5 BOOK PICKS FROM NELSON

QWe hear you grew up in a superstitious family. Do you have any superstitions regarding your writing routine?

AWell,I wrote “I’ll Give You the Sun” in a pitch-black room with earplugs in and a sound machine blasting. Years in the dark, like a loon. But maybe that was more weird ritual than superstition. My mother does send me a lot of ribbons for luck that I must (according to her) tape to my computer, which makes it embarrassing to work in a café. Oh, and I have a writing blanket, which is also quite embarrassing now that I’ve put it in writing. It’s very fluffy, more like a pet.

QHow does the Bay Area inform your work, your ideas?

A Itinforms my work possibly more than anything. The imagined town of Clover, where “The Sky Is Everywhere” takes place, has dramatic Northern California elements: roaring rivers, skyscraping redwoods, thick old-growth forests. That landscape is in the DNA of the Walker family. And it’s the same in “I’ll Give You the Sun” with the cliffs and surf and redwoods in the imagined town of Lost Cove, where it rains biblically and the fog’s so thick at times, everything disappears. In both books, the Northern California landscape is almost a spiritual force in the lives of the characters. next?

A I’veQ What’sbeen working on a multigenerational novel about a Northern California family living in the same hot, dusty, half-magical vineyard town for more than a hundred years.

“There There” by Tommy Orange: (It) blew me away with its prismatic, lyrical storytelling and extraordinary characterization. Just a stunner. So alive.

“We Are Okay” by Nina LaCour: A gorgeous, heartstirring reverie of a YA novel. There’s an intimacy to Nina LaCour’s writing that I adore, like she’s telling you a novellength secret.

“Less” by Andrew Sean Greer: I listened to the audio and laughed so hard at times in my car, I forgot to go at green lights and ended up finishing it at the supermarket, sobbing down the aisle. It’s joyful, poignant and just hilarious.

“I Have Lost My Way” by Gayle Forman: My favorite of Forman’s YA novels. A song sung in a round by three distinct characters, who save themselves by saving each other.

“The Friend” by Sigrid Nunez: A brilliant, moving rumination on writing, grief and love that pushes the boundaries of what a novel is and, surprisingly, centers around an utterly charming, enormous Great Dane.