Jean Rhys takes up a "mad" wife’s story in "Wide Sargasso Sea," an overlooked novel recommended by

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—Interview: Margaret Atwood Blends Dystopia and Social Satire

—Interview: 'Handmaid’s Tale' Author Margaret Atwood on the Roots of Dystopia

Writer Lorrie Moore says Alice Munro’s book of short stories, "Carried Away," shows mastery of

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Carried Away: A Selection of Stories (Everyman's Library)

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Interview: Lorrie Moore's Bark Stories

Filmmaker Werner Herzog, whose films include "Grizzly Man" and "Cave of the Forgotten Dreams," recommends a nonfiction collection of J.A. Baker's observations of peregrine falcons, recorded in the early 1960s.

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The Peregrine (New York Review Books Classics)

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Interview: Why Werner Herzog Is Awe-Struck

Martin Amis has written his fair share of novels and essay collections. For a writer, you expect their favorite books to be a source of inspiration. For Amis, Saul Bellow's 1953 novel is a source of writer's block.

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The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)

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Interview: When Should An Author Call It Quits?

As a black, gay poet, Jericho Brown considers it “hilarious” that he discovered sex through one of the whitest writers in American history — John Updike. 

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The Witches of Eastwick

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Interview: Can A Poem Be A Kind Of Prayer?

Alice Walker recommends Richard Yates' novel following an advertising executive whose seemingly successful life quietly fractures under the pressure of mundanity, alcoholism, anger, and recklessness. She says she was drawn to the book because Yates' world was so different from hers.

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Disturbing the Peace: A Novel

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Interview: What To Do With An Arrow In Your Heart

Tommy Orange says he wasn't much of a reader in his early years. But a chance encounter with an absurd, experimental novel by John Kennedy Toole showed him a path to writing a novel that was truly his own.

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A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

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Interview: The Unheard Stories of the 'Urban Indian'

Bookmarks are stories mined from our secret lives as readers. Stories of intimate relationships and life-changing encounters with books. Stories about the books we can’t forget. In this micropodcast, the producers behind “To The Best Of Our Knowledge” ask writers and creators to share what they’ve read and how it shaped them.

New episodes every Friday. For more info, visit ttbook.org/bookmarks