Sunday, January 3, 2016

Liz

Hey! I'm an actor/writer/musician, and I do a bit of comics art and dance/circus on the side. Currently taking a bit of time off from acting, so as to focus on the other disciplines. I make my living as a freelance writer and editor.

I tend to geek out about history, particularly European history. I've been immersed in Victorian history lately as research for some historical fiction, and one of my publishing clients has been sending a steady stream of manuscripts about the American Revolution. (I'm of two minds about whether to include the latter in my count for the year, as I'm certainly reading them in depth, but they're not on the market yet and not always the books I'd have chosen for myself. Actually...that might answer that question.)

I am not good at ranking—books, or anything else—but these are some books I really love:

Stephen Johnson, The Ghost Map
Seth Lerer, Inventing English
David Foster Wallace, anything
Roddy Doyle, The Woman Who Walked into Doors and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (and actually the whole Barrytown Trilogy too)
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars
Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
Charles Dickens, Bleak House
J.K. Rowling, anything

On my list for this year are Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang, Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, and Martin Atkins's Tour Smart (some necessary reading about the indie music business). There are probably thirty or so other books in stacks by the bedside table. We'll see how that all works out.

2 comments:

  1. Ahhh! My father-in-law edited the Peter Carey book at UQP! Can't wait to hear what you think!

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  2. Henry Sugar is my favorite Dahl! I always wanted to be a fingersmith....

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