What books are on your nightstand?
My list of books to read next are The Power by Naomi Alderman, Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.
What was the last truly great book you read?
Probably A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles about a count in 1920s Russia who’s sentenced to house arrest at a grand hotel across from the Kremlin. While some of the most tumultuous decades of Russia accelerate outside of his doors, he remains removed from the action. It completely transports you to another place and time.
What’s your favorite thing to read? And what do you avoid reading?
I love a good thriller with a plot. Because I write thrillers mostly, I can see twists and turns coming a mile away so if an author is able to really surprise me, I’m hooked. I don’t avoid any genres. I dislike overrated books. Some novels get anointed and they just don’t deserve the attention. Like this book The Wife Between Us, which was cheesy, unbelievable, and the twists were so obvious. Skip that one.
What book would we be surprised to find on your shelf?
I love great sci-fi as well. I don’t read it too often but when it’s done right and the author really takes the time to build a new world, it’s very satisfying. I’ve never read Dune, but it’s been waiting on my shelf for a long time.
Are you a rereader? What kinds of books do you find yourself returning to time and time again?
I reread only my favorite books and usually it’s the classics. Catcher in the Rye I read when I was twelve and go back every few years. As you get older, Holden becomes whinier, but it’s still great. Confederacy of Dunces, The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, A Moveable Feast, East of Eden, Brave New World, The Sheltering Sky, The Good Soldier and 1984 I’ve reread many times.
What’s the last book that made you laugh?
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. It’s about a twenty-something woman who just want to sleep for a year. Some readers might only take away the depressing parts of it, but the nameless narrator is hilarious in her awfulness. It reminded be a lot of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. People assume it’s sad because of the author’s background, but actually it’s satirical.
What’s the last book that made you cry?
The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son walking through a burned America. Besides it being sparse but beautifully written, it captures the need to preserve humanity while watching it be stripped away.
What’s the last book that made you furious?
The Girl on the Train got so much hype but was pretty average with an annoying narrator and all of its twists were easy to spot. Great cover though. Also, I’m over reading books about unreliable narrators because of their drinking. It gets boring.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books because I was a writer as a child and I liked the power of having control of the story. I also read a lot of Encyclopedia Brown and Henry and Ribsy and the Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary. I also loved the Bunnicula books by James Howe and Deborah Howe
Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?
Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite books and I like that Heathcliff is both the hero and the villain. I love a good villain. In my novel The Mentor, the main character is a villain. You hate him for what he does but hopefully understand him a little by the end. The villain is always more interesting than the hero anyway.
You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?
I mentioned Cormac McCarthy before so he’d definitely be invited. Maybe I’d add Jay McInerney and Donna Tartt, since they came of age around the same time in the 1980s and were some of the first adult books I read as a teenager like Bright Lights, Big City and The Secret History. Also, Jay McInerney knows a lot about wine so he’d help with some good pairings.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
F. Scott Fitzgerald is my favorite novelist. I read The Great Gatsby in high school and knew I wanted to become a writer. But since he never really achieved fame and critical success in his lifetime, I’d want to know if he ever thought he’d be as popular as he became. And also, how to construct such amazing sentences.
Whom would you choose to write your life story?
Hmmm, that’s a good one. Maybe I’d do it myself when I’m eighty. No one knows it better than me.
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