Amy Sohn's novels include Prospect Park West, My Old Man, and Run Catch Kiss. She has written television pilots for such networks as HBO, Fox, and ABC.Her new novel is Motherland.
One of Sohn's six favorite books, as told to The Week magazine:
Madame Bovary by Gustave FlaubertRead about the other books on the list.
All of Flaubert's characters are equally wrongheaded in their attempts to escape the prison of bourgeois life. That's what makes the novelremarkable. You must read Lydia Davis's recent translation, whether for your first time through Bovary or your fifth.
Madame Bovary is on Sue Townsend's 6 best books list, Helena Frith Powell's list of ten of the best sexy French books, the Christian Science Monitor's list of six novels about grand passions, John Mullan's lists of ten landmark coach rides in literature, ten of the best cathedrals in literature, ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best bad lawyers in literature, ten of the best lotharios in literature, and ten of the best bad doctors in fiction, Valerie Martin's list of six novels about doomed marriages, and Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers. It tops Peter Carey's list of the top ten works of literature and was second on a top ten works of literature list selected by leading writers from Britain, America and Australia in 2007. It is one of John Bowe's six favorite books on love.
Visit Amy Sohn's website.
The Page 69 Test: Motherland.
--Marshal Zeringue