Sarah Lyall Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Sarah Lyall

I don't think I'd ever read a legal thriller before, and I remember starting to read it and finding it so gripping, so enthralling, so terrific…I loved it. It has a great courtroom scene, political intrigue, a murder, unexpected conclusion; everything is great.

Sarah Lyall

Wintering does us the great service of reminding us that we are not alone in feeling undone. And although May’s book doesn’t offer a neat, easy ending in which she miraculously feels better, she does offer hope... She finds that hope in the ebb and flow of the seasons.

Sarah Lyall

Hired to teach tennis in an exclusive New England WASP enclave one summer, young and impecunious Conor O’Toole breaks Tennis Pro Rule No. 1: Do not sleep with any sexy but possibly unhinged middle-aged divorcées... The tension is almost unbearable.

Sarah Lyall

Margo has an almost physical yearning for the exquisite thrill of presiding over her victims’ final moments. Watching her lose her composure by threatening library patrons is great fun…

Sarah Lyall

What a delight it was to interview the marvelously witty and articulate @BenMacintyre1 about his latest book, AGENT SONYA: MOSCOW'S MOST DARING WARTIME SPY (now available in paperback), for the Freakonomics Radio Book Club. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/frbc-ben-macintyre/ via @freakonomics

Out of stock

Sarah Lyall

Remember the horror movie “Ready or Not,” in which a bride spends her wedding night in hand-to-hand combat with her homicidal in-laws? Catherine Steadman’s THE FAMILY GAME...has a similar conceit, although with a cleverer, more labyrinthine plot.

Sarah Lyall

Tony Marra's latest book features a trio of fatalistic elderly Italian aunts. “You poor girl,” one of them tells her niece. “You have your whole life ahead of you." https://t.co/NNF1AygthC

Sarah Lyall

This exquisitely creepy novella features... a rational Icelandic woman who doesn’t understand why she’s so tired all the time... Then one morning, her fitness app reveals that she walked 17 miles in her sleep. Trust me, the nightmarish truth is worse than anything you can imagine.

Sarah Lyall

You would be hard-pressed to find a more unhealthy example of obsession than that of the narrator in Maud Ventura’s MY HUSBAND… Ventura gradually ratchets up the tension, as if she’s stretching a rubber band. What will make it snap?

Sarah Lyall

Whalefall spins the concept into a crazy, and crazily enjoyable, beat-the-clock adventure story about fathers, sons, guilt and the mysteries of the sea. That much of the action takes place in an absurdly improbable setting... well, that only adds to the book’s brash allure.