Vanessa is reading a book of Gutave Flaubert's works. She is currently reading Madame Bovary in English. Vanessa is French and grew up in France. That being said she's read Flaubert, Zola, and Proust (to name a few) "en francais". This is her first time reading Madame Bovary in English after having read it in French several times. "It is probably my favourite book of all time. Aside from having similar last names I really love the main character and can relate to her - she's such a bitch. I actually think everyone is like her in one way or another. We are all a bit of a bitch in our own way, I'm sure, and that is why I think everyone can relate to her on some level."
Vanessa HATED the school books she had to read in France. "We were all forced to read all these classics. Blah! It was all this 19th century description crap. I think I hated it so much because we were forced to read it all. It took the fun out of everything. But I think that Madame Bovary is the one and only book I enjoyed from the bunch, and re-read on my own."
She tells me that she always carries a book around with her. The last book she read was Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down. Another great book is Stephen Clarke's A Year in the Merde. It's about a British man who lives in France and opens a tea house. "I thought the book was hysterical! I laughed so much because everything he writes about French culture is so true. Being from France myself I completely understood what he was referring to and could relate." (Stephen Clarke is also the author of Talk to the Snail, In the Merde for Love, and Merde Happens.)
I asked her to recommend a book to me and she immediately responded with The Secret Diary of a Call Girl. "The first book is better." It's one of her favourite contemporary books and she thinks I would enjoy it as much as she has. Vanessa has seen the HBO series however she feels the television version is watered down and has nothing to do with the the book, in her opinion.
"I love the book because the character talks to you. That is why I prefer reading books with first person narratives. When I read I want to be entertained and the characters in these books are speaking directly to me. I am also getting their perspective and you easily start to relate and grow closer to them."
If she were to write her own book it would be about all the things that happened to her in the entertainment industry. She's held various jobs at movie studios and agencies so her book would be a diary of sorts of all the day to day occurrences. "I want to show people what I went through. It would be a memoir but I wouldn't use my own name. It would be 'anonymous' just like the Secret Diary of a Call Girl."
Have you read a book that made you laugh out loud the whole time you were reading it?
