6 book recommendations from Raven Leilani

Raven Leilani is the author of Luster, a 2020 best-seller that won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. The novel, about a young Black woman who begins an affair with a married white man, is now available in paperback.
My Education by Susan Choi (2013).
An unsparing account of the carnal conspiracy between two gloriously human, difficult women: the 21-year-old narrator and the wife of her poetry professor. This novel was instrumental to my approach to my own book, in the way it presents the desire of women (unvarnished, without apology) but also in its engagement with language and the way this lends itself to texture and sensuality. Buy it here.
Outline by Rachel Cusk (2014).
Cusk's first entry in the Outline trilogy is a book that sends you hurtling through the psychic landscape of its speaker as she navigates fraught emotional transactions. This is one of the rare books that reanimated me during a period when I couldn't read or write. Buy it here.
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.
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (1984).
Reading this collection of essays and scholarship, I had the distinct sensation of feeling a miraculous brain, with unabashed id and empathy, processing both lived experience and how, as a Black woman, to give yourself over to love of the work. Buy it here.
Homie by Danez Smith (2020).
This lush, intimate poetry collection takes big formal and emotional risks in its rendering of private Black life. I return to this book to remind myself of what is possible on the page — the joy, the rigor, the necessity of a strut. Smith writes toward the abundant and the difficult and makes something that is rare: a piece of art that refuses self-consciousness and is exactly what it wants to be. Buy it here.
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010).
Egan's brilliant, interconnected narrative engages tenderly with so many fervid human impulses: fandom, punk, habit, and how we upend what we are dealt to survive and reinvent. This Pulitzer Prize — winning novel is a marvel to me in its structure, execution, and heart. Buy it here.
The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen (1967–71).
Ditlevsen, in a trio of memoirs beginning with Childhood and Youth, renders the tumult of adolescence with tenderness and wit. In the celebrated Danish writer's prose, the formative years are brutal and sweet, a site of ruin and furtive reinvention. Buy it here.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.
-
Ione Skye's 6 favorite books about love and loss
Feature The actress recommends works by James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more
By The Week US
-
Colum McCann's 6 favorite books that take place at sea
Feature The National Book Award-winning author recommends works by Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, and more
By The Week US
-
Max Allan Collins’ 6 favorite books that feature private detectives
Feature The mystery writer recommends works by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and more
By The Week US
-
John McWhorter’s 6 favorite books that are rooted in history
Feature The Columbia University professor recommends works by Lyla Sage, Sally Thorne, and more
By The Week US
-
Abdulrazak Gurnah's 6 favorite books about war and colonialism
Feature The Nobel Prize winner recommends works by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and more
By The Week US
-
Elliot Ackerman’s 6 favorite books on war and duty
Feature The Marine veteran recommends works by Robert A. Heinlein, John le Carré, and more
By The Week US
-
Xochitl Gonzalez’s 6 favorite books that shaped her storytelling
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Julian Barnes, and more
By The Week US
-
Jason Isaacs's 6 favorite books that changed his perception on life
Feature The British actor recommends works by George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, and more
By The Week US