I was recommended this book by my friend’s mother, Janet, who reads prolifically and said this is one of the best books she’s ever read. It’s also one of the most surreal and bizarre books I’ve ever read about power and power structures.

I read this when I was on a world tour with a production of Cymbeline. I was with two of my best friends from drama school and they introduced me to this book.

Ottessa is one of our newest, most dazzling, daring, and outrageous voices in literature. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is about a woman who works in the art scene in New York, who has a sadomasochistic relationship with her female best friend and the world’s worst psychiatrist.

This is a book of 15 short stories which I read when I was in my early 20s or late teens, and it opened my eyes to erotica and the idea of the female sexual experience, in a literary sense, that was emotional, adventurous, and imaginative.

I read this when I was about 15, and it was a huge landmark in my life. I had never read anything else like it before.