Often, I don’t. Yesterday a friend asked me what novels I’d been reading lately. I mentioned a couple of titles – and then I blanked. What fiction have I read lately?
Old friends: Madame Bovary (story inspiration), Washington Square (warm friend) and The Ambassadors (cool and distant friend), Captains and the King (shades of Kennedy and the conspiracy theory).
New friends: Tortilla Curtain (brilliant) and Talk Talk, both by T. C. Boyle. The View from Castle Rock (Alice Munro), The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (with a fascinating story called “The Enigma” by John Fowles), Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen.
I suppose that everything I read stays with me on some level. But it would be nice to dip into my hat and pull out titles and authors without so much conscious effort.
Toni Fuhrman 
And I thought I was the only one… the best thing I’ve read recently – or in a long time, in fact – is as of yet unpublished. And felt a bit like a mid-century Madame Bovary (one of my favorites, as well).
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Madame Bovary has been an inspiration for me since I first read it many years ago. It was a direct inspiration for A Windless Place.
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