Coleen Grissom's Lit Picks: A Comprehensive List

From 2010 up until her death earlier this year, Coleen Grissom, Ph.D., Trinity University professor emerita of English, had written a column for nearly every issue of Trinity magazine detailing her latest reads. With her trademark wit and gruffly humorous, yet thoughtful, commentary, Grissom recommended her latest “Lit Picks,” or “Recs for the Literati,” as the column was known before its name change in the mid-2010s. Grissom’s column was one of the most-read sections of the magazine (second only to Class Notes), which makes sense—having worked at Trinity for 70 (!) years until her retirement in 2019, Grissom became a household name for the Trinity community.

The Trinity magazine team rounded up all Grissom’s literature recommendations from the past 13 years and her commentary, if she had provided any. In total, there are more than 150 selections, with some authors receiving multiple nods (including, unsurprisingly, Margaret Atwood, who was Grissom’s close friend). We hope you find old, lasting favorites as well as new titles to explore.

Books

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson: “A companion volume to her brilliant Life After Life”

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood: “Her brilliant modernization of The Tempest. A reading or re-reading of any version of Shakespeare is almost always uplifting and—in this case—also hilariously refreshing.”

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: “A necessary re-reading of her 1985 dystopian fiction. As you surely know, the prescience of Atwood’s story is disturbing as well as remarkable.”

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood: “Another view of the future that will make you think, even in this political environment, that life’s not so bad.”

Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood: “Insightful, inspiring, and rewarding. Atwood is, of course, remarkably witty and clever.”

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood: “A powerful, motivating continuation of her classic The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood: “Apparently my favorite Canadian is writing a dystopian trilogy, and in this second volume, continues with ‘speculative fiction’ describing, using her mordant wit and appreciation of the absurd, what will be left of this beautiful earth and humankind if we don’t re-evaluate some of our priorities.”

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: “Weird, but funny.”

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman: “For those who’ve read Backman previously, they will not be disappointed in this short, sweet story which most, to me, resembles a fairy tale. As with all from that form, there’s a moral and a lesson. Luckily, here they are ones about which we all occasionally need reminding.”

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The Sellout by Paul Beatty: “Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize and is among the most filthy, profane, obscene, hilarious, fast-paced, ‘in your face,’ and brilliant novels to cross my desk in many decades. For me, it defies description: It’s not a reading; it’s an experience and not always an enjoyable one. Still, it’s a must.”

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin: “Will make you re-read Matthew 25:35-40 and wonder why you’re so lucky.”

Behind the Beautiful Forever: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Dangerous When Wet by Jamie Brickhouse ’90: “The memoir is receiving critical raves. I am trying hard to feel good about this success of a man who impersonated me at ‘Sing Song’ when he was an undergraduate.”

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke

Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell: “Heartbreaking”

Everything by Kevin Canty

A Long Way From Home by Peter Carey: “Remember picaresque literature? Rogues of ‘low social order’ engage in fast-moving plots combining believable slapstick and serious messages.” 

Milkman by Anna Burns: “Every critic admired this Booker Prize winner, but I struggled with unnamed characters and the digressive prose. I also needed to know and to care more about the Irish ‘Troubles’ of the nineteen-seventies.”

Moonglow by Michael Chabon: “This book is described as a ‘work of fictional nonfiction,’ and, although I’m not sure what that means, I do know that I found the book mesmerizing, thanks to Chabon’s gifts in composing his prose in ways I’ve never seen, read, or heard before. I laughed, I cried, I went down my own memory lane, and you should also.”

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon: “Tests my patience with his intricate, complex-compound sentences, but keeps me reading because of his memorable characters and vivid creation of a sense of place”

Taken to the Grave by M.M. Chouinard

Did You Ever Have a Family? by Bill Clegg: “Examinations of various ways we deal with grief”

LaRose by Louise Erdrich: “Erdrich seems incapable of hitting a false note, writing a wrong word.”

Just One Look by Harlan Coben: “I so hoped it would feature Ronstadt’s version, but involved, instead, a package of photos which contained one the camera owner didn’t take. Fascinating, huh? Basis for a full book? You guess.”

The Drop by Michael Connelly

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

The Best Advice I Ever Got by Katie Couric

The Abbey by Chris Culver: “One review noted that this book makes ‘no great demands on the intellect.’ That says all that needs to be said.”

The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

The Reckoning Stones by Laura Hankins DiSilverio ’83: “After serving in the military for two decades, Hankins DiSilverio has become quite a prolific writer.”

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: “An autographed copy of which Trinity alum Carol Casler ’64 sent me because the author, Anthony Doerr, is a neighbor”

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr: “This book takes the reader far into the past as well as far into the future. I guess, ultimately, it is a book about books, and Doerr’s approach to celebrating the joys of reading—no surprise here—resonates with me.”

