Shelf help

Crime writer Sara Paretsky, best known for her series featuring female private eye V.I. Warshawski, shares the books that make her laugh, cry and think. Her latest book is Shell Game.

◆ THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME LAUGH I recently reread In The Waiting Room from David Sedaris’s book WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES and I laughed so much. Sedaris moves with puzzled bewilderment through the world – in this case, a French hospital, where his struggles with the language leave him naked in a waiting room.

◆ THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY Jesmyn Ward’s SING, UNBURIED, SING is a heartbreak of a novel. A Mississippi family almost falls apart under its struggle with loss. The ending isn’t sentimental, but it is deeply moving.

◆ THE BOOK THAT GOT ME THROUGH A DIFFICULT TIME One book I turn to is THE ART OF LOSING: POEMS OF GRIEF AND HEALING by Kevin Young. These days, as I cope with multiple losses, I find great solace in the poems that Young has collected.

◆ THE BOOK THAT CHANGED THE WAY I THINK THE MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar made me read crime fiction with a feminist perspective and led me to create my own woman detective, V.I. Warshawski. That book changed my entire life, not just how I think.

◆ THE BOOK I GIVE MOST TO OTHERS BELOVED DOG by Maira Kalman. It’s a picture book for adults about love, life and the dog that helped Kalman through her own loss.