Lorraine Adams' best books

Lorraine Adams was educated at Princeton University and was a graduate fellow at Columbia University, where she received a master’s degree in literature. A staff writer for the Washington Post for 11 years, she won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Her new novel is The Room and the Chair.

Adams named her six best books for The Week magazine. One book on her list:

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nigeria’s Biafran civil war is the subject of Adichie’s 2006 novel, a patient and intimate portrait of lives disrupted by atrocity and armed conflict. I was impressed by its poise: Adichie demonstrates just how convincingly a woman can write about war.

Read about another book on Adams' list.

Learn about the book that changed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's life.

See Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's list of her favorite contemporary short-story collections.

--Marshal Zeringue