15 Recommended Reads From Reese Witherspoon

For your friend who loves everything Reese Witherspoon does

Reese Witherspoon has awfully good taste in all things literary, which is why we are so excited about her new HBO series based on Liane Moriarty’s BIG LITTLE LIES. In her pitch-perfect way, Moriarty shows us the truth about what really goes on behind closed suburban doors. Hint: the reality is filled with parenting and playground politics, ex-husbands and ex-wives, and fractured families.

An imaginative and poignant adult fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror. This bewitching and harrowing story of mystery, survival, memory, and magic makes the impossible all too real.

The Engagements is an exhilarating novel about Frances Gerety, the real pioneering ad woman who coined the famous slogan “A diamond is forever,” and four unique marriages that will test how true those words are.

Ani FaNelli has a covetable life: a glitzy magazine job, a blue blood fiancé, and a wardrobe to match. But when a violent, public trauma from her past threatens to destroy the life she’s worked tirelessly to attain, Ani must carefully weigh her chance at redemption. Jessica Knoll brilliantly constructs a new literary frenemy you’ll love to hate in this New York Times instant bestseller.

Lena Dunham’s first book of essays about life, love, and personal neuroses is dedicated to Nora, her mentor and friend, and the woman she says inspired her writing and film career. If anyone has come close to becoming the New Nora, it’s Dunham. Another must-read is her remembrance of Nora in The New Yorker.

This is the true story of Ashley White, who was part of a pilot program that hand-picked women in the army to play a unique role on special operations teams. Ashley and her colleagues were tasked with gathering intelligence from mothers, sisters, and daughters of Afghani insurgents. They built relationships woman to woman, in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could.

Julia’s quest to solve her sister’s murder quickly evolves into an alluring exploration of her own darkest sensual desires. Her search for answers will jeopardize her marriage, her family, and her life. A tense and unrelenting novel, this is a masterwork of suspense.

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head after she refused to be silenced or give up her right to go to school. Her memoir is the remarkable story of a family uprooted by global terrorism. I Am Malala will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world.

Already beloved by millions of readers, this novel follows a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as they both try to survive the devastation of World War II. The breakout hit of 2014, this beautiful novel was a finalist for the National Book Award and it just won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. If you haven't read it yet, this one should be at the top of your spring reading list.

During a weekend away with a friend in an eerie glass house, crime writer Leonora wakes up in a hospital bed injured wondering not “What happened?” but “What have I done?” This one is for fans of GONE GIRL and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN.

Perhaps you’re a fan of B. J. Novak’s from The Office or his many film appearances. One More Thing is his acclaimed, entertaining first collection of short stories that are playful, curious, and wise.

A coolly mesmerizing intellectual thriller of identity and imposture. After surviving a car accident, supermodel Charlotte Swenson undergoes extensive surgery to reassemble her shattered face. Still beautiful but oddly unrecognizable, she becomes a virtual stranger in a world she once effortlessly occupied.

A young artist agrees to forge a stolen Degas for a renowned gallery owner in exchange for a one-woman show. But she soon suspects that this long-missing masterpiece may itself be a forgery.

Will Traynor is an attractive but brooding young man grieving the life he lived before the terrible accident that left him paralyzed. Louisa Clark is the quirky and charming young woman that Will’s parents hire to cheer him up and remind him that life is worth living. You will fall as hard and deeply in love with Will as Louisa does.

Read the review of ME BEFORE YOU and AFTER YOU.

“Hilarious and engrossing.” —People * “Fearless candor and vulnerability.” —Time * “Funny, emotional, and insightful.” —Good Morning America * “Honest, addictive” —HelloGiggles * “Wonderful...sparkle and intelligence.” —Booklist * “Dazzling.” —Publishers Weekly

The refreshingly original debut memoir of a guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers—her psychotherapy group—and in turn finds human connection, and herself.

Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her in spite of her achievements?

Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything—her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: “You don’t need a cure, you need a witness.”

So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen’s outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect.

Group is a deliciously addictive read, and with Christie as our guide—skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself—we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.