Simple Passion, Annie Ernaux, tr. Tanya Leslie

I fully expected to dislike this, despite having admired A Woman’s Story, and the opening did make me roll me eyes a bit. Woman obsessed with man, can’t even function in her day-to-day life because she’s so obsessed with him. Yawn. I bemusedly thought: what a torment it would probably be to date Annie Ernaux! But she hooked me with a detail about how she would write before and after his arrival; that quick glimpse into process that I find absolutely fascinating (she has some asides like this in A Woman’s Story as well). And then, almost in spite of myself, I started getting interested in this affair, and this man, and what she had to say about it. And once she had me, she really had me, and I became absolutely riveted by her meditations on the nature of passion. It’s really a phenomenal book (it helps that you can read it in an hour, comfortably sandwiched between your sleeping family members on a quiet morning).