What do you recommend?

“I’m currently knee-deep in Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, which is book three in her Neapolitan trilogy. I love family sagas and books that focus on the strong, complicated bonds women have with each other, and I also look for novels that create detailed, intimate portraits of specific cultures. These check off both of those boxes, but it’s not just the content that slays me; the writing is incredible as well. After I finished the first one, I thought, ‘Nothing happened, but everything happened.’ In that way, they’re a lot like life itself.”

Eleni Gage, author of The Ladies of Managua

Gage appears at 8 p.m. Thursday at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables

This story was originally published May 15, 2015 at 1:29 PM with the headline "What do you recommend?."