Maria Semple was born in 1964 and spent her first two years in Spain where her father had gone to write a play, but instead ended up writing the pilot for the TV series Batman. They packed up for Los Angeles, where Maria mainly remembers being driven around the hills in a Mercedes convertible with ...
Lolita
Middlemarch
American Pastoral
Pride and Prejudice
The Corrections
Anna Karenina
House of Mirth
Favorite Authors
Philip Roth
James Salter
Jane Austen
Leo Tolstoy Susan Orlean
Bruce Wagner Merrill Markoe
John Hodgman
Maile Meloy
Barbara Trapido
Scott Spencer
Edith Wharton
What I'm Reading
WHEN WE WERE ROMANS by Matthew Kneale
"A total delight, told from the point of view of a young boy. Funny, surprising and engaging."
THE ART OF FICTION & ON BECOMING A NOVELIST by John Gardner
"High-minded, beautifully written books. There isn't a time when I'm NOT reading one of these."