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Chris’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Chris’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Chris Bohjalian’s Followers (13,024)
999 books
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66 friends
1,767 books
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149 friends
1,953 books
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97 friends
663 books
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581 friends
3,449 books
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192 friends
4,203 books
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2,934 friends
2,230 books
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152 friends
7,759 books
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389 friends
More friends…
Chris Bohjalian
Goodreads Author
Born
in White Plains, New York, The United States
Website
Twitter
Genre
Member Since
November 2007
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Midwives
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published
1997
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54 editions
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The Flight Attendant
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published
2018
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29 editions
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Hour of the Witch
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published
2021
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6 editions
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The Sandcastle Girls
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published
2012
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The Guest Room
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published
2016
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22 editions
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The Double Bind
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published
2007
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The Light in the Ruins
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published
2013
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19 editions
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Skeletons at the Feast
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published
2008
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38 editions
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The Lioness
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published
2022
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14 editions
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The Red Lotus
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published
2020
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13 editions
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The Big Scary Doll I Pushed Down the Stairs
31 October 2025
Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who Are Friends,
In an antique photo album is an aging print of my mother introducing me to a doll about an inch or two taller than I am. It's Christmas morning and I'm three years old. The doll is called Peter Playpal and it is – literally and metaphorically – that year’s big present from Santa Claus. My mother is doing her best Betty Draper imitati Read more of this blog post »
Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who Are Friends,
In an antique photo album is an aging print of my mother introducing me to a doll about an inch or two taller than I am. It's Christmas morning and I'm three years old. The doll is called Peter Playpal and it is – literally and metaphorically – that year’s big present from Santa Claus. My mother is doing her best Betty Draper imitati Read more of this blog post »
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Chris’s Recent Updates
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Chris
rated a book it was amazing
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| Ian McEwan is a treasure and WHAT WE CAN KNOW is one of those novels where he really sticks the landing. Just when we think we know where it's going. . .he completely upends our expectations in a fashion that's brilliant. The first half is set in wha ...more | |
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Chris
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Chris
rated a book it was amazing
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| So, a "suitcase" nuclear bomb is on a yacht heading west from East Hampton to lower Manhattan, where a KGB officer and his assassin bestie are going to blow up the lower half of the island. Can an FBI agent who is supposed to be "merely" tailing the ...more | |
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Chris
is currently reading
What We Can Know
by Ian McEwan (Goodreads Author) Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee in Readers' Favorite Fiction |
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Chris
is currently reading
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Chris
added a status update: Look what's coming. This novel was alchemic: never has a book been this much fun for me to write. What if a single moment changed the entire course of your life — an accident that’s wild, weird and traumatic? Learn more about it right here on Goodreads or in the People Magazine cover reveal and preview.
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Chris
rated a book it was amazing
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| I first fell in love with Amity Gaige's work in 2013 with her beautiful novel, "Schroder," and I have been reading her ever since. Her 2025 novel, "Heartwood," is everything I could want in a novel: a riveting page turner about a woman missing in Mai ...more | |
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Chris
rated a book it was amazing
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| Absolutely fascinating tale of the heroic Polish citizens who, with the help of the CIA, took spectacular risks in the 1980s to bring banned books, magazines, and news into communist Poland. All of them risked prison and some risked death, but their ...more | |
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Chris
is currently reading
Heartwood
by Amity Gaige (Goodreads Author) Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee in Readers' Favorite Mystery & Thriller |
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Chris
rated a book it was amazing
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| I was absolutely destroyed by this novel -- in all the best ways. THE RIVER IS WAITING begins on a note that will leave you heartbroken and gutted. Corby Ledbetter, his brain awash in booze, an antidepressant, and the gloom from his unemployment, bac ...more | |
“Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.”
― Secrets of Eden
― Secrets of Eden
“We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.”
― Secrets of Eden
― Secrets of Eden
“But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?”
― The Sandcastle Girls
― The Sandcastle Girls
Polls
January 2018
Vote for 1 book- Top book wins!
Vote for 1 book- Top book wins!
Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood
Soon to be a Netflix Original series, Alias Grace takes listeners into the life of one of the most notorious women of the 19th century.
It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.
by Margaret AtwoodSoon to be a Netflix Original series, Alias Grace takes listeners into the life of one of the most notorious women of the 19th century.
It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.
