Episode · How I Write · 2026-08-12
Books mentioned on Andrew Sean Greer: Pulitzer Winner Teaches Writing | How I Write
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David Perell discussed Less by Andrew Sean Greer. Andrew Sean Greer discussed Gigi, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer, and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Less
Less by Andrew Sean Greer is a comedic novel that follows a failed novelist nearing fifty who accepts a series of haphazard international literary events to escape a wedding.
Discussed“Andrew Sean Greer won the Pulitzer Prize for 2018 novel called Less.”
Where to get it
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Gigi
Discussed“This is feels like a foolish example, but it's it's it's I think the first moment I realized that you can do anything you want was reading an old novel by Colette, a French writer, and in fact that it's a novella called Gigi, which people will know if they've watched the musical movie from the '50s called Gigi.”
Where to get it
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The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
Discussed“I had a book called The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, and I must have written the first 100 pages at of that book three or four times.”
Where to get it
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Rebecca
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a classic psychological thriller that follows a young second wife haunted by the lingering memory and presence of her husband's deceased first wife at a remote estate.
Discussed“But it's like in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. People know the movie, but if you read the book, you realize you never hear her name.”
Where to get it
