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Books to read if you love Cruel Summer

An image of Curtis Sittenfeld's book Rodham on an orange background

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Extracts

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

A guide to reading Curtis Sittenfeld's books

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Reading lists

Where to start reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s books

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Curtis Sittenfeld on Hillary Clinton’s other life

The Nominee: a short story about Hillary Clinton

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The SUNDAY TIMES bestseller asking: What if Hillary hadn’t married Bill?

Rodham

'This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping' Stylist 
 
'Startlingly good. One of my favourite writers' KATE ATKINSON 
---------------------- 
'Awfully opinionated for a girl' is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb. 
 
Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that's the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader - and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No. 
 
How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton? 
 
With her sharp but always compassionate eye, Sittenfeld explores the loneliness, moral ambivalence and iron determination that characterise the quest for high office, as well as the painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world ruled by men. 
_____________ 
'A lot of fun. A wonderful sad dream of what might have happened' Guardian 
 
'It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, I found myself saying Oh My God' Observer 
 
'An explosive new book' Grazia

'This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping' STYLIST 
 
'Startlingly good. One of my favourite writers.' KATE ATKINSON 
____________ 
 
'Awfully opinionated for a girl' is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb. 
 
Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that's the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader- and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to marry him, Hillary gives him a firm No. 
 
How might things have turned out for them, for America, for the world itself, if Hillary Rodham had really turned down Bill Clinton? 
 
With her sharp but always compassionate eye, Sittenfeld explores the loneliness, moral ambivalence and iron determination that characterise the quest for high office, as well as the painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world ruled by men. 
_____________________________ 
 
'A lot of fun. A wonderful sad dream of what might have happened' GUARDIAN 
 
'It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, i found myself saying Oh My God' OBSERVER 
 
'An explosive new book' GRAZIA 
 
'Getting inside a living person's head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE' BBC CULTURE 
 
'An ingenious yet plausible glimpse of an alternative reality' THE SPECTATOR 
 
'Sittenfeld's RODHAM offers the cartharsis of uncomplicated regret' NEW YORKER 
 
'A nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any in recent memory' NPR 
 
'Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld's Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She's a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She's whoever she wants to be' O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE 
 
'Of all the SLIDING DOORS fantasies offered by the last 40 years of American office, this may be the most mouth-watering. THE BIG ISSUE 
 
'Fascinating. Rich-with-possibilities concept' SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE

This addictive novel is the SLIDING DOORS of American politics. Gripping

A lot of fun. A wonderful, sad dream of what might have happened

Sittenfeld's RODHAM offers the catharsis of uncomplicated regret

While telling a compelling story, RODHAM provides an insightful analysis of the function of sexim in our political discourse. Sittenfeld is at her wittiest when recreating the men who dominate American politics

A nauseating, moving, morally suggestive, technically brilliant book that made me think more than any in recent memory about the aims and limits of fiction

This isn't just fiction as fantasy, this is fiction as therapy. A serious work of literary fiction designed to rally the spirits of liberal readers

‘An ingenious yet plausible glimpse of an alternative reality, and so involving that it occasionally comes as a shock to realise that there is a different reality, and we are living in it’

‘By tilting history on its side, Sittenfeld makes Hillary seem a fresh character and remarkably sympathetic’

‘RODHAM explores the mysterious territory between the inner and outer lives of a person who has long been a source of fascination, adulation and loathing’

‘Getting inside a living person’s head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE’

Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld’s Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She’s a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She’s whoever she wants to be

As Hillary finds her groove, so the momentum and entertainment builds, as does your admiration for how ingeniously and plausibly Sittenfeld has re-written the script

A counterfactual novel ... throbs with energy

A fascinating glimpse into an alternative future

Pacy... plenty of sex and gossip - and a cameo from a certain yellow-haired, orange-faced president-to-be... ripe for TV adaptation

Sittenfeld's writing is so fine, her characters so vivid, her empathy so profound that she manages to absorb the reader on a level that transcends partisanship. In 2020, that was a remarkable achievement and an enormous gift to her readers

It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, i found myself saying Oh My God

A triumphant feminist reinvention. Sittenfeld is the bard of presidential female adjacents

RODHAM is wide- ranging political anthropology, concerned not so much with what makes Hillary tick as it is with the culture around her and how she might have shaped events, and been shaped by them, if the pieces of reality's jigsaw were rearranged just so. It's stippled with clever mischief

A smartly structured character study and a stay- up- all- night plot . . . A captivating and durable story containing rooms within rooms. RODHAM turns into a high- speed bildungsroman about a woman of formidable intellect and self- insight.