The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway
This brilliant novel with universal resonance, set during the 1990s Siege of Sarajevo, tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst.
by Steven GallowayThis brilliant novel with universal resonance, set during the 1990s Siege of Sarajevo, tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays undaunted in their midst.
Before You Know Kindness
by
On a balmy July night in New Hampshire a shot rings out in a garden, and a man falls to the ground, terribly wounded. The wounded man is Spencer McCullough, the shot that hit him was fired–accidentally?–by his adolescent daughter Charlotte. With this shattering moment of violence, Chris Bohjalian launches the best kind of literate page-turner: suspenseful, wryly funny, and humane.
by On a balmy July night in New Hampshire a shot rings out in a garden, and a man falls to the ground, terribly wounded. The wounded man is Spencer McCullough, the shot that hit him was fired–accidentally?–by his adolescent daughter Charlotte. With this shattering moment of violence, Chris Bohjalian launches the best kind of literate page-turner: suspenseful, wryly funny, and humane.
Caleb's Crossing
by Geraldine Brooks
In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.
by Geraldine BrooksIn 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.
Any Human Heart
by William Boyd
Logan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child." From his early childhood in Montevideo, son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary, through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford, Mountstuart traces his haphazard development as a writer. Early and easy success is succeeded by a long half-century of mediocrity, disappointments and setbacks, both personal and professional, leading him to multiple failed marriages, internment, alcoholism and abject poverty.Chris Bohjalian
by William BoydLogan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child." From his early childhood in Montevideo, son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary, through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford, Mountstuart traces his haphazard development as a writer. Early and easy success is succeeded by a long half-century of mediocrity, disappointments and setbacks, both personal and professional, leading him to multiple failed marriages, internment, alcoholism and abject poverty.Chris Bohjalian
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
by Fannie Flagg
It's first the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women -- of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth, who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.
by Fannie FlaggIt's first the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women -- of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth, who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.
Leaving Tabasco
by Carmen Boullosa
Leaving Tabasco tells of the coming-of-age of Delmira Ulloa, raised in an all-female home in Agustini, in the Mexican province of Tabasco.
by Carmen BoullosaLeaving Tabasco tells of the coming-of-age of Delmira Ulloa, raised in an all-female home in Agustini, in the Mexican province of Tabasco.
13 total votes
Topics Mentioning This Author
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| The Next Best Boo...: Jodi Picoult | 43 | 443 | Apr 16, 2009 08:11AM | |
| Pick-a-Shelf: 2009-07 - Realistic Fiction - Post July Reviews Here | 65 | 119 | Aug 13, 2009 10:12AM | |
| Challenge: 50 Books: Mandy's 50 in 2009 | 34 | 361 | Aug 21, 2009 09:01PM | |
| The Next Best Boo...: September 's Groups Reads Are..... | 148 | 742 | Sep 10, 2009 04:32PM |
“And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.”
― The Law of Similars
― The Law of Similars
“As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . .Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn't accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.”
― Before You Know Kindness
― Before You Know Kindness
“Though angels were easy to finds in cemeteries, she said that she didn't especially care for funereal angels and tombstone cherubs -- she wanted her angels among the living, not watching over the already dead -- and thus she scoured parks and gardens for the angels with whom, on some level, she wanted to commune.”
― Secrets of Eden
― Secrets of Eden
“Sara knew that behind its locked front door no home was routine. Not the house of her childhood, not the apartment of her husband's. not the world they were building together with Willow and Patrick. All households had their mysteries, their particular forms of dysfunction.”
― Before You Know Kindness
― Before You Know Kindness
“He moved quickly away from her through the ring, his whole body starting forward with the big animal in two-point and then -- the horse's legs extended before and behind her, a carousel pony but real, the immense thrust invisible to anyone but the boy on the creature's back -- he was rising, rising, rising. . .
And aloft.”
― The Buffalo Soldier
And aloft.”
― The Buffalo Soldier
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— 166 members
— last activity Dec 31, 2016 05:16PM
Looking for wise women, still giggling girls at heart who love to READ books that matter, books that move you, books that make you call your girlfrien ...more
Latino and Latin American Literature
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Best Writings of The Americas
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— 6093 members
— last activity Dec 01, 2025 10:30AM
A group to discuss books and topics mentioned on Books on the Nightstand, a blog and podcast about books and reading.
