Alina Bronsky on Scarlett O'Hara in the USSR

"I was about ten years old when Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind was translated in the Soviet Union for the first time. To say it was a sensation is an understatement. There were only a few copies available, and they were being passed along to friends and to friends of friends. And we were very lucky—I don't remember how it happened, but my mother managed to buy one of these rare copies. I instantly fell in love with the book, and although the distance between the setting of this saga and the life of a ten-years-old Soviet girl could not have been greater, I felt like I could see everything with my own eyes. It was the first time I had met such a contradictory and fascinating heroine as Scarlett O'Hara, and it was also the first time I understood that no matter where a good book is set, it's always about people."

Alina Bronsky's debut novel Broken Glass Park is available now.

Photo: Courtesy of Europa Editions

Ladies Who Lunch: A Sit Down with Gail Caldwell and Anne Fortier

It used to be, in the often sighed-about heyday of publishing, that group luncheons between critics and book publishers were a regular occurrence. But then the economy bottomed out, and just when we needed midday drinks the most, there were none. So it was a rare pleasure when Random House and Ballantine Books hosted a sit down lunch at Columbus Circle's A Voce recently, honoring two of their leading ladies for the fall season—Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic Gail Caldwell and Danish author (making her English-language debut) Anne Fortier.

Robin Black on Unsentimental Love

"Britannia Mews, by Margery Sharp, is an underrated novel by an underrated author. It’s the story of a woman who throws over her rather cushy life as a daughter of privilege to marry an artist who turns out to be quite unlike her romantic vision of him. The narrative doesn't shy away from ugly emotions and ugly truths. People make fools of themselves, they grow angry, they hate one another—and find unlikely intimacies in that. There's no patience in the book for sugar coating anything. I'm sure that was shocking to me when I first read it. But maybe what moved me most was the sense of having found a kindred spirit. I felt immediately at home in Sharp's unsentimental understanding of what makes people tick. I was around thirteen when my mother gave it to me with the very clear message that it was an important book to her, which could be a dangerous thing to do. But it became a real bond between us, a kind of reference point that's found its way into our conversations for thirty-five years now."

Robin Black's debut collection of short stories If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This is out now.

Photo: Marion Ettlinger

Elizabeth Marvel, Actress

What brings you to St. Mark’s Bookshop? I’m in Suzan-Lori Parks’ new play The Book of Grace at The Public. I’m between shows right now, and I often like to walk over to St. Marks to browse the books. And I’m traveling soon, so I need to find some books for the flight.

Where are you traveling? I’m flying to Austin to do the Coen brothers’ new movie, True Grit. I have a toddler, and I love to read, so flying is a treat because it means uninterrupted time to read.

What are you buying for the flight? Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet. I haven’t read him in a while, and I was just in the mood for…him. He has such a unique voice in the world, and he takes what most people see as discarded, hideous and perverse and makes it something poetic and beautiful.

What drew you to him the first time around? It was because I saw a theater piece of “Prison of Love” that Mabou Mines did—JoAnne Akalaitis directed it and Philip Glass did the music. I saw this piece, and it blew me away, so I started voraciously reading Genet.

Are there any other books you keep going back to? I re-read Middlemarch every five years just because it’s a pleasure. And I read a lot of contemporary American poetry, like Laurie Sheck, Mark Strand and Jack Gilbert, who’s probably my favorite poet right now.

Do you ever read books to inspire you for a role? Oh sure. When I played Regan in King Lear, I read Patty Hearst’s biography and the biography of Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect. For some reason, those two greatly influenced what I made—so it’s hard to explain my process!

Photo: Angela Bliumis

Aryn Kyle on Obsessive Love (The Good Kind)

"When I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood I was just emerging from the stage in life when most of my books were about girls who were babysitters, or identical twins, or dying of anorexia. This was something completely different: While I was reading, I felt physically excited—my heart raced. There was an edge to the writing, an honesty I hadn't yet experienced in books, maybe anywhere. It frightened me. It made me feel awake. During the time it took me to finish reading the novel, I couldn’t stand for it to be out of my sight. If I couldn’t actually be reading it, I wanted to be able to see it, and preferably touch it. In class, I held the book on my lap underneath my desk. Obsessive? For sure. But love’s like that."

