Maria Flook
Novelist Maria Flook is the author of the 2003 best-seller Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod. Her next novel, Lux, will be published this fall.
The Red Hour Glass Lives of the Predators by Gordon Grice (Delta, $19). A self-taught naturalist, Gordon Grice writes with the authority of a man who likes to face off with spiders, wild dogs, rattlesnakes, and the other killer critters who surround us in day-to-day life. This is a delicious book to cuddle up with. Just bring your can of Raid.
The Bottom of the Harbor by Joseph Mitchell (out of print). A beautiful, dreamy journey into the underworld of New York City’s waterfront communities in the mid-20th-century. Mitchell, always humanistic, is at his most lyric in this book. It is a love poem to a time and place few of us can reach back to.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche (McGraw Hill, $25). I discovered this wonderful book about flying by reading another book on the subject by the writer’s son, contemporary nonfiction writer William Langewiesche. Pilots call Stick and Rudder “the bible of aerial navigation.” Written mostly in laymen’s vernacular, it’s a technical manual for first-time pilots that combines practical mechanics, anecdotes, wrist-slapping facts, and warnings. I’ll never get behind a “stick,” but reading this book I was airborne, and loving every minute.
Who Do You Love by Jean Thompson (Simon & Schuster, $13). Jean Thompson is an urban Flannery O’Connor. The stories in this volume are charged with sharp insight and refined by a generous empathy for the disenfranchised, dismissed, disappointed Americans she evokes. Yet these characters are familiar to us; both their problems and their sunny days mirror our own.
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (Penguin Books, $14). This novel about a kid con man on the lam was a primer for me on psychological realism and the delights of noir. The story evolves in the chilly seaside decay of Brighton, England, and you never feel safe and warm reading it.
Marnie
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Exploring Georgia's southern highlands
The Week Recommends Visit Javakheti, Georgia's 'lake district', and meet the last-remaining 'spirit wrestlers' in the region
-
Delivery drivers face continuing heat danger with Trump's OSHA pick
The Explainer David Keeling is the former head of UPS and also worked at Amazon
-
Is that the buzzing sound of climate change worsening sleep apnea?
Under the radar Catching diseases, not those ever-essential Zzs
-
Thomas Mallon's 6 favorite books from the 80's and early 90's
Feature The author recommends works by James Merrill, Calvin Trillin, and more
-
Anne Hillerman's 6 favorite books with Native characters
Feature The author recommends works by Ramona Emerson, Craig Johnson, and more
-
John Kenney's 6 favorite books that will break your heart softly
Feature The novelist recommends works by John le Carré, John Kennedy Toole, and more
-
Andrea Long Chu's 6 favorite books for people who crave new ideas
Feature The book critic recommends works by Rachel Cusk, Sigmund Freud, and more
-
Bryan Burrough's 6 favorite books about Old West gunfighters
Feature The Texas-raised author recommends works by T.J. Stiles, John Boessenecker, and more
-
Tash Aw's 6 favorite books about forbidden love
Feature The Malaysian novelist recommends works by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and more
-
Richard Bausch's 6 favorite books that are worth rereading
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and more
-
Marya E. Gates' 6 favorite books about women filmmakers
Feature The film writer recommends works by Julie Dash, Sofia Coppola, and more