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble: “Simply an exquisite book—wise, inspiring, funny, heartbreaking, thought-provoking.”

A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers: “Seems a 21st century Death of a Salesman, and it’s not pretty”

The Gathering by Anne Enright

Future Home Of The Living God by Louise Erdrich: “Atwood and Erdrich discuss this novel in an interview online as Erdrich tries her hand at imagining the future—and, yes, it’s another view of the government’s taking over women’s rights to control their own bodies. Oh, and evolution starts occurring in reserve.”

The Round House by Louise Erdrich: “Fascinates with a well-told story of injustice”

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich: “Since Louise Erdrich began writing, along with her husband at the time, Michael Dorris, acknowledged and praised as 'America’s cultural couple,' I believe I’ve not missed any of her novels. Her early capturing of a culture with which I (and many readers) had no experience—Native Americans—both informed and engaged me. And I hurriedly shared and share all her works with others. So don’t miss the title The Sentence even though some reviewers’ enthusiastic use of ‘dazzling’ and ‘wickedly funny’ may go too far for some of us Erdrich devotees.”

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich: “Another Erdrich look at our country’s dispossession of Native Americans from their homes and culture.”

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan: “After her brilliant Goon Squad, even though this is an engaging, interesting novel, it’s far from unique.”

American War by Omar El Akkad: “In my constant quest to broaden my reading horizons, I plowed through this first novel about a second civil war, this one initiated over the use of fossil fuels. Political divides in America? Pretty fanciful, don’t you think?”

I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo: “Winner of the Booker Prize and best meets the [magazine issue’s] theme of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Race, sexuality, gender, history, and even economic status all get examined as influences on the lives of several women.”

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris: “I suspect I found Ferris engaging because I have never before read a novel with a dentist as the protagonist. The hope that I never have to read another should not dissuade you from this one.”

Bossypants by Tina Fey

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

The Narrow Road To The Deep North by Richard Flanagan: “Won the 2014 Man Booker Prize—simply a remarkable, mesmerizing novel. Need the verisimilitude of prisoners of wars’ experiences? This one is epic.”

Canada by Richard Ford: “Not only offers a remarkably believable narrative voice but also handles foreshadowing in a mind-blowing manner”

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain: “Brilliant, yet disturbing novel about current wars and their effects on those who fight them. (Even offers a parody of Jerry Jones.) Please read thoughtfully.”

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler: “Disturbed my sleep, and I recommend it only if you need a little vicarious misery.”

Desperate Characters by Paula Fox

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Before the End, After the Beginning by Dagoberto Gilb

The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Less by Andrew Sean Greer: “Though my ‘mature’ students in Literary Excursions found this satire boring, the Pulitzer Prize committee and I disagreed. It’s the most hilarious book I’ve read this year, and God knows I need a few laughs.”

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff: “President Obama named it the best book he read in 2015. Just saying…”

Florida by Lauren Groff: “Short stories written in Groff’s remarkably mesmerizing prose.”

The All of It by Jeanette Haien

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett: “One can’t laugh all the time, and I certainly never did during this story of the effects of mental illness upon not only the ill but also on the entire family.”

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: “I admired the best-seller, but I found Hawkins serving up not one but three unreliable narrators as getting somewhat carried away with what can be an engaging technique.”

The Painter by Peter Heller

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen

So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman: “One that will really convince you I’ve gone over the edge. Grueling and creepy.”

In One Person by John Irving: “Irving continues, as the saying goes, ‘pushing the envelope’”

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson: “Strange, experimental, crude, supposedly hilarious, yet, at some level, sort of sweet and uplifting. I promise.”

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

American Marriage by Tayari Jones: “Miscarriages of justice distress us all, and Jones explores a devastating one in a powerful manner.”

If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poetry by Caroline Kennedy: “Kennedy’s selections and categories of poems are deeply moving.”

Euphoria by Lily King: “Think you know all about Margaret Mead? Think again.”

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver: “Reminds us, not so subtly, that climate change is not only real but also upon us”

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner: “Kushner’s choice of the ‘prison-industrial complex’ as her setting does not make for an easy or pleasant read, but it is vivid, fascinating, and informative.”

The Drowning Girls by Veronica Lando

No Time To Spare by Ursula Le Guin: “No surprise here. Though I’m no fan of fantasy or science-fiction, I cherished every word as I read these exquisite essays about growing old, growing older, and finding meaning in one’s life.”

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

How It All Began by Penelope Lively

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke: “Locke’s setting for this story of racially motivated crime is rural East Texas, right along Highway 59 where I grew up, and most will recognize some of her tropes.”

Deaf Sentence by David Lodge: “Along with Richard Russo, Lodge writes my favorite fiction set in the collegiate world, but here he also tells me perhaps more than I— or other readers—want to know about growing older, but, as usual, does so with his brilliant wit and memorable, often farcical, scenes.”

