Siri Hustvedt was 13 when she got the writing bug. Her father, a professor of Norwegian, had taken his wife and four daughters with him to Reykjavík, where he was studying the Icelandic sagas. Unable to sleep during the perpetually bright nights, she immersed herself in the classics, reading The Count of Monte Cristo and David Copperfield, among others. She remembers thinking, ‘If this is what books are, this is what I’m going to do.’” She has written seven novels, including The Blazing World, long-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, and her most recent, Memories of the Future, which explores memory, identity, and sexual politics. In addition to her fiction she has published poetry, and many works of non-fiction which often explore her interests in art, language, and neurology. She is married to the writer Paul Auster.

Below are Siri Hustvedt’s favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set.