Curtis Sittenfeld’s 2025 Book Recommendations

May 12, 2025

45 4 minutes read

Curtis Sittenfeld’s 2025 Book Recommendations — curtis sittenfeld shelflife lead 67bdfb043be9f.jpg

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

Curtis Sittenfeld might have recently tried competing against ChatGPT to write short stories, but if the influence of her work is any indicator, the author needn’t worry about AI replacing her any time soon. Her latest story collection, Show Don’t Tell, is out today, and it’s her ninth book, rounding out a list that includes a previous story collection and seven novels—including her debut, Prep, and two books based on First Ladies: the Orange Prize-longlisted American Wife (Laura Bush) and Rodham (Hillary Rodham Clinton). She guest-edited The Best American Short Stories anthology in 2020, and her 2023 book, Romantic Comedy—about a writer on a sketch comedy show not unlike Saturday Night Live—will be adapted for the big screen by New Line Cinema and Hello Sunshine.

The Cincinnati-raised, Minneapolis-based New York Times-bestselling author has two teenage daughters and a rescue chihuahua she shares with her university professor husband; taught at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she earned her MFA after studying at Stanford University; thought she’d be a social worker; won Seventeen’s fiction writing contest at 17 (judged by Jennifer Egan); worked at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City and Fast Company, and interned at The Atlantic and the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina; has been a “Jeopardy!” and New Yorker crossword puzzle clue; was born Elizabeth Curtis; has an Ed Sheeran prayer candle; once threw a Super Bowl party no one attended; will take part in the Iceland Writers Retreat in April; and recently took part in Esquire’s Napkin Project.

Likes: Being by herself; walks; Skyline Chili; Graeters ice cream; Nigerian food (such as JTC African Cuisine in Blaine, Minnesota); coffee with oat milk.

Will never write books about: The NFL; Melania Trump.

Supports: Reese’s Book Club LitUp program; writers in Baltimore schools; domestic violence shelter organization Casa de Misericordia.

Fan of: Celebrity gossip; Judy Blume (who has interviewed Sittenfeld and vice versa); When Harry Met Sally and Dirty Dancing; Keith Haring; Indigo Girls.

Feed your mind with her book recommendations below.

The book that…

…helped me through loss:

A few years after the death of my larger-than-life Ohio-dwelling dad, I read Lost & Found, Kathryn Schulz’s wise and poignant memoir written after the death of her larger-than-life Ohio-dwelling dad.

…I recommend over and over again:

Swift River by Essie Chambers is a thrillingly great first novel, so full of insight and feeling about family and longing and being a teenage girl and an outsider.

…I swear I’ll finish one day:

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It’s one of those history-of-the-world books that’s genuinely fascinating, and also I got stalled somewhere in the Neolithic period. (Although, in my defense, the book doesn’t exactly go in chronological order.)

…currently sits on my nightstand:

1) If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (linked short stories about a Jamaican-American family); 2) Dream State by Eric Puchner (pretty sure it’s a great American novel); 3) Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley, coming out May 2025 (Australian-British love story).

…I last bought:

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham. A buzzy Obama novel by someone who worked for Obama and is now a New Yorker writer rings maybe all of my bells?

…has the best title:

I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins. The book itself is equally fearless.

…has a sex scene that will make you blush:

I’m currently listening to the audio of Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It by Greg Marshall. It’s an incredibly charming, funny, and moving memoir about how Marshall’s parents didn’t tell him until his adulthood that he had cerebral palsy. Among other vivid scenes, it features several featuring pre-teen boys enthusiastically lining up in a basement to use one of their mom’s vibrators.

…I brought on a momentous trip:

My family just listened to the audio of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman while driving between Minneapolis and Cincinnati for Christmas. It was the platonic ideal of a car-trip book: thought-provoking, engagingly read by the author, and not too long (six hours).

…sealed a friendship:

So many of my friend Felicity’s friends wanted to discuss All Fours by Miranda July that she organized a dinner for us to do so. I’m still not sure if we were a recurring or one-time book club, but it was an excellent conversation.

…everyone should read:

I confess that I don’t follow the advice in it, but I often recommend The All-or-Nothing Marriage by Eli J. Finkel, because I think it does a good job contextualizing contemporary marriage. Finkel extensively cites Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz, which I also found fascinating.

…fills me with hope:

The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland is a memoir about his own loss of sight; a history of blindness; and a warm, candid example of how to navigate life changes you’d never choose but just might learn a lot from.

…taught me this Jeopardy!-worthy bit of trivia:

In Sally Franson’s extremely delightful novel Big in Sweden, I learned the Swedish term “smultronställe,” which literally means “wild strawberry place” but also can be the feeling of finding wild strawberries in a wonderful and secret location.