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Lauren Oyler is the author of the novel "Fake Accounts" and a critic whose essays and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and the London Review of Books. Her first essay collection, "No Judgment," will be published March 19.
'The Professor and Other Writings' by Terry Castle (2010)
This collection of memoiristic critical essays is by far my most successful book recommendation. It includes a hilarious portrait of Susan Sontag — "Ours was on-again, off-again, semi-friendship, constricted by role-playing and shot through in the end with mutual irritation," Castle writes — that is widely beloved. But the title essay, about a "near-ruinous" affair Castle had as a graduate student, is where her comedic timing, digressive brilliance, and skill at crafting absurd scenes truly come together. Buy it here.
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