Laura Kinsale's novel Flowers from the Storm was chosen by readers of the Washington Post and Glamour magazine as one of the Top Ten Love Stories of All Time, and she has won Best Book of the Year and Best Historical Romance from the Romance Writers of America. She's back after five years with her new romantic comedy, Lessons in French, which Sourcebooks is publishing next month. She lives in Santa Fe, N.M.
On your nightstand now:
In all honesty, it's a lot of books about dressage and horse training, from The Truth About Horses by Andrew McLean to the classic Training Strategies for Dressage Riders by Charles de Kunffy. Good for inducing sleep and dreams about how I'd like to be able to ride.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire. I can close my eyes and see the illustrations. The story of Sisyphus pushing the huge stone eternally uphill only to have it roll back down again has stayed with me vividly, particularly when on the phone with customer service.
Your top five authors:
James Joyce, Charles Dickens, John Fowles, C.J. Cherryh, Georgette Heyer. They are all artists with words and characters, each in their own way.
Book you've faked reading:
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I kept falling asleep and it would slide off the bed. I buried it under the horse books.
Book you’re an evangelist for:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. An amazing and haunting book, often overlooked as genre fiction, but a masterly evocation of a soldier's alienation and the huge drifts of time and the universe. It made me feel small when I read it, like a tiny warm human mouse in the cold infinity--and what an immeasurable stroke of luck it is when we encounter someone we love in that black and vast emptiness. This book kept me from ever attempting to write SF, because I knew I could never come close to writing anything as remarkable in concept and execution.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Across the Face of the World by Russell Kirkpatrick. It's the silhouette of hooded travelers on horseback, silhouetted against a colossal moon. Evocative.
Book that changed your life:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce made me want to be a writer, and showed me what words could do. I was in high school, and I thought Stephen Dedalus was sexy in his depressive, moody, tortured way. Rather like the Edward Cullen of the day.
Favorite line from a book:
"Language is like shot silk--so much depends on the angle at which it is held."--John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle by Georgette Heyer. Sylvester does the most exquisite grovel at the end. We romance readers like that sort of thing.