I love to read. I read just about anything (except crime and horror … I get enough of that from the nightly news). Here are some favourites:
- The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton
- Venice, by James (now Jan) Morris
- A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself
- Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden
- The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt
- French Exit, by Patrick de Witt
- East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
- M’am Darling, by Craig Brown
- Moon Tiger, by Penelope Lively
- The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
- The Heart of London, by H.V. Morton. This travel writer’s heyday was the 1930s to 1950s, but his books have mesmerised me, and allowed me to “visit” places that have since been obliterated by war or fire or modernisation. Another Morton favourite is In Search of Southern Italy.
- My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante. I loved the entire Neapolitan series.
- Diary of an Ordinary Woman, by Margaret Forster
- The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin
- I Am, I Am I Am, by Maggie O’Farrell
- Mrs. Bridge, by Evan Connell. Written in 1959, it is proof that womanhood has not evolved as much as we like to think.
- The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock, by Imogen Hermes Gower
- We’ll All Be Burned In Our Beds Some Night, by Joel Thomas Hynes
- Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan
- M Train, by Patti Smith. Patti Smith always frightened me—that scowl, that attitude, that wild hair—but one day at the library I picked up M Train to challenge my prejudices. Conversion was quick. I now love Patti Smith. She writes with serenity and kindness. Ditto for her other book Just Kids.
- The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy
- Birdcage Walk, by Helen Dunmore
- Golden Hill, by Francis Spufford
- Little, by Edward Carey
- Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
- Albatross, by Terry Fallis
- The Last Gift of Time: Life After 60, by Carolyn Heilbrun. This is my comfort read.
- Catch and Kill, by Ronan Farrow
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler
- The Color of Water, by James McBride
- The Journals of Mary O’Brien 1828-1838, edited by Audrey Saunders Miller