What We’re Reading

The Women

by Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah combines the horrors of war with the tender emotions that humans feel during surreal circumstances as readers experience the deep bond that develops between three female combat nurses during the Vietnam War. After being turned down by both the Navy and Air Force for lack of military experience, Frankie, a young woman from California whose family has served in the military for multiple generations, enlists in the Army, naively expecting that her service will be appreciated — doubly so as her primary responsibility is to provide care for the soldiers with some of the worst war wounds. Neatly woven into the story are both a forbidden love and an undercurrent of human bonding that cut across cultural boundaries.

The Husbands

by Holly Gramazio

Returning to her London flat after a bachelorette party, a drunk Lauren is greeted by her husband Michael. The only problem: Lauren isn’t married. But her phone contains photos of their wedding, and all her close friends and family have memories of him. The next day, Michael goes up to the attic to change a lightbulb, and another new husband comes down in his place. Lauren discovers her attic is a magic portal that creates infinite husbands, and with the emergence of each new one, her life re-forms around her. This comedic, time-bending novel asks, when you can change any husband for any reason, how do you know whether the one you have now is enough? And how long should you
keep trying to find out?

Cloud Cuckoo Land

by Anthony Doerr

Antonius Diogenes is the author of an ancient Greek manuscript about lowly adventurer Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so he can journey to a legendary utopian city in the sky. As the story of Aethon is passed along and rediscovered across the ages, it binds together the lives of Anna and Omeir during the 15th-century siege of Constantinople; Zeno and Seymour in a library in present-day Lakeport, Idaho; and isolated Konstance on a starship ostensibly zooming away from a future post-apocalyptic Earth. The Pulitzer Prize-winner’s expansive frame narrative of past, present, and future worlds is a finely woven, intimate masterpiece that explores loss and discovery through time, inviting every generation into each of its worlds.

This article is featured in the March/April 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.