Jhumpa Lahiri's Reading List

"I’m also reading the letters of Cesare Pavese and Pasolini’s “Teorema,” which was conceived both as a novel and a film."

"“Lovers,” a novel by a French writer named Daniel Arsand. I read it first in the English translation, then in Italian. It’s a harrowing love story with rich historical context. But it’s free of bulk, of weight, of all the predictable connective narrative tissue. I found it incantatory, transcendent."

"I recently discovered the work of Giorgio Manganelli, who wrote a collection called “Centuria,” which contains 100 stories, each of them about a page long. They’re somewhat surreal and extremely dense, at once fierce and purifying, the equivalent of a shot of grappa. I find it helpful to read one before sitting down to write."

"I identified with orphans, like Anne of Green Gables, or pioneers, like the characters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, or children who slipped in and out of different worlds and dimensions, like the siblings in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”"

"I identified with orphans, like Anne of Green Gables, or pioneers, like the characters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, or children who slipped in and out of different worlds and dimensions, like the siblings in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”"

"And of course there was the writer, Jo, in “Little Women.”"

"I loved the brother and sister in “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” who run away from home and survive among works of beauty. I never go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art without thinking of them."

"I love rereading and sharing the books I read and loved as a child, such as the Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren and everything by Roald Dahl."

"Last summer we read a great series together called “The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place,” by Maryrose Wood."

"another collection of very brief and amusing stories by Gianni Rodari, called “Le Favolette di Alice.” They’re about a tiny little girl who keeps finding herself temporarily trapped inside of things, like pockets, ink bottles, birthday cakes and soap bubbles."

"I’d like to be Sebastian Flyte from “Brideshead Revisited,” but only during the early chapters, before things start to go downhill. I’ve always wanted to dress for dinner."