Cathi Hanauer

Cathi Hanauer is the author of the novels My Sister’s Bones and Sweet Ruin and the editor of the New York Times bestselling essay anthology The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage. Her articles, essays, and/or criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Elle, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, Self, Parenting, Whole Living, and other magazines. She lives with her family in western Massachusetts.

Her new novel is Gone.

Late last month I asked the author what she was reading. Her reply:

I'm a short way into Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, because it sounded intriguing and because how can you not read a book with almost the same name as your own that came out at the same time and is jumping off the shelves? It's gripping so far, very well written--a young love/hate story that's both gritty and funny, and I look forward to having time to read more.

Almost done with 50 Shades of Grey, because how can you not read a book that so many different people, from erudite to mainstream, are all reading and talking about? It's just about what I expected: quite badly written but very sexy, especially the first 2/3, though I'm just about ready to be done with it (and no, I won't be buying the boxed set--I think I get it by now).

Recently finished rereading The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton's masterpiece about the tortured and charming Lily Bart--because you can't reread that brilliant book enough, with Wharton's impeccable writing.

Also just finished Amanda Bennett's The Cost of Hope, a new nonfiction book in which this former Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporter does a nice job of combining a marriage memoir with a reported piece about her husband's bout with cancer and the chaos of the American health care system.

Kate Christensen's The Astral, which I recently reread when it came out in paperback, is--like all of Christensen's books--a gorgeous, smart, page-turning read about a man in Brooklyn who gets booted out by his wife when she thinks he's having an affair. Christensen is a razor-sharp writer, and the main character, Harry Quirk, is fantastic.

Finally, I have the good fortune to be going to Italy this summer, so I recently reread Death in Venice--such a sad, weird, memorable story--and will soon be rereading The Talented Mr. Ripley, which of course takes place in Venice. Didion's Blue Nights and Cheryl Strayed's Wild are also both on my summer reading list. Can't wait.

Visit Cathi Hanauer's website.

My Book, The Movie: Gone.

The Page 69 Test: Gone.

--Marshal Zeringue