It's the genius of Sittenfeld's prose that we come to understand this ambivalence,as well as the deep conflicts in this complicated character. In the longing and loneliness, the anger as well as ambition, this Hillary makes RODHAM a compelling portrait of a future that might have been.

Tantalizing . . . part thought experiment, part wish- fulfillment fantasy . . . delectably discussable, a book tailor- made for book clubs.

Wildly compelling . . . What RODHAM is interested in is examining what feminine ambition looks like when it is untethered from a man. . . . Sittenfeld is free to invent, and the reality she builds is deliciously dishy.

A moving feat of feminist and novelistic imagination

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling Rodham. Other novels include American Wife and Prep, both bestsellers and longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, and the acclaimed short story collections You Think It, I'll Say It and Help Yourself. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld was also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Midwest. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

The Man of My Dreams

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of RODHAM, AMERICAN WIFE, YOU THINK IT, I'LL SAY IT and HELP YOURSELF 
 
'A rigorous and wily stylist. She packs her pages with clever observations without appearing to be trying' NEW YORK TIMES 
'Grave, good-humoured, deeply engaging' GUARDIAN 
____________ 
Hannah is a confused fourteen-year-old. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in Hannah's own life, her parents' marriage is crumbling. 
 
Over the next decade and a half, love throws her some complicated questions. At what point can you no longer blame your adult failures on your messed up childhood? Is settling for someone who's not your soulmate an act of maturity or an admission of defeat? And if you move to another state for a guy who might not love you back, are you being plucky - or just pathetic? 
_______ 
 
Readers love THE MAN OF MY DREAMS: 
*****'I love everything Curtis Sittenfeld writes and this was no exception. Excellent' 
*****'Very realistic portrayal of an emotionally abusive atmosphere. Insightful, thoughtful' 
*****'Curtis Sittenfeld is a magnificent writer. Fantastic'

Ten scorching stories of self-deception by the Sunday Times bestselling author

You Think It, I'll Say It

A dazzling, smart and razor-sharp story collection by Curtis Sittenfeld, Sunday Times bestselling author of Rodham and American Wife. 
 
The theme that unites these stories is how even the cleverest people tend to misread others, and how much we all deceive ourselves. 
 
Sharp and tender, funny and wise, they show Sittenfeld's knack for creating real, believable characters that spring off the page, while also skewering contemporary mores with brilliant dry wit. 
 
'DO-OVER', ONE OF THE STORIES IN THIS COLLECTION, WAS SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 SUNDAY TIMES EFG SHORT STORY AWARD.

The startling coming-of-age novel by the Sunday Times bestselling author of AMERICAN WIFE

Prep

_____________ 
From the bestselling author of RODHAM, AMERICAN WIFE and YOU THINK IT, I'LL SAY IT. 
 
'Sittenfeld writes girls and women as they truly are, with shades of light and dark, with and without grace, apologetic as well as fearless' GUARDIAN 
 
'PREP might just be my favourite book' PANDORA SYKES 
 
'Sittenfeld shares with Salinger a knack of capturing, in effortless prose, a teenager mindset' THE TIMES 
_____________ 
Lee Fiora is a shy fourteen-year-old when she leaves small-town Indiana for a scholarship at Ault, an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts. Her head is filled with images from the school brochure of handsome boys in sweaters leaning against old brick buildings, girls running with lacrosse sticks across pristine athletics fields, everyone singing hymns in chapel. But as she soon learns, Ault is a minefield of unstated rules and incomprehensible social rituals, and Lee must work hard to find - and maintain - her place in the pecking order. 
_____________ 
'PREP is more than a coming of age story - it's a study of social class ... and Sittenfeld renders it with astonishing deftness and clarity.' JENNIFER EGAN 
 
'Straightforward, serious, funny.' London Review of Books 
 
'Sharp, caustic and brilliantly observed' Observer

The OC meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History with flashes of Clueless... Sittenfeld's strength is in making the experience feel universal...Everyone will wince with recognition at the horror of being a teenager. It's great to relive it all, now that it is happening to someone else.

Straightforward, serious, funny...There is so much that is right about this book. Sittenfeld captures the hothouse atmosphere of boarding-school, the way you see even people you don't like in their underwear...Mostly, however, it's Lee's voice that makes all this worthwhile.