The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan: “This was a stretch for me, but I consider it high time I explored some of the literature on terrorism and extremism. The novel is, indeed, a tour de force and, for me, was also a compelling and informative study of that strange combination: horror and compassion.”

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai: “Examines in detail the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s with vivid characterization and understanding.”

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel: “Mesmerizes even though you already know what happens”

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Absolution by Alice McDermott

The Snowdonia Killings by Simon McCleane: “There’s a lot of concern for a veteran police officer about to turn 50. Give me a break.”

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan: “Shows off McEwan’s wide-ranging gifts by satirizing spy novels”

The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie: “Ever talk to squirrels? How about a dog or a cat? Ever worry about conspicuous consumption?”

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore: “Moore’s usual choice of form is the story and sometimes her pacing goes awry in the novel, but she is among the most gifted writers I know who can juxtapose comedy and tragedy brilliantly. In this post-9/11 novel, she addresses many societal concerns with compassion and keen, often hilarious, observations.”

A Mercy by Toni Morrison: Fascinatingly, this is pre-Beloved in setting and illustrates again the genius of our country’s only living winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Forgive the cliché, but, of course, Morrison’s ‘prose’ is almost always ‘poetry.’”

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison: “Our country’s only Nobel Prize for Literature laureate takes on child abuse”

Home by Toni Morrison: “Similar to Beloved, but shorter, yet also devastating and brilliant”

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: “A disturbing, yet moving family drama”

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: “As in her debut novel, Ng seems to abide by the adage, ‘write what you know,’ and here offers us another family-centered story of a challenging life in Shaker Heights.”

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez: “Okay, I read this mostly because the cover features a handsome Great Dane, and the plot considers human love and grief as well as the bond between humans and their dogs. (I just turned 86, for God’s sake. Give me a break.)”

Daddy Love by Joyce Carol Oates: “Disturbed my sleep, and I recommend it only if you need a little vicarious misery”

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

There There by Tommy Orange: “A member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, Orange releases his debut novel that may have a few too many characters, but it’s fast-paced and filled with information about a culture most of us need to know better.”

Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: “Atop the bestseller list throughout 2019, this novel seems way too familiar to many books I read when I was an adolescent. My advice? Just wait a short while for the inevitable movie version.”

Overboard by Sara Paretsky

Shell Game by Sara Paretsky: “Sure, there’s an unidentified corpse, but we know our fabulous V.I. Warshawski and her dogs will solve the crime.”

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett: “Needs to be included on any ‘must read’ list, mostly just to give us a chance to forget our piddling troubles and to lose ourselves in the tribulations and joys of yet another multi-generational family. (It also cleanses the palate after some of the others on my eccentric list!)”

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

12th of Never by James Patterson

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: “In spite of the charms of John Irving, Richard Russo, and Ian McEwen, I recommend Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses, a tender, intriguing story in minimalist prose.”

A Minor: a Novel of Love, Music and Memory by Margaret Philbrick ’84

Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips: “Some will say Phillips has been reading too much Faulkner, but, really, can anyone do that? Hers is a brilliantly conceived and narrated story of war, physical and mental disabilities, love, and redemption. Not an easy read, but a marvelous one.”

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips: “Women who are ‘fragmented personally, culturally, and emotionally.’ The women in this novel seem never to have heard of diversity, inclusion, or equity.”

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers: “Brilliant, yet disturbing novel about current wars and their effects on those who fight them. Please read thoughtfully.”

Bewilderment by Richard Powers: “Though prose, the writing here is quite poetic, and many of us share Powers’ concerns about climate change and the way in which humankind has treated and is treating this earth. Since it is partly about climate change for which we’ve hardly prepared, it’s a sad, poignant novel, but also one that inspires the reader to look around her—and do something.”

The Overstory by Richard Powers: “You aren’t worried about the environment and don’t think everything in the universe is interconnected and interdependent? Then, skip this.”

Communication as Comfort: Multiple Voices in Palliative Care by Sandy Ragan ’71 and colleagues

Lila by Marilynne Robinson: “Insightful, inspiring, and rewarding”

When I was a Child, I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson

The Other Side of Painting by Wendy Wolfe Rodrigue ’89

Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Everybody’s Fool by Richard Russo: “Paul Newman’s Sully is back as is the old-fashioned novel some of us loved and are always seeking. A remarkably funny book that offers realistic insights into working class life in a depressed economy.”

Stolen Prey by John Sandford

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart: “Strange, experimental, crude, supposedly hilarious, yet, at some level, sort of sweet and uplifting. I promise.”

The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: “An example of prose that compels and a story that must be read”

Autumn by Ali Smith: This novel, a finalist for the Booker Prize, is the first in what’s to be a quartet of works. Smith is never an easy read, but she’s a wise, insightful, and often deeply inspiring artist.

