“You seem like a person who reads a lot,” my supervisor said the first day. While working on the latter, I interned for a movie producer. Over the next decade, I went back and forth between books and movies: an undergrad degree in literature, followed by a master’s in cinema studies. Instead I picked up Pride and Prejudice, because I wanted to know in excruciating detail what Lizzie and Darcy were thinking during the romantic parts. I could easily have gotten into Stephen King, or any other writer from the current century. This was 1980s northern California very “Stranger Things,” down to the fact that we lived next door to a mental hospital. The summer before fifth grade, my mother would stand on the front porch and yell, “Ma-a-a-a-n-dy.” That was my cue to run home from playing in the clearing at the end of the street so we could watch Masterpiece Theatre re-runs together. In my case, however, the path to Brit Lit started someplace unexpected: in front of the TV. One thing I have in common with my main character, Mary Porter-Malcolm, is that both of us got hooked on the classics at a young age. Amanda Sellet’s debut novel, By the Book: A Novel of Prose and Cons, releases out into the world on Tuesday, May 12th! To celebrate, I’m excited to host Amanda today as she talks about the TV and movie adaptations that inspired her love of classics and British Literature.
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