Sunday, January 8, 2017

Siri Hustvedt's 6 favorite books

Siri Hustvedt is a critic, poet, and author. Her new book is A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, a collection of 21 recent essays on art, psychology, literature, and feminism. One of her six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I read this complex, brilliant, terrifying novel for the first time at 14. I have read it three times since then, and each time I have been awed by both its diabolical structure and its emotional force.
Read about the other books on the list.

Wuthering Heights appears on Tom Easton's top ten list of fictional "houses which themselves seem to have a personality which affects the story," Melissa Harrison's list of the ten top depictions of British rain, Meredith Borders's list of ten of the scariest gothic romances, Ed Sikov's list of eight top books that got slammed by critics, Amelia Schonbek's top five list of approachable must-read classics, Molly Schoemann-McCann's top five list of the lamest girlfriends in fiction, Becky Ferreira's list of seven of the worst wingmen in literature, Na'ima B. Robert's top ten list of Romeo and Juliet stories, Jimmy So's list of fifteen notable film adaptations of literary classics, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best thunderstorms in literature, ten of the worst nightmares in literature and ten of the best foundlings in literature, Valerie Martin's list of novels about doomed marriages, Susan Cheever's list of the five best books about obsession, and Melissa Katsoulis' top 25 list of book to film adaptations. It is one of John Inverdale's six best books and Sheila Hancock's six best books.

The Page 99 Test: Wuthering Heights.

--Marshal Zeringue