madame deffand and the idiots (marias, tr. margaret jill costa)

Marias’s brief account of the lives of five writers (Madame de Deffand, Nabakov, Djuna Barnes, and  Emily Bronte) is a brilliant piece of economic writing, which benefits from the sympathy Marias has for the travails of the process of composition, be that letter-writing or novel writing. It’s a book that can be read in its entirety on a flight, in between multiple films, no sleep and terrible food, and still seem inordinately enjoyable and there’s really no greater compliment that can be paid to any book than that. It will only take you an hour, but it might be the best hour you’ll ever spend doing anything at all ever.