These are the personal essays Laura Lippman thinks you should read

I am always reading/re-reading several books at once. Right now I’m reading Vanity Fair, which I think might be a re-read. But if I did read it in my teens, as I believe, boy, was it was wasted on me. I admit, I picked up a copy of this book at my library’s annual sale the way I might pick up kale at my local grocer, thinking it a good match for the long dark evenings of winter. Thing is, I adore kale. Vanity Fair was wasted on my teenage self; I think I expected Becky Sharp to be a more 20th-century vixen. Now, in my sixth decade as a reader, I appreciate Thackeray’s sly asides and observations about almost every character who crosses his pages. One note that might seem off-puttingly PC to some, but I think it’s an important component to how we read now: I’ve tried to imagine how his descriptions of the “black” footman, Sambo — he’s literally called Sambo ­ — and his casual aside about the “woolly-haired” student from St. Kitt’s might land on modern readers. Yes, Thackeray is describing the times in which he lived, but I increasingly try to put myself into the minds of young, nonwhite readers. When I first read Vanity Fair, I was avid to find people, girls, just like me in literature. I don’t necessarily want to eliminate books from the canon, but I sure do want to add some.

In that spirit, I just started The Street, by Ann Petry. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t heard of it until another writer I admire, Tayari Jones, spotlighted it in the New York Times. She describes this story of a single mother in Harlem as the best kind of novel, “literary with an astonishing plot.” That happens to be my favorite kind of novel as well. Because I write crime fiction, I have pretty high standards for plotting and I’ve never understood literary writers who disdain it. It’s like disdaining salt and sugar in the kitchen.

Ugh, that’s a graceless simile, as I am reminded while reading/re-reading Ann Hood’s Kitchen Yarns. I got an early copy and tore through it and now I find myself reading it again. I met Ann through Writers in Paradise and consider her one of my best friends, even if I’m lucky to see her two or three times a year. I aspire to write about food the way Ann does. Actually, I aspire to write about anything the way Ann does. I’ve come late to the personal essay as a form. In her hands, it looks effortless. But there’s an art to selecting the right details, to knowing how much to reveal in our TMI times. Plus, the recipes happen to be divine. I hope not only to improve my personal essay game, but my omelets.

Speaking of friends and personal essays, for more than 20 years now, I’ve known Marion Winik, a memoir writer whom I profiled for the Baltimore Sun. Her second husband attended the same college as my second husband; when they divorced, she relocated to Baltimore, where she bought a house on my old street and found a best friend in the Realtor to whom I introduced her. And in her decade of Baltimore life, she has come to know my hometown better than I do. Her latest book is The Baltimore Book of the Dead, a compilation of 400-word essays — yes, only 400 words! — about people who have died, some known to her, some known to all of us, some not even people. I know that might sound morbid, but it’s a joyful and hopeful book.

I just finished a debut novel that won’t be out until 2019, so clip this and file it away because you’re going to want to read this one: Fleischman in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. I’ve long been a fan of Taffy’s journalism; in fact, I relentlessly stalked her on social media and insisted that she become my friend. This novel is really special, reminiscent of Tom Perrotta’s work (another Writers in Paradise alum, another friend). It centers on a man recently out of a marriage, but it’s about everything — love, friendship, life, death. Or, to borrow what we will now call the Tayari Jones standard, a literary novel with a great plot. (By the way, if you haven’t read Jones yet, you’re really missing out. An American Marriage was an Oprah pick this year, but you can’t go wrong with anything she’s written.)

This article appears in Dec 13-20, 2018.