Aryn Kyle’s latest book of short stories, Boys and Girls Like You and Me, is out now.

Photo: Courtesy of Simon & Schuster

Scrap Book: Wisdom from Whitney Port, Book Marc by Marc Jacobs and the Return of Batwoman

Whitney Port, star of MTV's The City, will be writing an advice book due out in 2011 called True Whit, for It Books. Port says she decided to write the book for young women who want to "start out in style"—with advice on how to get rid of puffy eyes and dress for a date—because "being a twenty-something can be a difficult phase." Especially when you're blonde, leggy, and SoCal gorgeous. And at only 25, Port, ever the entrepreneur, looks like she's leaving plenty of room for a follow-up. [People]

Last week, Racked learned that Marc Jacobs will be expanding his West Village empire with a sixth store: this time a bookstore cleverly named—wait for it—Book Marc. It's been years since Jacobs began amassing real estate in the neighborhood, trailblazing a high end retail movement just like the one he started on Melrose Place. Book Marc will be taking over the space vacated by Biography Books, an over 20-year veteran of the area that recently relocated to 266 Bleeker, near 7th Ave, and changed its name to BookBook. After bringing some modern glam to the neighborhood that was once home to Theodore Dreiser, Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer, it looks like Jacobs wants to preserve some of its literary flare too. Here's hoping he puts the same stylish sparkle into books that he put into the once bookish cardigan. [Racked]

DC Comics will be giving Batwoman her own comic series later this year. The character first appeared in a 1956 issue of Detective Comics as Kathy Kane (her secret identity has since been renamed Kate Kane). She was introduced as Batman's love interest as part of DC's response to Fredric Werthan's anti-comic book tome Seduction of the Innocent, where he claimed that Batman and Robin were gay lovers. In an appropriate twist, Kane was reintroduced in the 2006 limited series 52, and then again to Detective Comics, as a lesbian—making her new Batwoman series the first major comic publication with a gay woman in the title role. The Detective arch, which explored Kane's discharge from the military for being gay, won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book, and we think the Dark Dame can expect many more to come. [NY Times]

Photo: Getty

Books on Film: A Life in Pictures

A 1967 Polaroid Land Camera sits atop a stack of photo books.

From top to bottom: Le Corbusier and the Maison Jaoul, about modernist architect Le Corbusier's rare foray into rustic weekend homes. Annie Leibovitz at Work, a book of the famous photographer's photos and the stories behind them. Glen Luchford, by the eponymous British fashion photographer. Patrick Demarchelier: Photographs, an eclectic book of portraits. MaRIO DE JANEIRO Testino, a tantalizing photo journal of Brazilian life through Testino's lens. Photograph by Yoni Goldberg

Have a cool photography that conveys something about the love of reading? Send your submissions to ELLELitLife@gmail.com

Marissa Owsley, Fourth Grade Teacher

Wow, that’s a huge book. What is it? Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It follows the building of a cathedral in England during the 1100’s, and it spans many years. It’s all about a noblewoman, the peasant boy that falls in love with her, and a really jerky nobleman—the kind that’s into raping and pillaging. It sounds clichéd, but it’s amazing.

How did you come across it? I was sitting around the Christmas table with my two aunts and my mother. They said they loved it, so I picked it up.

Be honest, did they get it from Oprah’s Book Club? I would not be surprised. But some of the guys I know read Ken Follett and really like his books too.

That makes sense. He’s actually known for his thrillers. Yeah, this was a romance, but it was also very, uh, violent.

So do you have any reading spots other than Washington Square Park? Yeah, Central Park and the High Line. And I read on the subway to and from work every day. I teach fourth grade in the Bronx, and it’s an hour commute, so I fly through books.

Do you ever bring what you read into the classroom? Yeah, there’s a young adult version of Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson, that my co-teacher and I read to our kids. Mortenson went to climb mountains in Pakistan and stayed to build schools there. Now he has a project called Pennies for Peace that raises money for schools in the area, and we started raising money in the classroom for them. The young adult version is written in simpler language that the kids can understand, but it’s the exact same story, which is cool.

Photo: Angela Bliumis