Meg Wolitzer was born in Long Island, New York. She is the daughter of novelist Hilma Wolitzer. She lives in New York with her husband Richard Panek, also a writer, and two sons.
Pretty Bitches (2020) On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women edited by Lizzie Skurnick
The Phoebe Variations (2025) Jane Hamilton "The Phoebe Variations is a glorious novel, which is no surprise-it was written by Jane Hamilton. I absolutely loved this exploration of family, friendship, and personal transformation, and was surprised and moved by Phoebe as she makes her way in the world."
The Usual Desire to Kill (2025) Camilla Barnes "In The Usual Desire to Kill, Camilla Barnes deftly deciphers the secret language of one family, often with deeply funny and knowing results. I loved spending time in the very specific, complicated, and memorable world of this novel."
Pearce Oysters (2024) Joselyn Takacs "In her gripping and emotionally rich novel, Joselyn Takacs is as perceptive about the natural world as she is about the ecosystem of the troubled family at the heart of this book. Pearce Oysters is an impressive, unflinching, and haunting debut."
Leaving (2024) Roxana Robinson "Leaving is as absorbing as it is haunting, powered by Roxana Robinson's deep understanding of ambiguities, allegiances, and the lengths people must sometimes go to navigate them."
How to Love Your Daughter (2023) Hila Blum "A striking and memorable novel. With single-minded intensity, How to Love Your Daughter reckons with parent-child boundaries: the ones that are clear, and the ones that are sometimes hazy, or dangerously nonexistent."
Lucky Dogs (2023) Helen Schulman "This is a brilliant book: powerful, witty, sharp, and urgent."
Pieces of Blue (2023) Holly Goldberg Sloan "Pieces of Blue is as propulsive as it is observant and atmospheric. Sloan understands her characters deeply, and makes us need to know what happens to them. In fact, a lot happens to them, and we want to know it all. This novel is a family story, a love story, and a mystery. I couldn't put it down."
Beyond That, the Sea (2023) Laura Spence-Ash "Beyond That, the Sea is a shimmering dive into a lost past. With deft, beautiful prose, Laura Spence-Ash brings us into the worlds--both inner and outer--of two families in wartime, and over the years that follow. This novel is as haunting as it is accomplished."
Signal Fires (2022) Dani Shapiro "Signal Fires is a haunting, moving, and propulsive exploration of family secrets."
Fellowship Point (2022) Alice Elliott Dark "Alice Elliott Dark is a writer I've long admired. With the splendid, engrossing Fellowship Point she has written a novel that is both sweeping and intimate as it deftly explores friendship, class, and the tricky nature of time."
The Catch (2022) Alison Fairbrother "In this wonderful, wholly absorbing family drama with a mystery at its beating heart, Alison Fairbrother asks, What are we owed by the people we love? The answers she provides are funny, sad, complex, and always surprising. I loved this book and you will too."
The Latecomer (2022) Jean Hanff Korelitz "Jean Hanff Korelitz is an ambidextrous writer: not only can she write a tight and absorbing literary thriller like The Plot, but with The Latecomer she draws us in again, this time with her ease, grace and wit, in a satisfying novel that spans generations, lives, and fates."
The Bar at Twilight (2022) Frederic Tuten "Frederic Tuten's stories are filled with art, dreams, yearning, and a past that he captures beautifully and deftly and then lets go. The Bar at Twilight is a wonderful, evocative collection."
A Play for the End of the World (2021) Jai Chakrabarti "A Play for the End of the World looks deeply at the echoes and overlaps among art, resistance,love, and history. Jai Chakrabarti is a lyrical writer, and this is an impressive debut."
The Paper Palace (2021) Miranda Cowley Heller "Tightly woven and immediate, The Paper Palace takes us deep into a vivid summer landscape, a family, and a private, longstanding love story, and holds us there from start to finish."
We Run the Tides (2021) Vendela Vida "We Run the Tides is saturated with feeling from the very start. It’s hypnotic, knowing, sometimes funny and always propulsive as it examines girlhood, friendship, and the strong pull of the past."
Must I Go (2020) Yiyun Li "This brilliant novel examines lives lived, losses accumulated, and the slipperiness of perception. Yiyun Li writes deeply, drolly, and with elegance about history, even as it’s happening. She is one of my favorite writers, and Must I Go is an extraordinary book."
Friends and Strangers (2020) J Courtney Sullivan "J. Courtney Sullivan is a writer of extraordinary gifts, and this is her most affecting book yet, which I just wanted to keep reading and reading straight through to its climactic and emotional last pages, because its world felt completely realized, and completely real. Sullivan is a writer who offers up small human moments and large social ones, all within the frame of a truly good story. I loved it."
The Peacock Feast (2019) Lisa Gornick "The Peacock Feast is one of those rare books that feels both grand and intimate, bringing the reader deeply into a very vivid past. Lisa Gornick has written an engrossing and impressive book."
The Last Romantics (2019) Tara Conklin "Tara Conklin is a generous writer who deftly brings us into the world of this fictional family, an engrossing and vivid place where I was happy to stay. The Last Romantics is a richly observed novel, both ambitious and welcoming."
Give Me Your Hand (2018) Megan Abbott "While Megan Abbott's magnetic new novel mines themes of ambition, competition, excellence, and friendship, what perhaps struck me the most was its exploration of the long, undeterrable reach of memory. Give Me Your Hand is darkly effective, uneasy-making, and beautifully, absorbingly written."
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley (2017) Hannah Tinti "What Hannah Tinti knows about fathers, daughters and time could, as they say, fill a book - and truly does. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is bold, exciting, and original."
Wayward Saints (2012) Suzzy Roche "As pure, as funny, as original as Roche's music... I am telling everyone to read this book."
Good to a Fault (2008) Marina Endicott "One of those novels you want to tell people about. It's unpretentious and affecting, with characters to remember and themes that linger and resound."
Free Food for Millionaires (2007) Min Jin Lee "Min Jin Lee's keen eye for class concerns and her confident, muscular writing...make FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES a pleasure."
(b.1959)
