Books by and for independent women

Five-Minute Friday: Jessica Patient

Name: Jessica Patient

Day job: Bibliographic Editor

Extra-curricular: Writer of short stories, a novel that won’t let me say ‘finished’ and blogger at Writer’s Little Helper.

My weekends are becoming full with being a ‘sweat shop cross stitcher,’ after I came up with the idea that I would cross stitch all of my wedding invites.

Favourite book of all time: I was going to pick The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath because it was the first book forced on me by school that I actually enjoyed.

Normally, the books on the curriculum were a bit stuffy. I think the struggle against society’s expectations of women is still relevant even though it was written in the 1960s.

I nearly picked George Orwell‘s Nineteen Eighty-Four because it influenced my ‘nearly-finished’ novel in a big way.

But ultimately, it would be Mark Danielewski‘s House of Leaves. Danielewski experiments with structure and narrative with overlapping characters and plots.

House of Leaves pushes the reading experience into the physical (some parts you need a mirror). I love multi-layered and complex novels.

Literary pet peeves:I don’t like the way people won’t buy or read a book if it’s written by someone of the opposite sex.

Guilty pleasure: I can’t get enough of reading about the writing process of authors. I’m still fascinated even if I have never read any of their creative work. The Paris Review have been releasing some fabulous collections.

Sometimes I watch the film before reading the book. Wonder Boys is brilliant but the book is hilarious and even more brilliant. The film version of High Fidelity was a okay but the book is ten times better.

Three favourite authors: Short story wise it would be Aimee Bender, Kelly Link and Raymond Carver. My three favourite novelists would be Margaret Atwood, Richard Yates and Neil Gaiman.

But tomorrow it could be Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith and Douglas Coupland. Next week it could be Philip K. Dick, Jeffrey Eugenides and Scarlett Thomas.

Favourite fictional character: Matilda from Matilda by Roald Dahl.

Other recommended reading: When it comes to books about writing, I would recommend Natalie Goldberg‘s Writing Down The Bones, The Creative Writing Coursebook by Paul Magrs and Julia Bell, and Mslexia, the writing magazine for women.

If you’re missing Mad Men, read Rona Jaffe‘s The Best of Everything. And Yellow by Jan Visman – I would love to read more of Visman’s work but I can’t seem to find anything else since Yellow was published.

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