Amherst Reads – Amherst College Alumni and Friends
— 292 members
— last activity Mar 31, 2022 07:15AM
Amherst Reads is an online bookclub that connects alumni, students, faculty members, parents and friends of Amherst College to the intellectual life o ...more
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What an honor it is to be your friend on Goodreads. I love your books, and I am looking forward to reading "The Guest Room." I have been following your writing for years, and you are one of my very favorite authors.
I started reading your books with Midwives and have read everything I could get my hands on since. To list my favorites would not be a very exclusive list, but my favorite of favorites is Skeletons at the Feast. I just discovered Trans-Sister Radio, and was, once again, blown away by your extraordinary talent. When are you coming to Nashville again? When I was at Parnassus Books recently, I made a special request for you to come to Salon@615. They pointed out that you had been here before (which I missed out of ignorance), but might come again with your next book. So, write fast!
And, thank you for all the pleasant hours of reading you have given us.
Dear Mr Bohjalian,I just wanted to tell you that I love reading your work. The Double Bind rocked me back on my (mental) heels. Skeletons at the Feast kicked off what would grow to be morbid fascination/disgust/rabid researching of the Holocaust, which had previously been just a small history fact gleaned from a required class in high school.
I just finished The Sandcastle Girls. I note the day I start and finish each book (because I eventually log them on goodreads, you see), and didn't realize until I read your author's note that the day I had begun reading said book on April 24, 2015, coincided with the Armenian genocide's centennial.
I don't believe in coincidences, so do with that what you will.
Thank you for taking the time to read my message, and thank you even more for diligently sharing the fruits of your craft with us readers.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Engh
Chris, How fun to see you here. I'm not terribly active on GoodReads, but I try to stay a bit connected.
Chris, I sooo wanted to see you when you come to Minneapolis July 12 but I checked with the bookstore and I can't afford the cost of the lunch etc. I hope you come again sometime when I'm more able to swing it. I really would love to meet you.
I had a dream the other night that you were doing a reading at the Taco Bell in Janesville, WI. Please don't take this as an insult. I think I just so want to go to one of your readings my mind created one. However, if you should want to come to WI I will be the first in line.
Dan wrote: "Chrisi am almost finished reading the electronic edition advance of LIGHT IN THE RUINS. Once again an example of your masterful storytelling. I love the separation of timelines and the added narra..."
Thanks so much, Dan. I really appreciate your kind words.
Looking forward to seeing you three weeks and three hours from right now!
Chrisi am almost finished reading the electronic edition advance of LIGHT IN THE RUINS. Once again an example of your masterful storytelling. I love the separation of timelines and the added narrative from the killer, a good touch. The scenes in Florence bring back memories from my trip there, even the smell of the Arno; you make me long to go back.
IT IS MY VERY DISTINCT PLEASURE BECOMING YOUR FRIEND INDEED APPRECIATED !!! WISHING YOU MUCH SUCCESS & HAPPINESS BUT ABOVE ALL GOOD HEALTH !!! Your True Friend
Edik
Chris because, I saw your recommendation of Baker's Daughter, reading and loving, and savoring every page.
Theresa wrote: "Just wanted to say I am a big fan! Hangman was one of the scariest and most suspenseful books I've ever read! Water Witches was a great one too. I own them all and as soon as I finish the book I..."Theresa, I found Hangman to be scary too, and I thought I had gotten to the point that things in books couldn't scare me anymore! I loved The Double Bind! I liked it even more than Secrets of Eden, & I thought it was great too!
Hoping you can make it to Nonesuch for your new book tour! Would be a huge success :D
It was wonderful meeting you yesterday here at Nonesuch! Lots of people saw your interview on '207' and have come in to buy your books.Excited to have you here for your next release! We've got a pretty literary crowd - in fact, when you were here, one woman recognized you and was pretty starstruck! She came in again today and was gushing. haha.
Anyway, hope you're well and best of luck with your writing/touring! Enjoy your time at home (assuming you've finished the tour!)
Best,
Matty
Thanks so much for the friendship! I'm such a fan!
I was so happy to find you on here! I just got Midwives and can't wait to start- it looks great! Thanks for everything you do!
Just wanted to say I am a big fan! Hangman was one of the scariest and most suspenseful books I've ever read! Water Witches was a great one too. I own them all and as soon as I finish the book I'm currently reading I'll start The Double Bind. I actually chose it for my bookclub pick, I am excited to see what everyone thinks of it.
