Catherine Newman's Desert Island Books

Featuring a novel that Catherine read with a headlamp on, sandwiched under a mosquito net in Tulum...

Never in my reading life have I read two books by the same author in the space of a weekend, until earlier in this year when I read Sandwich by

Catherine Newman

. One of the most gorgeous, life-affirming, moving books I’ve ever read, I raced through it it in a single stint, and went straight on to read We All Want Impossible Things.

Set in a Cape Cod summer house (which should be a genre in and of itself), Sandwich is about the complexities of families, about an imperfect marriage and its ebbs and flows over the course of several decades, and about how loving people is an exquisite kind of torture. It’s a perfect, perfect book, that - two months after reading - I still cannot stop thinking about.

When I knew I’d be relaunching this series, I knew I wanted to interview Catherine to find out about the books she loves the most, and I was beyond thrilled when she agreed to take part.

From a book she read under a mosquito net in Mexico, to the book whose prose she says is jaw-droppingly graceful, read on to find out which books made Catherine’s final cut.

And for anyone who is yet to read Sandwich - or may want to add a signed copy to their collection - you’re in luck. Each week, paid subscribers are automatically entered to win a signed book by the guest from my Desert Island Books series.

Amos and Boris by William Steig*

For one thing, it’s a shipwreck book! And, thus, perfect for a desert-island experience. For another, it’s about a beautiful friendship between a mouse and a whale and, surprisingly for a kids’ book, delves into heady existential territory. I loved it as a child; my children loved it as children; my best friend and I quoted it to each other when she was dying. I have never, ever tired of it.

*token male author, ha ha ha

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

The truth is that I would bring basically any Ann Patchett book anywhere. The Dutch House? Yes please. Bel Canto? Always. But State of Wonder—well, for one thing it takes place in the jungle, which might have some resonance with the desert island experience. And for another? This book, perhaps more than any other book I have read as an adult, evoked the immersive joy of reading that I first experienced as a child devouring all those Joan Aiken books, like Black Hearts in Battersea and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I once saw a stranger reading it on the beach and I actually made them read aloud from the page they were on so I’d know where they were in the story.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Twenty years ago, Michael and I went to a wedding in Tulum, and I read this novel with a headlamp on, sandwiched under a mosquito net between my two teeny-tiny sleeping children while I listened to everyone else dancing and drinking on the beach, and I have never been happier. I am a child of immigrants and I love reading books about children of immigrants and Jhumpa Lahiri’s prose is just so jaw-droppingly graceful.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

But, really, any book by Samantha Irby: Meaty, Wow, No Thank You, Quietly Hostile, whatever she writes next. . . If there has ever been someone more generous with her humor, I can’t think who it is. You get to laugh tenderly at all the worst things, which seems like something you’d really need to do on a desert island. Although, if you were truly alone, there would be nobody there to say, “What? What’s so funny? Read it out loud.”

Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver poetry. I’d cheat and bring a massive anthology of them that contained, like, all of her works. Reading her poems has the effect of gathering up the swirl and chaos and diluted attention in and around me and—Zap!—distilling everything into what’s most important, which always involves paying attention and which usually involves going outside. I’d be like, “What is it I want to do with my one wild and precious life? Open my eyes to the beauty of this desert island, that’s what!”

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Maybe while I’m on a desert island, I shouldn’t read a book about motherless children preparing for a hurricane? But wow, this book. I read it ages ago and think about it all the time—the way it centers caretaking in crisis—and the way the writing is so simultaneously brutal and gorgeous. I am making a note to myself that I can reread it even if I’m not actually on a desert island.

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

When people ask if I have a favorite novel, I sometimes refuse to answer and sometimes name this book. It has to be the funniest-saddest semi-autobiographical novel that’s ever been written. She writes with so much love, so much heart and humor.

The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe

I’m seeing that all my books are so contemporary! Which is funny, because I actually have a PhD in Renaissance literature. But man, I just don’t want to bring Shakespeare to the deserted island so I can read all the parts aloud by myself, you know? I kind of want to bring something I’ve never read? But then, what if it’s bad? Am I being too literal here? I’d honestly probably bring another fave: The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe, Writers and Lovers by Lily King, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee,  Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, anything by Katherine Heiny. I’m cheating, I know. That’s how I roll.

About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoirs Catastrophic Happiness and Waiting for Birdy, the middle-grade novel One Mixed-Up Night, the kids’ craft book Stitch Camp, the best-selling how-to books for kids How to Be a Person and What Can I Say?, and the novels We All Want Impossible Things, and Sandwich. She has been a regular contributor to the New York Times, Real Simple, O, The Oprah Magazine, Cup of Jo, and many other publications. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. You can read Catherine’s excellent Substack, Crone Sandwich, here.

If you’d like to buy any of Catherine Newman’s Desert Island Books please consider doing so from Bookshop.org (US) here, and Bookshop.org (UK) here. If you’re in Australia, please consider buying them from my favourite independent bookshop, Gertrude & Alice.