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Dylan Farrow is a writer, mother and advocate for survivors of sexual assault. Growing up in New York City and rural Connecticut, she spent countless hours drawing and writing for pleasure. After graduating from Bard College, Farrow joined CNN as a production assistant and later moved into graphic design. After getting married, Farrow returned to writing full time, exploring her love of YA fantasy. Hush, her debut novel, is now available from Wednesday Books.
On your nightstand now:
A few years back, one of my best friends recommended The Diviners by Libba Bray. Becoming a parent shortly after put my reading list on hold for obvious reasons, but I was able to pick it up again recently. I'm only a couple chapters in, but it's already got me enthralled and I can't wait to see where it goes.
Favorite book when you were a child:
No matter how many times I finished, I always went back to A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I love the entire series but something about the first adventure always resonated with me. Meg Murry was the first literary heroine I felt a personal connection with.
Your top five authors:
Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Pullman, Anne Rice, Colleen McCullough and Douglas Adams. My big hooks are characters and stories that are unique and inventive without losing realism. The creations of these authors stayed with me long after I finished their books.
Book you've faked reading:
Just one? I slacked on a lot of reading in high school, so it probably goes without saying that The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald sadly falls into this category. And before you ask, no, I haven't seen the movie either.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Probably Dante Alighieri's Inferno. The language and imagery are timelessly dark, beautiful and compelling.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I will never forget browsing the book fair sometime during middle school and stumbling upon Sabriel by Garth Nix. The cover art for that edition was created by Leo and Diane Dillon, and it was absolutely exquisite. It remains one of my favorite books and most beloved purchases, and I still have the same book on my shelf today.
Book that changed your life:
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed, definitely. The empathy and honesty were at times so overwhelming I found myself in tears, but at the end I felt I learned something very important on approaching life insightfully and compassionately.
Favorite line from a book:
"This planet has--or rather had--a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Five books you'll never part with:
The Princess Bride by William Goldman, Dune by Frank Herbert, Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Watchmen by Alan Moore and I, Claudius by Robert Graves.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It's partly the simplicity and partly the complexity. It was one of the books I read in high school and I couldn't put it down. I felt like it transported me somewhere.