On my bookshelf

Play it as it Lays

Joan Didion · 2011

Drivers Seat

Muriel Spark · 2001

Lise, driven to distraction by an office job, leaves everything and flies south on holiday - in search of passionate adventure, the obsessional experience and sex. Infinity and eternity attend Lise's last terrible day in the unnamed southern city.

The Man in the High Castle

Philip K. Dick · 2011

Giovannis Room

James Baldwin

Valley of the Dolls

Jacqueline Susann · 1997

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley · 2003

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

Paul Newman · 2022

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon. The greatest movie star of the past 75 years covers everything: his traumatic childhood, his career, his drinking, his thoughts on Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, John Huston, his greatest roles, acting, his intimate life with Joanne Woodward, his innermost fears and passions and joys. With thoughts/comments throughout from Joanne Woodward, George Roy Hill, Tom Cruise, Elia Kazan and many others.<br/><br/>A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME and Vanity Fair<br/><br/>"Newman at his best…with his self-aware persona, storied marriage and generous charitable activities…this rich book somehow imbues his characters’ pain and joy with fresh technicolor." —The Wall Street Journal<br/><br/>In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman’s family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor’s life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years.<br/><br/>The result is an extraordinary memoir, culled from thousands of pages of transcripts. The book is insightful, revealing, surprising. Newman’s voice is powerful, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, always meeting that high standard of searing honesty. The additional voices—from childhood friends and Navy buddies, from family members and film and theater collaborators such as Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt, and John Huston—that run throughout add richness and color and context to the story Newman is telling.<br/><br/>Newman’s often traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed. He talks about his teenage insecurities, his early failures with women, his rise to stardom, his early rivals (Marlon Brando and James Dean), his first marriage, his drinking, his philanthropy, the death of his son Scott, his strong desire for his daughters to know and understand the truth about their father. Perhaps the most moving material in the book centers around his relationship with Joanne Woodward—their love for each other, his dependence on her, the way she shaped him intellectually, emotionally and sexually.<br/><br/>The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is revelatory and introspective, personal and analytical, loving and tender in some places, always complex and profound.

The Stranger

Albert Camus · 1989

I Regret Almost Everything

Keith McNally · 2025

The entertaining, irreverent, and surprisingly moving memoir by the visionary restaurateur behind such iconic New York establishments as Balthazar and Pastis.<br/><br/>A memoir by the legendary proprietor of Balthazar, Pastis, Minetta Tavern, and Morandi, taking us from his gritty London childhood to his serendipitous arrival in New York, where he founded the era-defining establishments Odeon, Cafe Luxembourg, and Nell’s. Eloquent and opinionated, Keith McNally writes about his stint as a child actor, his travels along the hippie trail, his wives and children, his devastating stroke, and his Instagram stardom.

Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin · 2013