Sarah Hepola
Articles tagged ‘10 favorite books’

May 23, 2020

# 5 White Teeth

Brilliant young novelists, polyglot London, and thoughts on "the perfect woman"

part 5 of a 10-part series I’ve written a lot these past few days, so I will just say this: Zadie Smith might be the perfect woman. At least that’s what I thought as I read “White Teeth,” one of those pyrotechnic multi-character novels about modern polyglot London. She was funny but deep, light but . . . Read More

May 20, 2020

#4 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

The most exasperating memoir I will ever truly madly deeply love (or so I hope)

part 4 of a 10-part series Gather round, young Snapchat and TikTok fans, and attend the tale of GEN X IRONY. The year was 2000. We used our phones for talking. Each time you logged on the Internet — which we called the “World Wide Web,” a phrase that was like sprinkling glitter from your . . . Read More

May 18, 2020

#3 Drinking: A Love Story

Caroline Knapp and the memoir that started it all

Part 3 of a 10-part series I was 22 or 23. I was in Boston visiting my college roommate Tara Copp, who had an internship at the Globe. I was killing an afternoon by myself, and I was hungover, because I was always hungover, so I was wandering through a book store when the title . . . Read More

May 17, 2020

#2 The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien's Vietnam novel is so real even a 20-year-old girl in Nineties flannel could see herself in it

part 2 of a 10-part series In my junior year of college, I took a literature of war class. I’d been drawn in by the late-80s/early-90s Vietnam movies, Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick, and “war” sounded exciting, high drama. I didn’t know the class would be all boys, but that was a nice bonus. We . . . Read More

May 17, 2020

Ten books that changed me, starting with this one

The power of Stephen King, and the escapes that bring you back to yourself

Over on Facebook, a friend tagged me in one of those games where you post your favorite books for ten days. I figured I’d share the posts here, too, in case anyone is interested, and since I can’t seem to write a simple short post like a normal human but end up writing mini-essays like . . . Read More