Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly,
or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
The Toronto-born and -based Polley started her political activism young (protesting the Gulf War at an awards event at 12); snipped Uma Thurman’s hair, and asked Sting why he didn’t have a last name on the set of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. She discovered she loved making films more than being in them after she dropped out of playing Penny Lane in Almost Famous. In 2017, she wrote an NYT op-ed about her experience in Hollywood, including an encounter with Harvey Weinstein.
Likes: Adriana Maggs’ movies, sugar, Dr. David Fisman’s Twitter, Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” video, Wordle. Her P-I-C-K-S below.
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels. Everything by Anne Michaels makes me weep uncontrollably, tears me apart, and rebuilds me. The Winter Vault though, undid me in a thousand places. It’s gigantic.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I bought it for so many people when it came out that the person who owned my neighborhood bookstore would greet me with, “Back for more Kitteridge?” every time I entered for about a year.
Pablo Neruda’s Memoirs. I read it when I was 11, and it was the first adult book I’d ever read. It introduced me to poetry and politics.
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. I love every word but always run into some kind of roadblock where I just can’t keep going. I think of it as some kind of moral failure that I haven’t finished it.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. I am an incredibly slow reader, but the tone and specificity of the world she creates in this book was something I couldn’t leave behind until it was done. Also: All We Saw by Anne Michaels, Fight Night by Miriam Toews, and The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing.
The Right To Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan. One of the most brain-shattering books I’ve ever read. Her thinking is so electrically rigorous and fearless. (I double DARE them to make this into a Netflix show!)
The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. I rediscovered her poetry lately, and I feel like I don’t want to read anything else for a while. She owns desire and submerged things.
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. The last page always leaves me breathless. The intimacy and truth of that final page is so arresting and almost painful to read.
The Iron Bridge by Anton Piatigorsky. A fascinating fictional account of the adolescence of dictators. It is painstakingly researched and so imaginative. He takes on whole histories through a small, specific, human lens.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It reminds me of the wild depths of kindness humans are capable of. It helps me get to sleep when I’m agitated. It is so incredibly gentle, complex, wise and hopeful. It gives me a glimpse into what faith can feel like.
Marcella Hazan’s tomato butter onion sauce from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I discovered it when I was 17. No matter how much I cook, I’ve never found anything that matches the pure magic of what these three simple ingredients do together.
Type Books in Toronto.
