Olivia Judson

Olivia Judson is the author of Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation. A research fellow at the Imperial College in London, she is currently filming a TV series based on her best-seller.

Narrow Roads of Gene Land, Volume 1: The Evolution of Social Behaviour by W.D. Hamilton (Oxford University Press, $55). This unusual book, written by one of the most original and important biologists of our time, is a collection of scientific papers that are paired with sketches of what the author was thinking at the time he wrote each one. The sketches are masterpieces of scientific autobiography: poignant, funny, and candid. All in all, a fascinating insight into a great mind.

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (Puffin, $5). I have always adored Alice and admired Lewis Carroll. He was among the first people to popularize science, and he’s the writer I would most like to write like. He’s simple, direct, witty, and light.

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The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West (New York Review of Books, $17). This story of a poor, chaotic, and idealistic family living in London on the eve of the First World War is a moving, engaging tale with a touch of magic, written in lyrical, evocative prose. I never get tired of it.

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (Harvest, $14). I first read this book at school—usually the kiss of death for my literary enthusiasms. But the explosive mix of politics and power and corruption and love, told by such a masterful writer, seduced me, and I have read it again and again.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (Random House, $11). This is the only book that I have ever read from cover to cover without moving—and on finishing, turned back to page one, and read from cover to cover again, still without moving. I don’t know of any other modern writer who has invented such a large and diverse array of real, complex characters, or who writes with such an absorbing and, sometimes, strangely erotic style.

The Iliad and The Odyssey