Andrew Sean Greer (born 1970 in Washington, DC) is an American novelist and short story writer.
He is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune while garnering several other coast-to-coast honors.
Contrapposto (2026) Dave Eggers "A book of profundity, humanity, and ravishing beauty - the only kind of book I want to read."
Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You (2026) Julian Delgado Lopera "Delgado Lopera is a writer whose sentences make your heart race, and Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You, with its unmasking of lies, makings of new truths, insights into the human heart, is generous, imaginative, revelatory, enraging, and loving. Read it and let the lightning of its prose bring you alive again."
Town & Country (2025) Brian Schaefer "Town & Country is so thoughtfully and beautifully written I could read it over and over again. A rumination on who we think we are versus who we really are, on loyalties and betrayals, family and politics and above all love, it is a book to bring us together. Big-hearted and true, it will capture readers' hearts as it did mine."
Palaver (2025) Bryan Washington "Gripping, beautiful, honest, unlike anything else on the bookshelf! A great work by one of America's greatest young writers, Palaver will break and remake your heart. A book I will be sending to everyone I know."
Middle Spoon (2025) Alejandro Varela "Nothing gets away from Alejandro Varela; every thought and detail, emotion and memory is taken apart to the atoms. The result is obsessive, explosive, heartbreaking, funny, and brilliant. Middle Spoon subverts the ordinary novel with intelligence and vulnerability, and with its arias of love and choruses of doubt, Varela has made a sly, analytical opera of the heart."
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (2025) Kiran Desai "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny achieves the ultimate of what a book should do: carry us away into other peoples' lives, thinking as they think, feeling as they feel, until it comes around and shows us to ourselves. Grand, magnificent, intimate, more than wonderful, this is a novel you will hold close to your heart. I certainly did. I cannot recommend it enough."
Their Monstrous Hearts (2025) Yiğit Turhan "Turhan has created a fable that is thrilling, beautiful, mysterious and terrifying. Every expectation is turned on its head, in the most imaginative ways possible...sure to keep readers up all night. A fantastic read by a fantastic writer!"
Dream State (2025) Eric Puchner "Filled to the brim with life, Dream State is a wonder of character and craft."
The Wildes (2024) Louis Bayard "What was lost to history Louis Bayard has brilliantly brought to life: the wit, charm, tragedy and tenderness of Wilde's family. Wonderfully researched, beautifully crafted, movingly told, The Wildes is a treasure to read."
The History of Sound (2024) Ben Shattuck "Shattuck has recovered what was thought lost--in American history, natural history, and unspoken human longing--and returned it to us on the page. This is what great art does. Lovingly detailed, beautifully told, with interconnections that make the reader gasp aloud, these stories are unlike anything on your bookshelf. I love The History of Sound and you will too. Get it now."
Hard by a Great Forest (2024) Leo Vardiashvili "Astonishingly crafted with history, candor, beauty, grief and just a little magic. A book like no other, from an imagination like no other. Vardiashvili has written a triumph."
Day (2023) Michael Cunningham "Cunningham is one of our great American writers, and here is another masterpiece. Day shows all his extraordinary gifts of epic sweep and intricate detail, lyrical language and plain hard words, memory and imagination, love and hope and loss. It does what only great books can do. Read it and be changed."
This is Salvaged (2023) Vauhini Vara "In these tales, Vara has captured the fantasies, griefs and longings of life. From keen-eyed girlhood to delusional middle-age, the characters reach for more than is possible, falter, then reach for more. This Is Salvaged is a book for readers who need clarity and hope - that is to say: everybody."
Coleman Hill (2023) Kim Coleman Foote "Coleman Hill is a masterpiece. Brilliant, vivid, heartbreaking, epic, beautiful, raw and true; a reading experience unlike anything else. This is the American story."
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style (2023) Paul Rudnick "I loved Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style. Just ate up every word; it will make a Rudnick fan out of every reader. No funnier, wiser or more charming book will come out this year, I guarantee. So what are you waiting for? Get it!"
Countries of Origin (2023) Javier Fuentes "Countries of Origin is full of so many pleasures--literary, culinary, amorous--that one almost wants to save it for a special day. But don't save it--read it today. Fuentes has created something beautiful, honest, heartbreaking and hopeful. It's a great book. It's the book to read right now."
Gone to the Wolves (2023) John Wray "A hair-raising, head-banging, meet-the-Devil epic tale of love, youth and rock and roll. Get in the car and go for a ride: Gone to the Wolves is one hell of a good time."
I Am My Country (2023) Kenan Orhan "No recent collection has captivated me as much as I Am My Country. You must read it!"
The Archivists (2023) Daphne Kalotay "Kalotay is one of our great writers, and these stories--intimately detailed with grief, hope, longing, joy--are small miracles. More than once I was brought to tears. Reading them is like magically entering a set of photographs, and feeling as the characters feel. Or no--of mirrors, because we recognize ourselves. The Archivists, with its empathy and precision, is what reading is about."