Summer by Ali Smith: “Thank God there are only four seasons; with this, Smith can now move on.”

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

The Southern Chapter of the Big Girl Panties Club by Lynda Adkins Stephenson ’64: “Delightful”

Earth (The Book) by Jon Stewart: “A guide for aliens arriving on this planet. A fun read.”

My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout: “Strout’s Olive Kitteridge was just a warmup for this quiet, exquisite story.”

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout: “I’m pretty sure that ever since she began publishing her novels, I’ve not missed any. I find each of hers insightfully drawing memorable—even recognizable—characters, and, not surprisingly, as Strout (and I) grow older, her characters and their illusions are usually, painfully just too close to home.”

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: “Labeled a ‘novel in stories,’ because each chapter can ‘stand alone,’ this Pulitzer Prize winner is a must-read because it’s funny, wise, and engaging as it urges us to try to understand people even if we can’t stand them.”

We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas: “Pursuit of the ‘American Dream’ derailed in an increasingly familiar, tragic way”

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

Fight Night by Miriam Toews: “Only recently have I become a fan of Miriam Toews, so I’m reading as much of her beautifully phrased and engaging work as I can. Her work may tell you more about Mennonite life and perspectives than you really want to know. Toews’ work just happens to make her my favorite Canadian writer after the incomparable Margaret Atwood.”

Women Talking by Miriam Toews: “A gripping, funny, fast moving story of, as one critic put it, ‘deep moral intelligence, a master class in ethics beautifully dressed as a novel.’”

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler: “Does anyone trace American family histories as vividly and gently as Tyler? I think not.”

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade

The Submission by Amy Waldman

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: “Taught me more than I wanted to know—but what I now certainly cannot forget—about dog fighting, abject poverty, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward: If you haven’t already discovered Ward through her National Book Award winner, Salvage the Bones, it’s high time you get started since Ward is clearly one of the most promising voices in contemporary fiction. The book will break your heart and ‘make you want to be a better person.’ (Once a student life dean, always a student life dean…)”

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore: “About ‘lower class’ women without education or money in a world of ‘masculine brutality.’ (West Texas oil fields…)”

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker: “Most memorable for the child character, who reminds the reader of Scout from Harper Lee's beloved novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, this is a murder mystery with some interesting moments, but the prose is uninspiring. I even led a discussion of this one at the Cordillera Book Club. Some liked it; some didn’t.”

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead: “New York City in the 1960s is, as English teachers like to say, ‘a character in the novel,’ and, in this case, a fascinating one. It’s fast-paced and multi-leveled with mystery, adventure, racism, economic disparity, and lots of delightful humor.”

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead: “Alas, is based on a real story of the Dozier School, a reformatory in Florida, set during the Jim Crow era.”

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson: “Tells in fascinating prose the story of the migration of African Americans from the South to the North”

99 Stories of God by Joy Williams: “Has something to offend everybody, as is expected from this so-called misanthropic writer whose concern for ‘contemporary language’s inability to cope with the grandeur and tragedy of the natural world’ seems to guide much of her writing. She’s spent her entire writing career, it seems to me, trying to awaken her readers to see—really see—this beautiful world. (After all, she also authored this line I cherish: ‘The silence of animals heals the wounds that human words have caused.’)”

Still Life by Sarah Winman: “Entranced me—and not just with its animal character, Claude. It’s an informative, yet disturbing story of Tuscany during World War II and creates a fascinating and unusual depiction of both wartime and devotion to art.”

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer: “This novel doesn’t rank with the others in literary merit, but it’s quite an engaging commentary on several significant issues of contemporary American society.”

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu: “Although I sometimes felt ashamed of myself for laughing at the stereotype of ‘generic Asian man,’ I finally realized that this was one of the messages of Yu’s quite funny and impressive novel. It, frankly, is one of those books that cause the reader to reassess her own attitudes toward those from other ethnicities.”

Short Stories and Essays

“I’m Starved for You” by Margaret Atwood

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver

“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell

“The Pleasures and Perils of the Passive” by Constance Hale

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

“A Slow-Books Manifesto” by Maura Kelly

“The Interpreter of Maladies” and “Unaccustomed Earth” and “My Life’s Sentences” by Jhumpa Lahiri

“You’re Ugly, Too” by Lorrie Moore

“Too Much Happiness” by Alice Munro

“Girls at Play” and “B & B” by Celeste Ng

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates

“The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick

“Brownies” by ZZ Packer

“The Whore’s Child” by Richard Russo

“For Esme, with Love and Squalor” by J.D. Salinger

“The Embassy of Cambodia” by Zadie Smith

“Here Come the Maples” by John Updike

“Why I Live at the P.O.” by Eudora Welty