When she’s not talking politics or shooting campaigns, you’ll find Matilda Dods recommending the best latest reads, when at least five recommendations will pour into our inbox as fast as we can fire the question off. From reading four books at once to thinking about characters three years on, model Matilda Dods shares her literary favourites for RUSSH Book Club.
I am currently reading … The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner. I feel like this book should be compulsory reading for all men. Lerner creates such a tender and beautiful novel around masculinity and identity.
My favourite book …
Actually an impossible question, but for the last three years I’ve been saying A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, the characters are so heartbreakingly memorable I still catch myself thinking about them, wondering where they are, what they are doing now…
My actual favourite book …
The book I have read the most times is probably The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. It was always the book that I picked up over and over again when I was in high school. After having read it a few times it became a kind of security blanket, something I could always pick up and read when I was feeling overwhelmed.
The book that changed my life is …
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. I only recently read this book, I read it twice in one week it moved me so much. It is one of the most searingly poignant portraits of vulnerability, motherhood and queerness that I have ever had the privilege of reading.
The character I most identify with is …
Hermione Granger because I am a know it all.
The last book I read …
I don’t really read books one at a time, I will often read three or four smaller books over the course of one longer one. Th last few I’ve read have been Normal People by Sally Rooney, which I read in one afternoon, The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch, and The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.
The book I would give as a gift is …
The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. The most addictive series I have ever read. Perfect Christmas gift for summer reading and gives me another opportunity to get to sit around talking about Ferrante’s captivating stories.
My favourite writer is …
Toni Morrison because … there is a quote from Sixo, in Beloved where he says ‘she is a friend of my mind. She gather me man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.’ I’ve come to feel like reading Morrison does the same thing for the reader.
My childhood favourite book …
The Harry Potter Series. When I first started them, I couldn’t read so my parents read me the first few books out loud. When the last book was published I was about 12, and I read it out loud to my parents because we’d all fallen in love with the story together we thought that we had to finish it together.
The book everyone should read at least once is …
Any book. Just read widely, and with a deep curiosity, the right books will find you.