American Mermaid (2023) Julia Langbein "A comedy of wordplay. A superhero adventure. A Hollywood takedown. A hoot and a half. American Mermaid is all of these, and more. So witty and marvelous you won't be able to put it down. So pick it up!"
I Have Some Questions for You (2023) Rebecca Makkai "I've been waiting years for a book like this! You will laugh, think, think again, cry and stay up all night finishing it. Unputdownable and unforgettable. Makkai has written the book of the season."
My Government Means to Kill Me (2022) Rasheed Newson "Full of joy and righteous anger, sex and straight talk, brilliant storytelling and humor, Newson has given us the story of Trey, set against the history of 80s queer Black New York, AIDS, and the movements that changed the era. A spectacularly researched Dickensian tale, with vibrant characters and dozens of famous cameos, it is precisely the book we've needed for a long time. That--and a rollicking read! What more could you want?"
Cult Classic (2022) Sloane Crosley "Did the comic romantic thriller exist before Sloane Crosley, or has she invented it? Either way, Cult Classic is a classic. Funny, suspenseful, unputdownable, here is one of America's wittiest writers at her best. A pleasure on every page."
Very Cold People (2022) Sarah Manguso "A haunted masterpiece, written with the precision of a miniaturist and the vulnerability of true heartache. I wept more than once; I recognized myself more than once. Very Cold People proves yet again that Manguso is one of the greats."
The Boy with a Bird in His Chest (2022) Emme Lund "Lund has created a fable for our age: a modern coming of age full of love, desperation, heartache and magic. An honest celebration of life and everything we need right now in a book."
A Previous Life (2022) Edmund White "Elegant, erudite, raunchy and fun, America's great Man of Letters is working at the top of his form, giving us a pair of portraits hung against the pattern of history. What a joy to read this master of prose and invention!"
Mouth to Mouth (2022) Antoine Wilson "Antoine Wilson's Mouth To Mouth is the best book I've read in ages. Narratively ingenious, delicately written, intriguingly plotted, it is literature of the highest quality. I see you now, dear Reader, with this novel in your hand and already losing track of time..."
The Sisters Sweet (2021) Elizabeth Weiss "The Sisters Sweet will charm you into another world. Weiss has conjured a lost America with wit, sorrow, and beauty—a book like a favorite old movie."
Our Country Friends (2021) Gary Shteyngart "There cannot be a more relevant novel for our moment, certainly not one with such beauty of description, depth of feeling, and, as always, humor. Gary Shteyngart has written an American comic Decameron, or, to be plain: a masterpiece."
Impostor Syndrome (2021) Kathy Wang "A globe-trotting, whirlwind, tragi-comic family saga that wrings tears from absurdity and laughter from loss. A joy to read from start to finish."
The Guncle (2021) (Guncle, book 1) Steven Rowley "A joyous Auntie Mame spritz! A reading pleasure; pour yourself a tall glass and enjoy, preferably poolside. You deserve it!"
Aviary (2021) Deirdre McNamer "A symphony of character, mystery, memory and hope, by one of America’s finest writers. Aviary is a book to hold dear."
Edie Richter is Not Alone (2021) Rebecca Handler "Oh how I love this book. I finished Edie Richter Is Not Alone in one sitting, then reread it immediately. Hilariously heartbreakingly honest on every page, Rebecca Handler's novel is that rare thing: a perfect book."
The Liar's Dictionary (2020) Eley Williams "The Liar’s Dictionary is the book I was longing for. So eudaemonical, so felicific and habile! A harlequinade of cachinnation! It's hilarious and smart and charming and I loved it. Read it. It’s the book you’re longing for."
Antkind (2020) Charlie Kaufman "Magnificent, genius, enraging, mysterious, joyous, terrifying, and, above all, hilarious! Within its pages, Antkind might contain the universe."
The Jetsetters (2020) Amanda Eyre Ward "What a joy! Treat yourself to The Jetsetters and let Amanda Eyre Ward’s wit, poignancy, and insight take you away. You deserve it. . . . The funniest novel that ever broke your heart."
Lost and Wanted (2019) Nell Freudenberger "Freudenberger's brilliant and compassionate novel takes on the big questions of the universe and proves, again, that she is one of America's greatest writers."
Where Reasons End (2019) Yiyun Li "The most intelligent, insightful, heart-wrenching book of our time."
The Winter Soldier (2018) Daniel Mason "So real, so rich and detailed, that the room in which I was reading vanished. I was transported to a lost world of the past. Suspenseful, thrilling, aching with emotion. Living with Lucius and Margarete, it was First World War as I have never felt it."
French Exit (2018) Patrick deWitt "French Exit made me so happy—I feel as if I have downed a third martini, stayed up past sunrise, and still woken up refreshed. Brilliant, addictive, funny and wise, DeWitt’s latest has enough charm to last you long after you’ve put it down."
(b.1970)
