Salley Vickers is a former university professor of literature and Jungian psychotherapist. Vickers's first novel, Miss Garnet's Angel, was a book club favorite and an international bestseller. She lives in London and is currently royal literary fund fellow of Newnham College at Cambridge. The Cleaner of Chartres (Plume, April 29, 2014) is now available in paperback.
On your nightstand now:
Herodotus in the wonderful new Penguin translation by Tom Holland: Herodotus is the so-called father of history and his work is packed with intriguing information about the ancient world and especially the Greek relationship with the Persians. The Root and the Flower by L.H. Myers: a neglected masterpiece about an imaginal India. The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman: a fascinating book that maps archaeological findings in Israel against the biblical accounts (mostly to the latters' discredit) and the origin of the Bible's sacred texts.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, a remarkable and mysterious book about the intersecting of the life of a young boy and a girl from the past. It is the source of my continuing fascination with the mystery of time.
Your top five authors:
I still prefer the 19th-century's novelists to our own, so George Eliot and Henry James would have to come first for their acute psychological perceptions. Among contemporary writers, I loved the subtlety of Penelope Fitzgerald, who paid me the great compliment of commending Miss Garnet's Angel just before she died. My two favourite American writers are the underpraised William Maxwell and the spiritually exhilarating Marilynne Robinson.
Book you've faked reading:
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, although I've never faked that I can't read it. It is considered a writers' book, but as far as I'm concerned it is tedious.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald. She is dry, witty, brilliantly perceptive and very funny. This book, about physics and the paranormal, is quite divine.
Book you've bought for the cover:
My own Miss Garnet's Angel in the original edition, because with the help of Caravaggio I designed it. My then-publishers thought the book would be "a quiet book" (i.e., one that won't sell), so they gave me a free hand. I've never been allowed it since. Very silly of them, as I am sure the book's success had much to do with its cover.
Book that changed your life:
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, an astoundingly deep study of the mysteries of the human heart. The section where the Grand Inquisitor meets Jesus, who has made His second coming, remains for me one of the great pieces of theological writing.
Favorite line from a book:
"It is impossible to say why people put so little value on complete happiness." --William Maxwell, The Chateau. As a former Jungian psychotherapist, I can say he is quite right!
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This book is so beautifully and elegantly crafted, but once you know the ending it is almost too unbearable to read.
Question you most dislike being asked:
"How do you get an agent?"