Sarah Dunant shares her favourite books

The author, historian and broadcaster chooses her favourite books. Her latest book is “The Marchesa”, a biographical novel that tells the story of Isabella d’Este, the first female art collector of the Renaissance.

Nuns Behaving Badly

Craig A. Monson, 2010

The erudite musicologist unearthed these delicious stories from 16th and 17th century court records. My favourite concerns a Venetian abbess who sneaks out to the opera with a local priest.

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Dangerous Liaisons

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, 1782

Written in decadent pre-revolutionary France, this erotically charged epistolary novel features a manipulative woman working under the surface of polite society. It occasioned a brilliant stage adaptation and two substantial movies. What writer could ask for more?

How to be a Renaissance Woman

Jill Burke, 2023

Burke delivers an equally entertaining and serious analysis of the business of Renaissance beauty. From early bras and disgusting skin-whitening concoctions to primitive cosmetic surgery, it delivers a warning to the future that whatever the gains of feminism, our obsession with “beauty” remains as defining as who we are.

The Return of Martin Guerre

Natalie Zemon Davis, 1982

Long before photos and fingerprints, “knowing” someone depended largely on memory. This majestically close reading of court records by the great micro historian tells a tale of contested identity in a 16th century French village, and gave the now disgraced Gérard Depardieu one of his most beguiling roles. A quiet masterpiece in print and on film.

Angèlique

Sergeanne Golon, 1957-1985

Everyone has a guilty secret in their literary past. Mine is a set of bodice rippers featuring an irresistible heroine in the court of Louis XIV. As ravished as she was ravishing, Angèlique was no proto feminist. But inside the romantic tosh was a scintillating picture of French history. At 13 I was hooked and never looked back.

Titles available at The Week Bookshop