Leslie Brenner

Leslie Brenner is a contributing editor for Travel + Leisure and the author of several books. Her most recent is The Fourth Star (Crown, $25), published earlier this year.

Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac (Viking Penguin, $14). To my mind, satire is the truest kind of writing, and this satire of the Paris literary scene in the early- to mid-19th century is my favorite. Although it was written between 1837 and 1843, verbatim portions of it could be about contemporary New York City. The poet from Angoulème is one of literature’s great characters.

Turn, Magic Wheel by Dawn Powell (Steerforth Press, $15). Despite her lousy titles, Dawn Powell stands out as one of America’s sharpest (if underappreciated) writers, my favorite American satirist. It’s tough to choose between her novels, but this one, a brutally honest, bitingly comic examination of the New York publishing world, really sparkles.

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Nana by Emile Zola (Oxford University Press, $7). Count Muffat’s hopeless sexual obsession with Nana is utterly compelling, and Nana’s midnight dinner party contains some of literature’s most dazzling food writing.

Dom Casmurro by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Oxford University Press, $13). I read this three years ago and had to ask myself, Where has this novel been all my life? The Brazilian master Machado gives us a stunning study of self-deception (a subject I find irresistible) along with a healthy dose of tragic love triangle.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Bantam Books, $7). Call me conventional, but Tolstoy is probably my favorite writer. Tough to choose between this and War and Peace, but I do so relish a good love triangle.

Ulysses by James Joyce (Vintage Books, $17). I love Joyce’s masterpiece for the sheer power, beauty—and even economy—of the language. If I had to take one book to a desert isle, this would be it.