A story by George Saunders, two novels by Colm Tóibín, and essays by Melissa Broder and David Sedaris

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One day, walking neer one of your Yuman houses, smelling all the interest with snout, I herd, from inside, the most amazing sound. Turns out, what that sound is, was: the Yuman voice, making werds. They sounded grate! They sounded like prety music! I listened to those music werds until the sun went down, when all of the suden I woslike: Fox 8, crazy nut, when sun goes down, werld goes dark, skedaddle home, or else there can be danjer! 
          But I was fast and nated by those music werds, and desired to understand them total lee.
—From Fox 8, a story by George Saunders, illustrated by Chelsea Cardinal (Random House, 2013).

He must be aware that she was awake. She heard him clearing his throat. In the dark, she could let this silence go on for as long as she thought fit. She might even decide not to break it at all, fall asleep beside him and put him through another day guessing what she knew or how she would respond.  
—From Long Island, a novel by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, 2024). This segment is at the bottom of page 19 in the hardcover. The book is a sequel to Brooklyn, his earlier novel about Eilis Lacey. 

She drove to Cush in the old A40 one Saturday that October, leaving the boys playing with friends and telling no one where she was going. Her aim in those months, autumn leading to winter, was to manage for the boys' sake and maybe her own sake too to hold back tears. Her crying as though for no reason frightened the boys and disturbed them as they gradually became used to their father not being there. She realised now that they had come to behave as if everything were normal, as if nothing were really missing. They had learned to disguise how they felt. She, in turn, had learned to recognise danger signs, thoughts that would lead to other thoughts. She measured her success with the boys by how much she could control her feelings.  
—From Nora Webster, a novel by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, 2014). This segment is from page 7. (Eilis Lacey's family members play a very small role in this book as well.)  

I have never told the story of my husband’s illness. His illness is not my illness, and so I did not think it was my story to tell. But the illness is a third party in our relationship. I have been in a relationship with the illness for eleven years. So in this way, perhaps, it is my story too.
          In the past, my husband has said that he would prefer not to be a subject of my writing. But he has also said that he would never want to censor me. He says, Do what you need to do for art.
—From So Sad Today, a collection of personal essays by Melissa Broder (Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group, 2016). This is the opening of "I Told You Not to Get the Knish: Thoughts on Open Marriage and Illness." It appears on pages 155-181 of the paperback. A longer excerpt is available on LitHub.   

Bonus book to read again: 

On a recent flight from Tokyo to Beijing, at around the time that my lunch tray was taken away, I remembered that I needed to learn Mandarin. "Goddammit," I whispered. "I knew I forgot something." 
          Normally, when landing in a foreign country, I'm prepared to say, at the very least, "Hello," and "I'm sorry." This trip, though, was a two-parter, and I'd used my month of prep time to bone up on my Japanese. 
—From Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, a collection of essays by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company, 2013). This segment is from "Easy, Tiger," which appears on pages 77-86 of the original hardcover and was originally published in The New Yorker. As always, if you have the option, I recommend listening to an audiobook of David Sedaris reading his own work and/or seeing him read live.  

Short stories by Kevin Barry, poetry by Judith Harris, a novel by Colm Tóibín, and essays by David Sedaris

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Living alone in his dead uncle's cottage, and with the burden lately of wandering thoughts in the night, Seamus Ferris had fallen hard for a Polish girl who worked at a café down in Carrick.  He had himself almost convinced that the situation had the dimensions of a love affair, though in fact he'd exchanged no more than a few dozen words with her, whenever she named the price for his flat white and scone, and he shyly paid it, offering a line or two himself on the busyness of the town or the fineness of the weather.
—From "The Coast of Leitrim," the opening story of That Old Country Music, a collection of short stories by Kevin Barry (Doubleday, 2020). I first read this story in print in 2019, and I really liked it. Now, though, in 2024, I listened to it as part of the audiobook for That Old Country Music, and this added a whole different dimension. If you have the option, I highly recommend reading the text in addition to listening to it in an audio format read by the author. "The Coast of Leitrim" first appeared in print in The New Yorker (October 15, 2018), pp. 70-75, and is available online with the option to read and/or listen to the story. 

Then a flash of a cardinal
like a struck match, 
—From "Cardinal and Pine Through an Open Window," one of two poems by Judith Harris, Terrain.org (September 14, 2023).  

Eilis Lacey, sitting at the window of the upstairs living room in the house on Friary Street, noticed her sister walking briskly from work. She watched Rose crossing the street from sunlight into shade, carrying the new leather handbag that she had bought in Clerys in Dublin in the sale. 
—From Brooklyn, a novel by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, 2009). The sequel to this book, Long Island, is forthcoming from Scribner on May 7, 2024.   

Bonus books to read again: 

"Oh, for God's sake," my mother said, tossing her wooden spoon into a cauldron of chipped-beef gravy. "Leave that goddamned cat alone before I claw you myself. It's bad enough that you've got her tarted up like some two-dollar whore. Take that costume off her and turn her loose before she runs away just like the last one." 
—From Naked, a memoir/collection of essays by David Sedaris (Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 1997).

My performing career effectively ended the day my drug dealer moved to Georgia to enter a treatment center. Since the museum I'd done a piece at a gallery and had another scheduled for the state university. "How can you do this to me?" I asked her. "You can't move away, not now. Think of all the money I've spent on you. Don't I deserve more than a week's notice? And what do you need with a treatment center? People like you the way you are; what makes you think you need to change? Just cut back a little, and you'll be fine. Please, you can't do this to me. I have a piece to finish, goddamnit. I'm an artist and I need to know where my drugs are coming from."
          Nothing I said would change her mind.  
—From Me Talk Pretty One Day, a memoir/collection of essays by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company, 2000). This section is from "Twelve Moments in the Life of an Artist," Eleven, pp. 39-59 in the paperback. A version of this piece first appeared on This American Life (August 22, 1997) in an episode called "Blame It on Art."