Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Mary Gordon's ten favorite books

Mary Gordon's novels include Final Payments, Pearl, and The Love of My Youth; her nonfiction includes the memoirs The Shadow Man and Circling My Mother; and her collections of short fiction include The Stories of Mary Gordon.

One of her ten favorite books, as shared at Vulture.com:
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

I first read it because it was on sale for a quarter in a bookstore in Penn Station. I thought it was going to be something like the Albee play. I read it on the train to Boston, and I felt that the prose had broken one of my ribs; it was so powerful. I had been a poet until then, not thinking of writing fiction, and Mrs. Dalloway, let me know you could do in fiction what I wanted to do in poetry.
Read about another entry on the list.

Mrs. Dalloway also appears on Andrew O'Hagan's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Strout's six favorite books list, Juan Gabriel Vásquez's six favorite books list, Becky Ferreira's list of seven of the best fictional depictions of female friendship, Rebecca Jane Stokes's list of seven favorite fictional shopaholics, Suzette Field's top 10 list of literary party hosts, Jennie Rooney's top ten list of women travelers in fiction, John Mullan's list of ten of the best prime ministers in fiction, and among Michael Cunningham's 5 most important books, Dani Shapiro's 10 favorite books, and Kate Walbert's best books.

--Marshal Zeringue