Curtis Sittenfeld shares with Salinger a knack of capturing, in effortless prose, a teenager mindset...It feels important...Most vitally of all, it feels like adolescence.

You don't have to have attended an elite Massachusetts boarding school to find yourself reliving your adolescence in Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep...Even the Cross Sugarmans (major crush) and Aspeth Montgomerys (long legs, super popular) of this world will cringe with recognition at the book's fine-knit accuracy and detail.

Sweet Valley High as written by George Eliot. Sittenfeld is a pin-sharp observer, and in Prep she needles away at class, race and character...Prep will appeal to any age...A highly accomplished novel.

Sittenfeld's humour and sharp observation deliver a coming-of-age novel you can relate to

Three scalding stories from the bestselling author of AMERICAN WIFE

Help Yourself

'Nobody else writes with such precision and amusement about the absolute inability of men and women to understand each other' RED MAGAZINE 
 
 'Recommended for anyone who enjoys short stories. She really doesn't shy away from sticky, nuanced subjects ... delivered with absolute poise. Delicious' PANDORA SYKES, The High-Low podcast 
 ____________________________________ 
 
Sittenfeld's wryly hilarious and insightful new collection, HELP YOURSELF, illuminates human experience and gracefully upends our assumptions about class and race, envy and disappointment, gender and celebrity. 
 
Suburban friends fall out after a racist encounter at a birthday party is caught on video and posted on Facebook; an illustrious Manhattan film crew are victims of their own snobbery when they underestimate a pre-school teacher from the Mid-West; and a group of young writers fight about love and narrative style as they compete for a prestigious bursary. 
 
Connecting each of these three stories is Sittenfeld's truthful yet merciless eye. Full of tenderness and compassion, this dazzling collection celebrates our humanity in all its pettiness and glory. 
 
 
A STYLIST Best Books for Autumn title 
Featured in the Sunday Times Guide to Culture 
 
 
Praise for CURTIS SITTENFELD: 
 
'You won't want these stories to end' REESE WITHERSPOON 
'Perfect miniatures in deadpan prose' GUARDIAN 
'Clear-eyed and compulsive' MAIL ON SUNDAY

From the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of RODHAM comes a dazzling collection of stories that celebrates our humanity in all its pettiness and glory.

Sharp yet understated, assured but self-questioning, Sittenfeld take on race, sexism and the wokerati

A potent mix of biting truths, entertainment and rigorous social observation. Sittenfeld has never been sharper

Sittenfeld has an analytical eye for the festering grudges and deep-seated disrespects of everyday life. Exceptionally sharp

Short, sharp, thought-provoking. Perfect for these times

Sittenfeld's genius lies in her ability to sneak in complex issues into superficially low-key narratives

Stories with a feminist perspective that fizz with intelligence, smart observation and darkly dry humour.

Combining wit and wry compassion, these stories are brilliantly entertaining

An impeccable study of human flaws and frailties, fizzing with wit and empathy

An impeccable study of human flaws and frailties, fizzing with wit and empathy

Sittenfeld's talent for creating characters that elicit an uneasy mix of scorn and sympathy is on full display. This author at her very best

The acclaimed word-of-mouth bestseller

American Wife

*** As heard on BBC Radio Four's Book Club with James Naughtie*** 
 
'Honest, wonderful and smart as hell' Guardian 
'Curtis Sittenfeld is in a league of her own' Observer 
 
All I did is marry him. You are the ones who gave him power. 
 
Quiet, bookish Alice Blackwell never dreamed of being First Lady. Much less to a President whose politics she doesn't believe in. On perhaps the most important day of her husband's presidency, Alice looks back on the strange and unlikely path that led her to the White House, and to a decision - both treacherous and long overdue - that could jeopardise everything. 
 
Taking inspiration from real life, AMERICAN WIFE is a remarkable portrait of a woman caught between her feelings for her husband, her country, and herself. 
 
'My favourite book of the century' HADLEY FREEMAN, GUARDIAN

The acclaimed word-of-mouth bestseller about the marriage of an American First Lady: A rich, utterly absorbing, powerful story of how an ordinary girl from an unremarkable town grows up to become First Lady of the United States.

