Véronique Ovaldé is is the acclaimed author of nine novels, one collection of short stories, and a children’s book. Her sixth novel, Et mon coeur transparent, received the Prix France Culture/Télérama in 2008. Ce que je sais de Vera Candida, her bestselling seventh novel, was awarded Le Prix Renaudot des Lycéens, Le prix France Télévision, and le Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle in 2009.

Her debut in English, Kick the Animal Out, was translated by Adriana Hunter and published by MacAdam Cage (2007) in the U.S. and Portobello (2008) in the UK. And My See Through Heart, was also published by Portobello (2009). Véronique Ovaldé has three children, works in publishing, and lives and writes in Paris.

2666 by Roberto Bolaño was a revelation to me, as it is all at once a long poem, five novels in one, a thriller, a labyrinth, a farce, and a political book.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence: I can’t think of a better description of love-making, as well as its premises, nor of a better evocation of women’s relationship to wildness and nature.

The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: this book caused me to miss the highest amount of subway stops ever!

Run River by Joan Didion: this debut novel already bears the mark of her sense of poetry and irony.

Martin Eden by Jack London: here’s a book that says everything about the lengthy work of writing, about how writers deviated from their trajectories, as well as about the misunderstandings that occurs as they go from being unpublished to being published.

Sulak, by Philippe Jaenada: This wonderful story of a larger-than-life gangster combined with Jaenada’s devastating sense of humor, and his fondness for digression, make it a perfect novel!