5 Star Books to Add to Your Fall Reading List

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

My mother loaned me this book and cited it as one of her favorites from her 20s. Wow. It was excellent!

The novel follows a painting throughout history in reverse chronological order. It’s a fictionalized Vermeer that ends in the hands of a school teacher and starts in Vermeer’s own home with a special model.

Because it’s about a Dutch master this is right up my alley, but regardless of subject matter I thoroughly enjoyed the novel’s structure – traveling in time each chapter with a different set of characters.

There were so many meaningful moments and appreciation of art. I completely loved this one!

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

I loved this novel! The Nest is the name a set of four siblings assign to the inheritance that they have been banking on their whole lives. They had to wait until their youngest sibling turns forty to receive the inheritance and by the time that happens there is very little money left because of one sibling, Leo.

There is the perfect amount of main and supporting story lines to keep the pace fast and interesting. The fact that it is set in New York City is always a plus for me and I thought the writing was very enjoyable and easy to read.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton never disappoints. This novel follows Lily Bart, a woman in her late 20s trying to make it in Gilded Age New York society. She is beautiful and charming and tragically without money. Despite many opportunities to catapult her way into a comfortable and rich life by marrying, she can never seem to bring herself to act in her own “best” interests.

Wharton explores how the values we’re raised with are not always the ones that we can live with and gives us a look into the harsh society that made up the upper class in New York in the Gilded Age.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I adored this book. We follow the narrator, Francie, from age 5 up through her teenage years at the turn of the century in Brooklyn. I loved the New York setting, I loved the child narrator, I loved how nothing but everything seemed to happen.

You get to meet her extended family and learn about the challenges of poverty, but also the uplifting moments that make up everyday life. The prose was beautiful and it was a novel that I didn’t want to end.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

I loved this historical novel and learned a lot! “Love and Ruin” is about Martha Gellhorn, a war correspondent and the third wife of Ernest Hemingway. This book allows you to experience Martha before and after meeting Ernest and closely follows her professional career that is influenced, and impeded by Hemingway.

Gellhorn is such an interesting person that I decided to write an entire post dedicated to her in the history portion of the blog!

Still Life by Sarah Winman

I loved this book! The writing style, the characters, the vivid locations. It follows a few characters across generations (I love a book that has a child point of view) between England and Italy. The primary character, Ulysses, is coming home from war to his family or friends. Through a series of events and relationships he ends up moving to Florence with an adoptive daughter and close family friend.

There is appreciation of art, challenging situations that the characters have to get through, and many funny moments. I could have done without the last quarter of the book that focused on one character’s past, which is why I did not give this five stars

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

I flew through this book as I was simultaneously intrigued and scandalized by the characters and decisions described. The premise is that the main character wakes up the morning after cheating on her husband with her childhood love at the family summer vacation home. We flash forward and backward to learn about the story of her childhood, including traumas and love, and we even get to learn about generational abuse that contributes to who the characters are today.

I enjoyed the quality of the writing and while the story was captivating, it isn’t subject matter that I would have sought out if this book didn’t catch my eye at the library.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Wow wow wow this was so good! I had no idea what to expect when I got this book (let’s be honest, I never do) and I was blown away. This is a hard book to describe – you follow a man in a strange world of marble hallways, statues, and floods. There are only two people in the world, but it seems that the narrator is only working with a subset of information and memories.

The concept is creative and the writing is beautiful. I laughed out loud and was completely wrapped up in the story.