Shelf Life: Jojo Moyes

February 7, 2023

3 Views 0

SaveSavedRemoved 0

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, by 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 suggestion from the writers in our series, who, such as you (because you’re here), love books. Perhaps one in all their favorite titles will turn into one in all yours, too.

A pair of Louboutins changes the course of two women’s lives in Jojo Moyes’s seventeenth novel, Someone Else’s Shoes (Pamela Dorman Books; audiobook narrated by Daisy Ridley), though the style item the international bestselling writer could also be higher known for is a pair of bumblebee-striped tights. They figure in Moyes’s 2012 hit Me Before You, which she adapted for the large screen starring Emilia Clarke that took in greater than $200 million on the box office. Her books have sold greater than 40 million copies, and two others were made or shall be made into movies including The Last Letter from Your Lover and The Giver of Stars. She’s also at work on a television comedy pilot.

Though the London-based Moyes (given name Pauline Sara Jo, nickname from the Beatles’s “Get Back”) desired to be a blacksmith and acquired her first horse at 14 with money earned working stables, she ended up in journalism, including on the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and The Independent in London.

She has two Bosnian rescue dogs named Sisu and Pablo, a cat, Eric, and horses Joey, Mabel, Fred, and Strider; began an internet antiques auction habit during lockdown collecting portraits of “Women Who Have Had Enough of Your Shit”; keeps bees; runs, boxes, and scuba dives; and may tell in five minutes whether a movie is directed by a person or woman.

Likes: Molecules and Chanel perfumes, leather jeans, Frenchie Covent Garden restaurant, her massage chair, online Scrabble. Dislikes: Utility corporations. Good at: Maintaining friendships. Bad at: DMs. Slide into her book recs below.

The book that:

…helped me through a breakup:

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. I really helpful this tentatively to a Hollywood actress and she or he said, “Oh honey, I used to be given 28 copies of this after I got divorced.”

…made me miss a train stop:

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. It was the ultimate chapter, and I remember sobbing so hard that half the train carriage was watching.

…made me weep uncontrollably:

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I had not expected to be moved by a book about computer game creation.

…I like to recommend over and once again:

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. It was fascinating pressing it on friends and seeing in the event that they loved or hated it.

…shaped my worldview:

National Velvet by Enid Bagnold. It made me consider that barely weedy little girls can achieve anything given enough willpower.

…I swear I’ll finish at some point:

Ulysses by James Joyce. I’m undecided I’ll though.

…I read in a single sitting, it was that good:

Lisa Jewell’s The Family Stays. I read it by a pool one sunny day, and after I closed it at the top it was like having had a whole vacation.

…currently sits on my nightstand:

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson. I don’t think there’s a book of hers I haven’t enjoyed.

…I’d pass on to my kid:

The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford. But none of my kids liked my favorite childhood books. It was crushing.

…made me laugh out loud:

Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny. The laughter was occasionally nervous because I felt the heroine had someway scooped the thoughts and behavior out of my very own head.

…I’d like changed into a television show:

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. A rom-com with Mennonites – who could resist that?

…I first bought:

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. I feel 85 per cent of my book selections were horse-related.

…I last bought:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief. Her perception and clarity of thought is extraordinary.

…I consider literary comfort food:

Anything by Liane Moriarty. I sit back and revel in the ride and know I’m going to be entertained.

…has one of the best opening line:

“Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.” Anita Brookner, A Start in Life.

…broke my heart:

A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney. Only to be read in case you are feeling robust.

…has a sex scene that can make you blush:

Kate Davies – In On the Deep End. So filthy that I discovered myself surreptitiously checking no person could see what I used to be reading on public transport.