Top 5 Nicole Krauss Books You Need To Read This Year

Nicole Krauss is an American writer who was touted to be among the best writers to watch in 2010 by The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40”. Although she only has four novels to her name and many more short stories, Krauss has won many awards for her writing. Interestingly, most of Nicole Krauss books have been translated into over 30 languages. She is arguably one of the best novelists in America, whose novels are known for its intriguing story plots and suspense trigging pace.

Her novels Man Walks Into a Room and The History of Love was later turned into a movie by Richard Gere and Radu Mihaileanu respectively. If you are a fan of Nicole Krauss and you are looking for some of her works to read on, here are top 5 Nicole Krauss books you just have to read this year.

Nicole Krauss Books You Need To Read

Nicole Krauss Books
Nicole Krauss Books (Image Source)

1) Man Walks Into a Room

This tells a story of Samson Greene, a young and well-known professor who works at Columbia University and was found in the desert with no memory of his previous life.

As the story progresses it is found out that Samson has a tumor in his brain which was later removed, leaving him with no memory of the event that happened after his 12th birthday. This put a strain in his marriage and found him in the hands of a new lover. This novel has a sweet-sour story plot.

The first novel of the American writer, Man Walks Into a Room is a  Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was also widely acclaimed.

2) The History of Love

The History of Love is about a 70-year-old Polish-Jewish Leopold (Leo) Gursky who when he was 10 years old fell in love with his neighbor Alma Mereminski. They began dating after a course of 10 years but lost her to another man when she thought he was killed after the Germans had invaded Poland. The story shows Leo finding out that Alma got married and had a son for him who he watches from a distance, many years later his son Isaac became a famous writer who died at the age of 60.

After his son’s death Leo wanting to find his place in his son’s world, broke into Isaac house, this action made him find out about a friend’s betrayal and which led him to a new Alma.

The work gave her the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing under the fiction category and was a finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2006.

3) Great House

The story of Great House begins with a US-based novelist who has been writing on the desk of a young Chilean poet whose alleged daughter came to take the desk away. In London, a man caring for his dying wife finds a lock of hair among her papers which reveals a horrible secret. The story continues to Jerusalem where an antique seller gradually restores his father’s study, destroyed by the Nazis in Budapest in the middle 1940s. The three different stories are linked in this novel, which reveals some hidden truths and possessions.

Great House is a  National Book Award in Fiction finalist in 2010.

4) Forest Dark

This tells a story of an intersection between the life of Jules Epstein, a rich retiree who died/missing in Tel Aviv and Nicole who was living in a mid-life crisis because of her failing marriage and lack of interest to saving her marriage. After hearing a physicist speak about multiverse on the radio, she decides to go make research for her new novel when she hears of a death that occurred in Tel Aviv and decides that will be where she will go.

By no means is this the greatest of Nicole Krauss books but it is still one worth reading.

See Also: Top 5 Matthew Tobin Aderson Books You Need To Read

5) An Arrangement of Light

An Arrangement of Light is a story that was narrated by a personal secretary to a world-famous landscape architect who later discovers that dreams can also become nightmares. The interesting thing about this novel is that the settings, the narrator, and the architect are unknown, still, the story is interesting.

These are 5 of Nicole Krauss finest works, reading them will make you realize how amazing Krauss is and how beautifully she pens them. These stories will leave you with different emotions with it’s breathtaking and intriguing storylines.

Chux Dezman
Chux Dezman
Chux has been writing and editing for several major websites and publications for over 16 years, when he is not crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s, you might catch him at home watching his favourite TV shows

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