Catapult Staff Picks

The Catapult staff recommends books by Javier Marías, Jenny Zhang, Jesmyn Ward, and more.

I’m reading the beautiful package that is Javier Marías’s To Begin at the Beginning.

And my copy of Marguerite Duras’s Writing  just arrived, so I will be diving into that now.

—Wah-Ming Chang, Managing Editor

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I started my first read of Moby-Dick since high school, believe it or not. (It’ll be ages before I can read it without thinking of this, though.)

—Nicole Chung, Managing Editor, Web

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I recently snagged a preview copy of A Body of Work by David Hallberg, a principal dancer with ABT and the first American to join the Bolshoi in Russia. It’s a memoir of his dancing career, driven by single-minded obsessiveness with achieving perfection and artistic nirvana, culminating with his struggle to recover from a serious foot injury. As someone who knows very little about the ballet world, I found it fascinating. His artistic and professional drive is extraordinary (it was a very humbling reading experience).

I also reread Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends, and I’m among the chorus of people telling you that you must read this incredible book if you haven’t yet done so (at least read her essay in Lit Hub).

—Elizabeth Ireland, Publicity and Marketing Associate

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I’m reading Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. This book is getting a lot of buzz and for good reason. Her prose is searing.

—Morgan Jerkins, Contributing Editor, Web

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I’m reading Mary Gaitskill’s short story “The Other Place” again to try and figure out how she does it.

—Jonathan Lee, Senior Editor

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I just read Scott McClanahan’s The Sarah Book. To put it simply, this book fucked me up. In a conversation with Chelsea Martin, McClanahan puts it even more simply, “Life is an impossible situation and folks are just doing the best they can.”

Now I’m trying to recover with Jenny Zhang’s Sour Heart but that’s ALSO fucking me up.

—Allie Wuest, Editorial Assistant, Web