STACKED: What’s on Amy Shearn's Shelf

A debut novel by a Dutch writer. So far, it's really good—giving a real Sarah Waters vibe, slow burn. Pretty sure some lesbian stuff is going to happen. My girlfriend and I are in a very exclusive book club (just the two of us) where we pass books like this back and forth. She said I should read it, so I’m going to.

A great new novel by Liza Monroy, just came out. It’s about falling in love with AI.

A new novel by Ada Calhoun. She’s such a brilliant nonfiction writer, and this is her first novel—very much about lust and desire in midlife.

A New York Review of Books reprint of an obscure novel about getting divorced. Did they do this just for me? That was so nice.

This is a book that I just picked up at an English-language bookstore in Berlin. I just wanted an excuse to say that. But really, I got so excited by the first line. I don’t know anything about it, but listen to this: "Anyway, so I had to go to Zurich again for a few days." I was like—this book starts with the word anyway. The confidence. Yes, please.

I’m also currently reading the second book of the Rabbit series. I know, I know—I’m about 50 to 70 years late to the party, but John Updike? Pretty good, y’all.

Yes, the same Shirley Jackson who wrote The Lottery. She’s most known for her creepy gothic novels like The Haunting of Hill House, but she also supported herself by publishing funny essays about motherhood in women's magazines, which cracks me up. Some of them are collected in this book, and it's really about being a working creative mom trying to balance it all in the 40s.

It was published in the 80s, recently reprinted—it's about a bored woman who falls in love with a monster, obviously.

I mean, when I think about it, these are all books about women overwhelmed by their lives, seeking outlets. This is one of those books… It was published in the 80s, I found it in a Goodwill, read the first page, and became obsessed. So good. It's like a meta-novel about trying to write a novel but always being interrupted. Just, everyone should read it. Look at this cover. It's just so 80s and bonkers.