CRP's Blog

Check out what we’ve been reading over the Thanksgiving break and let us know your book recommendations in the comments below!

I’m reading We Are Okay by Nina LaCour. It’s a slower-paced book that deals with grief and loneliness and healing and disillusionment. It’s a powerful read, but in a quiet kind of way. —Jen DePoorter, marketing coordinator

I’ve recently been reading The Lord of the Rings books for the first time ever. (Perhaps you’ve heard of them?) I’m currently halfway through The Return of the King, and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with mundane reality again once the journey finally comes to an end. —Allison Felus, director of production

I started reading All Quiet on the Western Front for Armistice Day and finished over Thanksgiving. It describes war so vividly that I know some of those images are going to stick with me forever.   —Emily Lewis, marketing associate

As I was trying to decide what books to put on my Christmas list, I came across some old titles I had read by Maggie Stiefvater. I have read all of her series and absolutely loved her tales about wolves, faeries and the Raven Boys. Since I loved all of her other titles so much, I decided I was going to finally read the one book I always passed over: The Scorpio Races. I’m not really sure why I always passed over it, but I’m glad I have finally given it a chance. So far, it’s just as good as her other books and I’m once again far too invested in her characters’ well-being. —Stefani Szenda, marketing assistant

I reread Willa Cather’s novel The Professor’s House. I have an old hardcover, the ninth printing from 1942 (the first printing was in 1925), and it’s a thing of great beauty to me, with its deckled edges and type set in Caslon Old Face—a Knopf book that looks quite a bit like that publisher’s original edition of Conrad Richter’s Awakening Land trilogy, another tripartite work I deeply admire. The Professor’s House is written plainly and humbly, with an unbalanced structure, and a theme that centers around the desire for solitude and simplicity. It charmed me again, though perhaps not as much as it first did, because the first reading carries more surprise, and because I now find the second “book” too simplistic and idealistic. I am now reading Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century by Nate Chinen, an old friend. —Yuval Taylor, senior editor