Such an accomplished work of fiction... a thoughtful and compelling examination of the mechanics of family and marriage... Knowing and knowledgeable, yet also inventive and original, American Wife is a thrilling combination of history and surprises

Superbly well-written - one of the most absorbing books of the year

Thoroughly enjoyable. The plot is beautifully paced, the writing quick, clear, absorbing... A sweeping saga

A powerful, utterly compelling and strangely moving fictional account of a First Lady who bears more than a passing resemblance to Laura Bush

I was utterly absorbed in this story of a political marriage and a wife who has her own reasons. Curtis Sittenfeld has thrown a powerful light on small town America and its misunderstood values

Linda Grant, Booker shortlisted author of The Clothes on Their Backs

A quietly riveting parable... thought-provoking, entertaining and full of subtle reflections on class and marriage

A classic story, with a langorous pace and a fierce literary integrity... Sittenfeld has provided a plausible secret history of an American embarrassment - and a grand entertainment

American Wife is easily one of the best books written so far this century. It is honest, wonderful and smart as hell, the kind of book that you try to eke out to make it last as long as possible

This is one of the finest American novels of 2008

Curtis Sittenfeld is an amazing writer, and American Wife is a brave and moving novel about the intersection of private and public life in America. Ambitious and humble at the same time, Sittenfeld refuses to trivialize or simplify people, whether real or imagined

The scope and detail of American Wife are reminiscent of Richard Russo. Like Russo, she creates characters from the ground up, ancestry, neighborhood, culture and all... Her characters are carefully rendered and the story is well-constructed

Vastly entertaining... It is an intelligent, well-crafted, psychologically astute novel

Weaves fate, family, marriage, wealth and power into an absorbing story

This engagingly candid First Lady is belssed with so many attractive qualities that her story grips from the very beginning. Full marks to Curtis Sittenfeld

Best book: I was on the beach in Croatia recently and it was the one book that quite a few women were lying there reading. It was surreal

I truly can't believe what a great writer Sittenfeld is, she's fantastic

A deft, funny and revealing story... This clever and convincing portrait of human frailty is a reminder that perhaps none of us is what we might seem. An honest and insightful story of a marriage, and a refreshing take on recent history

When people ask for book recommendations I often press Curtis Sittenfeld’s magnificent third novel, American Wife, into their hands. This loosely fictionalised life of former first lady Laura Bush has a rare and magical combination of accessibility, wit and serious thinking.

Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling Rodham. Other novels include American Wife and Prep, both bestsellers and longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Man of My Dreams, Sisterland, Eligible, and the acclaimed short story collections You Think It, I'll Say It and Help Yourself. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Oprah Magazine and the New York Times magazine. Sittenfeld was also the guest editor for the 2020 Best American Short Stories anthology. She lives with her family in the American Midwest. Follow her on Twitter @CSittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld

The bestselling Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick by the author of RODHAM and AMERICAN WIFE

THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
A Reese's Book Club Pick 2023 
 
'A hilarious, sweet, smart read that you're going to love!' REESE WITHERSPOON 
'A rollercoaster of modern love and dating' STYLIST 
 
A TV script writer thinks she's over romance, until an unlikely love interest upends all her assumptions: a humorous, sharp and tender novel from the bestselling author of Eligible, American Wife and Prep. 
_____________ 
 
Life is (not)* a Romantic Comedy... 
 
With a series of heartbreaks under her belt, Sally Milz - successful script writer for a legendary late-night TV comedy show - has long abandoned the search for love. 
 
But when her friend and fellow writer begins to date a glamorous actress, he joins the growing club of interesting but average-looking men who get romantically involved with accomplished, beautiful women. 
 
Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch, poking fun at this 'social rule'. The reverse never happens for a woman. 
 
Then Sally meets Noah, a pop idol with a reputation for dating models. But this isn't a romantic comedy - it's real life. 
 
Would someone like him ever date someone like her? 
 
Skewering all our certainties about why we fall in love, ROMANTIC COMEDY is a witty and probing tale of how the heart will follow itself, no matter what anyone says. It is Curtis Sittenfeld at her most sharp, daring and compassionate best. 
----------------- 
 
'One of my all-time favourite authors. A brilliantly written, funny page-turner, I want to read it all again' PANDORA SYKES 
 
'I am obsessed. A warm, wise, magnanimous and extremely funny novel. ROMANTIC COMEDY should be prescribed to anyone needing their mood lifted' ELIZABETH DAY 
 
'Curtis Sittenfeld is in a league of her own' GUARDIAN 
 
'Anyone who reads Sittenfeld will read anything she ever writes' THE TIMES

Curtis Sittenfeld

Romantic Comedy

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