French-Romanian actress and CHANEL House ambassador Anamaria Vartolomei is someone whose personal library shelves we'd love to raid. From French classics like Baudelaire to contemporaries like Ernaux, her taste is not limited to genre, time period or geography.
In the latest episode of CHANEL's Les Rendez-vous litéraires rue Cambon, we get to peek inside the library with Vartolomei, where she shares her perspectives on reading, the books that shaped her and the authors she counts among her favourites. The series, under the creative direction of Virginie Viard, has been spotlighting the reading habits of some of the House's most cherished ambassadors and friends. From Kristen Stewart to Tilda Swinton and recently, Phoebe Tonkin, Vartolomei is just the latest to join the ranks and sit down for a literary rendez-vous.
In the episode, released on Chanel's website, Vartolomei discusses how she considers herself an 'undecided reader', talks us through the first book that shocked and affected her – Boris Vian's I Spit on Your Graves – other French favourites like Leïla Slimani and Annie Ernaux, and her favourite fictional heroines.
Vartolomei also gives special mention to Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, for its self-reflective properties, and its invitation to embrace solitude. She's an avid reader of bell hooks, stating that "Reading political writing is important to me", and laments that she wishes she could have written Dostoyevsky's White Nights, which she calls "one of the most devastating love stories".
Anamaria Vartolomei's book list
Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen
Charles Baudelaire, Be Drunk
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Boris Vian, I Spit on Your Graves
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Fiodor Dostoïevski, White Nights
Leïla Slimani, The Scent of Flowers at Night
bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House
Vanessa Schneider, My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir
Annie Ernaux, Happening
Léon Tolstoï, Anna Karenina
Read Anamaria Vartolomei's full 'In the Library' feature on Chanel's website.
