By the Book (34 page)

—
Rachel Kushner

Jeannette Walls

What's your favorite book of all time?

The End of the Affair
, by Graham Greene. It's such a beautiful story of the triumph of compassion over cynicism.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

I travel a lot, and having a good book on airplanes and in airports transforms tedium into treasured time. The other day, I was stuck at O'Hare for eight hours, but I had a pre-publication copy of a riveting memoir,
A House in the Sky
, by Amanda Lindhout, about being kidnapped in Somalia. A few of the other travelers were having loud hissy fits, complaining that we were being treated horribly, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from shouting out: “We got food and clean water! You all don't know how good we have it!”

Who are your favorite novelists?

Updike, Steinbeck, Balzac, and Mona Simpson.

Who is your favorite overlooked or underappreciated writer?

I feel a little uncomfortable answering this, because the author I'd choose is quite happy with his level of recognition. Who am I to say he should be more famous?

What kinds of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?

I love histories, biographies, and memoirs. I'm also drawn to realistic fiction. I'm not a huge fan of experimental fiction, fantasy, or so-called escapist literature. Reality is just so interesting, why would you want to escape it?

Do you read a lot of memoirs? Any good ones recently, aside from Lindhout's?

I love memoirs. I devour them.
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
, by Neil White;
The Memory Palace
, by Mira Bartok;
Denial
, by Jessica Stern;
A Long Way Gone
, by Ishmael Beah;
An Unquiet Mind
, by Kay Redfield Jamison;
Chanel Bonfire
, by Wendy Lawless;
The Center Cannot Hold
, by Elyn Saks;
After Visiting Friends
, by Michael Hainey;
The Kiss
, by Kathryn Harrison;
My Stroke of Insight
, by Jill Bolte Taylor;
Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution
, edited by Wally Lamb. That's just a few. There are so many more.

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

My vast collection of books on raising chickens. There's more to it than you'd think.

Do you ever read self-help? Anything you recommend?

The best self-help books, in my opinion, are memoirs. If people are honest about what happened to them, those stories are astonishing gifts to those of us grappling with—or just trying to understand—similar situations. I give away my memoirs like aspirins to friends who are going through tough times. Sometimes, it's easier to have perspective on someone else's life than your own.

What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

Peter the Great
, by Robert Massie. It kicked off my obsession with Russian history.

What book has had the greatest impact on you?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
. I read it when I was ten years old and an outcast. Finding a “friend” like little Francie Nolan, who also was not very popular but also loved reading and her no-'count drunken dad, was a real revelation. I think it was the first time I experienced the incredible power of books.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

President Obama is a lot smarter than I am. I'm trying to keep up with his reading list.

Did you grow up with a lot of books? What are your memories of being read to as a child?

I was surrounded by books. There were times when art supplies and books were practically the only things in our house! We almost never had a television, but we always made regular pilgrimages to the library and came home with pillowcases filled with books. Sometimes, we even returned those books. I remember once going to a neighbor's house and they had a TV tuned to a show called
Lost in Space
. I thought it was wondrous. I watched it and then ran home as fast as I could to tell my mother all about it, but she stopped me soon after I started, saying that the show was simple-minded claptrap. If I was really interested in science fiction, she said, she had a treat for me. Then she pulled out a collection of Ray Bradbury short stories and started reading them. Even then, I had to admit that the writing was actually superior to the
Lost in Space
episode I'd just seen, but at the time I didn't realize how lucky I was.

Do you have a favorite childhood literary character or hero?

Horton. He's the one who heard a Who and hatched an egg. I was a big Dr. Seuss fan when I was very young—I had
The Sneetches
and
Horton Hatches the Egg
memorized before I started kindergarten, and much to the dismay of my friends, I can still recite big chunks of them.

What books are on your coffee table?

Remarkable Trees of Virginia
,
The Smithsonian Book of Books
, and
Stanford White's New York
.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn't? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

Finnegans Wake
. Can't finish it. Just can't. It was required reading in one of my college classes, and I'm a pretty good crammer, so I'd planned on pulling an all-nighter, but I couldn't get past page twenty. I attributed it to lack of sleep and have tried several times since then—but fully awake, I couldn't get past page ten. If that makes me lowbrow, so be it.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

Shakespeare, whoever he really was. My dad was among the conspiracy theorists who think that the guy from Stratford-on-Avon wasn't really the Bard. I've got a lot I'd like to ask this fellow.

