meg’s staff picks

 

Meghan (she/her) has worked at Lost City since 2022. Before that, she did things like farming, being a barista, working in libraries, teaching creative writing, and spending all her money on books. Her favorite animals include cats, dogs, squirrels, and sloths. She is also the host of the Small Press book club.

 
 

THE WALL by Marlen Haushofer

For all the introverts and homebodies who ever secretly wished * just a little bit * that everyone else would disappear so they could live alone in the woods with a dog and a cat for company and not be bothered… The narrator of this novel discovers that the world has stopped and she might be the last person alive. The rest of her life, alone in the Austrian Alps, is by turns blissful and nightmarish. As the forces of nature, time, and solitude erode everything she once believed to be true, a new perspective emerges. I plan to reread this many times to experience anew the clarity, peace, and amazement.

ANIMAL by Lisa Taddeo

God, I love a book with: an unhinged female narrator; secret trauma backstory; explicit sex; sensual, voracious descriptions of food and drink; a setting so vivid and gritty it lives under your skin; a character like ALICE. I'm obsessed with Alice. You will be too. You will both love and hate it.

DOGS OF SUMMER by Andrea Abreu

This book is beautiful, brutal, kind of gross, incredibly endearing, and it broke my heart. It takes place over one rugged, cloudy summer on the island of Tenerife, where two young girls mean everything to each other.

THE WALLCREEPER by Nell Zink

This book is funny — and distressing. It hurts to read. Bad things happen. Everything is narrated in the strangest tone: matter-of-fact but cryptic, ironic but genuine at the same time. This was one of those books that comforted me by discomforting me.

THE VISITING PRIVILEGE by Joy Williams

Most of these stories leave me with a resounding WTF. And that's exactly what I look for in a short story collection! If you, too, enjoy the sensation of breathtaking weirdness, being reminded of the absurdity of your existence, etc., read Joy Williams.

AUTOPORTRAIT EN VERT by marie ndiaye

"Une femme en vert" … qu'est-ce que ca veut dire?? Je ne sais pas, personne ne sait, mais je suis obsedée par ce mystère au fond du roman. Ca a l'air d'un rêve: vif, inquiétant, à la même fois ordinaire et irréel.

*Lire en boire de l’absinthe!