Books: Claire Messud

After listing four male authors, Claire Messud ("The Emperor's Children"), racked her brain for a fifth writer. "It should go to a woman," she finally decided. Here's whom she picked.

"Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy. Every detail is incredibly telling and reveals a huge amount, but there's a wonderful simplicity to Tolstoy's fiction.

"The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James. It shows that moments of revelation emerge out of the murkiness that is life.

"Zeno's Conscience" by Italo Svevo. There's a terribly unreliable narrator, but in the end, something true comes out of it; we're all too busy interpreting.

"A House for Mr. Biswas" by V. S. Naipaul. It exposes people's vulnerability in a way at once funny and painful.

"The Complete Poems" by Elizabeth Bishop. It's rewarding on many levels, and the closer you look, the more rewarding it is. But never showy.

An important book that you haven't read: "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes. It's slightly bizarre to make references without knowing what you're talking about. "Tilting at windmills"?

A classic that, upon rereading, disappointed: "Two Serious Ladies" by Jane Bowles. It breaks my heart. I wrote my college thesis on this book. I went back to re-read it, and it no longer spoke of hidden depth. It was mannered, and I couldn't find the significance anymore.