Valerie Bertinelli shares the six books that changed her life

Valerie Bertinelli says picking just six books was "such a challenge." The One Day at a Time star, who is also a bestselling author, includes her latest memoir, Getting Naked, on the list — calling it the favorite she has written and saying that writing it helped her get to where she is today.

She opens with Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss, calling it timely and urging every parent to read it to their child, even adding, "in a world full of Yertles, be a Mac." Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth made the cut too — an epic set in 12th-century England about building a Gothic cathedral, complete with forbidden love and a clash of good and evil that she never wanted to end.

Bertinelli names Geraldine Brooks twice: Horse, a historical novel about the provenance of a painting of a legendary racehorse that weaves three time periods together, and Memorial Days, written while Brooks was enduring a devastating loss, a book about moving through life and work while processing immense grief.

England

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