Sara Gruen's 6 favorite books

Sara Gruen is the author of the #1 bestselling novel Water for Elephants, as well as the bestseller Riding Lessons and Flying Changes. She shares her North Carolina home with her own version of a blended family: a husband, three children, four cats, two dogs, two horses, and a goat. In order to write her latest novel, Ape House, Gruen studied linguistics and a system of lexigrams so that she could communicate directly with the bonobos living at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. She now considers them to be part of her extended family, and, according to the bonobos, the feeling is mutual.

She named her six favorite books for The Week magazine. One entry on the list:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This Man Booker Prize winner is an utterly amazing book. Its ending was a sucker punch in the gut. I don’t want to say too much about the story, for fear of spoiling one of the most surprising twists ever, but read every word. Don’t skip a thing!

Read about another book on Gruen's list.

--Marshal Zeringue