CRP's Blog

While basking in the sun (finally!), the CRP staff has still managed to get some reading done. Feel free to add any of the titles below to your summer reading list, and let us know in the comments or on Twitter what you’ve been reading, too. #CRPreads

I just finished Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book about learning Italian, In Other Words. When I was 18 or 19, I made a similar declaration that I was going to teach myself the language (though my experience sadly ended without a bilingual book deal), so I can definitely relate to her romantic impulse to completely renovate her brain by diving into a new vocabulary and grammar. The chapters ruminating on the way that she grew up feeling torn between her parents’ Bengali and the English she spoke (and wrote) among her peers at school are especially sad, lovely, and poignant.  —Allison Felus, production manager

I’m reading Noah Hawley’s newest book, Before the Fall. I’m a big fan of Hawley’s television work, especially Fargo, and I’m really interested to see what he’s like as an author. I’m expecting humor, unexpected connections, possibly a UFO (or maybe not), and a really great story. —Mary Kravenas, marketing manager

I’ve been on a YA kick recently so now I’m reading Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys. It’s so atmospheric that I still feel like I’m in its world even when I put it down.  —Emily Lewis, editorial and marketing assistant

Feeding my fascination with literary figures and The West is this New York Times piece “On the Trail of Nabokov in the American West.” —Meaghan Miller, senior publicist and social media coordinator

Three masterpieces I’ve read recently: The Color of Water by James McBride, an astonishing memoir; “Voices in the Night,” the last and title story of a collection by Steven Millhauser, probably the best short story about being an American Jew that I’ve ever read; and Robert Caro’s The Passage of Power, a riveting account of the vice-presidential and early presidential days of Lyndon B. Johnson (no, you don’t need to read the previous books in the series to get a lot out of this one). —Yuval Taylor, senior editor