Writers recommend: Reading across the lines

The Library of America reasserted its mission —publishing America’s best and most significant writing — with “Susan Sontag: Essays of the 1960s & 70s.” Page after page, Sontag enlightens with her provocative insights and delights with her compelling prose. These pieces at once evoke their era and prove to be timeless.

“The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” by Edward Kelsey Moore (Knopf, $24.95) because he captures the world of black women in the ‘60s, and because there are so few African American male novelists. I should also mention that he’s an outstanding writer. He should be widely read.  (Barbara Davidson / The Los Angeles Times; Alfred A. Knopf)

A new Edwidge Danticat novel is a gift: It is language delicately calibrated to bring to your senses a different kind of music. “Claire of the Sea Light” (Knopf, $25.95) is filled with family love and loss, the salt shock of the Caribbean sea, and a quiet radiance that changes everything you know.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times; Knopf)

In “The Cineaste: Poems” (W.W. Norton, $26.95), A. Van Jordan‘s imaginative work is an ekphrasis of moving pictures with the power to enthrall us as we surrender to the cinema’s dark theater.  (Barbara Davidson / The Los Angeles Times; Alfred A. Knopf)

I read “Going Clear” (Knopf, $28.95) by Lawrence Wright in two days. Every time I drive by that huge spooky blue building on Fountain Avenue on my way home, I shudder. His vast investigative skills finally cracked the hard litigious shell around Scientology, which scared off scores of journalists before him. We now know how L. Ron Hubbard and his minions hold their followers hostage with bizarre beliefs. Wright never parodies these beliefs, but instead is fascinated by the power they hold.  (Amy Stuart; Ed Jones / AFP/Getty Images)

Every year I ask Santa Claus for a new book by Monica Drake, Katherine Dunn, Amy Hemple or Fran Lebowitz. This year Monica Drake came through with “The Stud Book,” a quiet masterpiece. Drake’s brilliant without being a clever showoff, and she’s funny without being snarky or shtick-y. Even Santa Claus loves her fiction.  (Bryan Bedder / Getty Images; Hogarth)

“Five Days at Memorial” is an extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction. I have great admiration for the way that Sheri Fink has told a complex story with eloquence, intelligence and compassion.  (Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images; Crown)