What Writers Are Reading

Even though the summer is not very old, I've accidentally read three excellent books so far. Two were about 9/11—Don DeLillo's Falling Man, which is so much better than its reviews, and Helen Schulman's A Day at the Beach. I have loved DeLillo since White Noise came out 22 years ago. When he's on, there's no one better. I would read his jury excuses—in fact, this would be an excellent idea for a future novel. And Schulman's book makes me feel physically ill with jealousy that I did not write it, but physically ill in a good way.

The third summer book I've already read is Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles, a memoir that blew me away although I am a nice Protestant girl not normally drawn to book-length writing on the Eucharist. I am going to foist this on every single hard-core left-wing religious nut I know. And make no mistake: there are many of us.

Lamott's most recent book is Grace (Eventually).