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Margaret Jull Costa's Reading List

"She's such a compassionate describer of her characters with all their flaws," says the prolific translator, most recently of Júlio Dinis's "An English Family" and (with Robin Patterson) Machado de Assis's "Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas."

By the Book: Margaret Jull Costa (2021)

NYT By the Book column (2021-03-04).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf · Buy on Amazon

"Her prose is sometimes poetry. Listen to this: "Fear no more says the heart…" And she's such a compassionate describer of her characters with all their flaws. I hadn't read the novel for years, and it was such a joy to revisit and rediscover it."

Adam Bede

George Eliot · Buy on Amazon

"Fascinating characters and such insight into ordinary working lives. The character of Hetty and her search for the father of her child is one of the most touching, most heart-wrenching things I have read."

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925 · Buy on Amazon

"Just to see what it's possible to do with the English language. That famous last sentence still rings in my ears."

My Ántonia

Willa Cather · Buy on Amazon

"I recently reread (for probably the third time) Willa Cather's "My Ántonia," which is a celebration of friendship over the years."

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