Zoe Dubno’s Recommended Reading List
Photograph of Zoe Dubno by Caroline Tompkins
Zoe Dubno is the author of the anticipated debut novel Happiness and Love out September 2nd, 2025 from Scribner (US) Doubleday (UK) and DTV (Germany.) Zoe is a writer from Manhattan who lives in New York and London, but not in a fancy way, more as an inconvenience. She has an MFA from Rutgers University, Newark where she was also a lecturer in the English department. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, NY Tyrant, BOMB, Muumuu House, The Nation, Vogue and elsewhere.
Zoe shares her recommended reading list with us below!
To learn more about Zoe and her inspiring career, visit here.
“My novel is inspired by The Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard, but if there's one of his novels I recommend it's Wittgenstein's Nephew. So many crushing and funny and tender and pure moments about the indignities of being known.”
“A character study of one eccentric genius written by another. The scene in which Ravelstein spills coffee on his brand new bespoke suit is, in my opinion, why Bellow deserved the Nobel Prize.”
“I love this book and all the people in it, even Simone de Beauvoir's mean boyfriend, even the evil fashion designer based on Elsa Schiaparelli.”
“Undine Spragg is the original New York City social climber, and my god is she good at it. She would be more than welcome at my novel's central dinner party.”
“I read this book last summer, and because of it, I still listen to the song Vienna by Ultravox every day. Immense feat for a work of fiction.”
“This book has it all: Postmodern experimentation, Freud, mass murder, a cute little kid, classical music, hot sex, Mitteleuropa. Warning: If you want to read something that will make you weep, which I usually do not, go for it.”
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