibility to light the gas burner to heat the bath, to light the oil lamp in the light-bath room, and to light the candles when the electricity went out or for a special dinner.
—From Mina's Matchbox, a novel by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder (Pantheon, 2024). This story first appeared as a newspaper serialization in Japan as "Mina no Koshin" by Yomiuri Shimbun (2005). Originally published in book form in Japan as Mina no Koshin by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc., Tokyo (2006). The segment above is from page 81 of the hardcover. 

He was a bartender. He could make a drink for you, if you wanted. All you had to do was lean over and ask.
—From "Bozo," a short story by Souvankham Thammavongsa, The New Yorker (April 8, 2024), pp. 50-52. 

Everyone is ugly. I should know. I look at people all day.
—From Pick a Color, a novel by Souvankham Thammavongsa (Little, Brown and Company, 2025). 

Oh if I was a rat / oh if I was a rat / I'd live in the trees / 'cuz a scary-ass rat / can do what she please
—From Stone Fruit, a graphic novel by Lee Lai (Fantagraphics Books, 2021). This song (by one of the "fun weirdo aunties") is on pages 36 and 37.

Mountaineering is a popular sport in Japan. However, people tend to forget how dangerous it can be . . .
—From Just So Happens, a graphic novel by Fumio Obata (Abrams ComicArts, 2015). This segment is from page 60, but the artwork is the standout of this book. There are samples on the publisher's listing.