If you could meet any character from literature, who would it be?

Tom Joad. I've had a schoolgirl crush on him since I read
The Grapes of Wrath
when I was eleven. (In my mind, he doesn't look a thing like Henry Fonda.)

What do you plan to read next?

Her
, by Christa Parravani, and
Wave
, by Sonali Deraniyagala.

Jeannette Walls
is the author of books including
The Glass Castle
,
The Silver Star
, and
Half Broke Horses
.

 

On Self-Help (Continued)

I don't read much self-help—that comes from talking to people or taking a hot bath. I do read historically oriented books about religion and faith like Edith Hamilton's
Witness to the Truth
, which I found in our apartment and had belonged to my mother; or Garry Wills's
What the Gospels Meant
, which I bought in an airport. I really enjoyed
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
, by Adam Nicolson, and
The Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century
, which my daughter brought home from college.

—
Caroline Kennedy

I'm fascinated by books about time management and decluttering, which is akin to a person who weighs seven hundred pounds being fascinated by diet books. But the book I've truly been helped the most by is actually a parenting book called
Sleeping Through the Night: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep
. It's by Jodi Mindell, a sleep researcher and psychology professor who's also a mom, and I swear by this book. It's clear, realistic, and neither excessively harsh nor ineffectively gentle.

—
Curtis Sittenfeld

My self-help books are generally restricted to cars. I started with John Muir's
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive
and now have the service manuals to most of the cars I've owned: 240 Volvo, Honda, Ford, etc. Jane Bryant Quinn's
Making the Most of Your Money
works for me, though she's not fond of cars. Several books on jazz arranging and technique, most notably Oliver Nelson's
Patterns for Improvisation
.

—
James McBride

I'm never clear on how “self-help” differs from “help.” Books help; they've helped me to understand love, taught me empathy, and given me courage. Even when they merely entertain, they help. For a delicious analysis of the extremely unhelpful self-help industry, see Jessica Lamb-Shapiro's forthcoming
Promise Land
.

—
Andrew Solomon

A self-help book? Isn't that an oxymoron?

—
Sting

Dan Brown

What's your favorite book of all time?

We did not have a television while I was growing up, and so I read voraciously. My earliest memory of being utterly transfixed by a book was Madeleine L'Engle's
A Wrinkle in Time
. Halfway through the book, I remember my mom telling me it was time for bed and not being able to sleep because I was so deeply concerned for the safety of the characters. The next day, when I finished the book, I remember crying with relief that everything had worked out. The emotion startled me—in particular the depth of connection I felt toward these imaginary characters. It was in that moment that I became aware of the magic of storytelling and the power of the printed word.

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

The most pleasurable reading experience I've had recently was just last week—jogging on the beach with an audiobook of Malcolm Gladwell's
What the Dog Saw
. I was so engrossed in his essay “The Ketchup Conundrum” that I ran an extra mile just to find out how it ended.

Who are your favorite novelists?

John Steinbeck for his vivid sense of place. Robert Ludlum for the complexity of his plotting. And J. K. Rowling for inspiring so many young people to be passionate about reading.

What kinds of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?

I read nonfiction almost exclusively—both for research and also for pleasure. When I read fiction, it's almost always in the thriller genre, and it needs to rivet me in the opening few chapters. I don't read horror, ever. When I was fifteen, I made the mistake of reading part of
The Exorcist
. It was the first and last horror book I've ever opened.

What makes for a good thriller?

For me, a good thriller must teach me something about the real world. Thrillers like
Coma
,
The Hunt for Red October
, and
The Firm
all captivated me by providing glimpses into realms about which I knew very little—medical science, submarine technology, and the law. To my taste, a great thriller must also contain at its core a thought-provoking ethical debate or moral dilemma. Some of my favorites through the years have been
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
, by H. F. Saint;
Contact
, by Carl Sagan; and also the classic
Dracula
, by Bram Stoker, which, while skirting the edges of horror, was such a lesson in creating suspense that I couldn't put it down.

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

I usually write about historical figures and classical art, so you might be surprised to find a host of modern biographies (Steve Jobs, Andre Agassi, Clive Davis), as well as a dozen books on modern art, especially the works of M. C. Escher.

Do you ever read self-help? Anything you recommend?