What is Rachel Kadish reading?

Rachel Kadish, author of the novels From a Sealed Room and Tolstoy Lied: a Love Story, answered my query about her current reading with mention of just a a few of the books she's into.

Read her report at Writers Read.

She writes, "I'm researching a new novel, and have been reading a lot of non-fiction both directly and indirectly related to the time period I want to write about." One of the books she mentions: "Megan Marshall's The Peabody Sisters, which is a terrific read and fascinating history."

Here's the publisher's description of The Peabody Sisters:

Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody were in many ways our American Brontes. The story of these remarkable sisters -- and their central role in shaping the thinking of their day -- has never before been fully told. Twenty years in the making, Megan Marshall's monumental biograpy brings the era of creative ferment known as American Romanticism to new life. Elizabeth, the oldest sister, was a mind-on-fire thinker. A powerful influence on the great writers of the era -- Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau among them -- she also published some of their earliest works. It was Elizabeth who prodded these newly minted Transcendentalists away from Emerson's individualism and toward a greater connection to others. Mary was a determined and passionate reformer who finally found her soul mate in the great educator Horace Mann. The frail Sophia was a painter who won the admiration of the preeminent society artists of the day. She married Nathaniel Hawthorne -- but not before Hawthorne threw the delicate dynamics among the sisters into disarray. Marshall focuses on the moment when the Peabody sisters made their indelible mark on history. Her unprecedented research into these lives uncovered thousands of letters never read before as well as other previously unmined original sources. The Peabody Sisters casts new light on a legendary American era. Its publication is destined to become an event in American biography.

Visit Rachel Kadish's official website.

Read the Page 69 Test: Tolstoy Lied.

--Marshal Zeringue