Nancy Goldstone loves medieval history and old books and is the author, most recently, of The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc (Viking, March 29, 2012). She has written both fiction and nonfiction and at one point co-authored several books with her husband until she and Larry gave up writing together in order to save what was left of the dishes.
On your nightstand now:
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, which I picked up out of curiosity at my local Barnes & Noble, read the first two pages of and immediately purchased, and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which I bought during an extended layover at the airport because it was blurbed by Charles Dickens.
Favorite book when you were a child:
That's so hard! How about I give you my top three: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott.
Your top five authors:
Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Rumer Godden, Elizabeth Bowen, Anthony Trollope and Edith Wharton, although not necessarily in that order. That's six, but I couldn't bear to leave anyone out.
Book you've faked reading:
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It saves having people tell me how much history I will learn from it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. I've even given this one out to teenagers and they've loved it. Rumer Godden definitely needs to be rediscovered.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Treasures from Italy's Great Libraries. It was expensive, but it had an irresistibly beautiful image from an illuminated manuscript on the cover.
Book that changed your life:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I read it in high school and loved it, and when I got married, I wanted Larry to read it so I decided to get it for him as a birthday present. But the local bookstore had it only in paperback, and I didn't think that looked nice enough for a gift. Eventually, in order to find a hardcover, I wound up at a used bookstore. It was the first time in my life I had ever been in a used bookstore, and it was a revelation. So many authors and titles I had never heard of! I bought a lovely copy of War and Peace for $10, and Larry and I have spent the rest of our married life together haunting used and antiquarian bookshops.
Favorite line from a book:
"No Roman ever was able to say: 'I dined last night with the Borgias.' " Quip from Max Beerbohm found in Max: A Biography by David Cecil.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The first time I read it I stayed up all night reading the scene where Bucket and Esther Summerson chase after Lady Dedlock. I can still remember the emotion I felt not knowing what was going to happen. I'd love to relive that experience.