By the Book Read online

  Do you have a favorite character or hero from children’s literature?

  Tintin is my favorite children’s book hero, or maybe it’s Captain Haddock. Tintin was willing to walk around on the bottom of the sea, trusting the two detectives to crank his air pump. Nobody can draw Tibetan mountainsides like Hergé. In the morning, in bed, I sometimes raise my fist and cry, “Action Stations!”—as Haddock did when he was startled awake from a doze.

  What’s your favorite library in the world? Your favorite bookstore?

  I suppose my favorite library is the one I use the most—the Dimond Library of the University of New Hampshire. It’s quiet, full of blond wood, full of neatly shelved books, and in the summer very few people are there in the reading room. I find a table near an electrical outlet and sit and listen to the HVAC system blow through the building—keeping all those books cool, waiting for readers who will want them.

  I’m also partial to the rare books and special collections division of Duke University’s library system, because they were willing to take many tons of rich and rare bound newspapers that my wife and I happened to be in a position to watch over for a while.

  My favorite bookstore is RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth. A woman there, a poet, once suggested that I read Mary Oliver’s collected poems. RiverRun is not as intimidating as a Barnes & Noble, where there are so many books that you think: No more! Stop the presses!

  What’s the one book you wish someone else would write?

  I’d like somebody to write a book that really told the truth about life now. Leo Tolstoy but with drive-through windows.

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

  Claude Debussy was distant and brilliant, a compulsive smoker, a letter-writing genius. I’d like to know what his voice sounded like.

  And among authors you’ve met already, who most impressed you?

  I’m impressed by all of them. They seem to be able to work hard and finish big shiny books and keep going and complain about their hotels and give bouncy interviews and readings and do all the things you’re expected to do.

  We’re in the middle of a presidential administration in which one man in an office with velvet couches goes down a kill list. Our president has become an assassin. This sickens me and makes me want to stop writing altogether.

  Who inspired you to write?

  In fourth grade, I read Robert Sheckley’s Shards of Space. I loved the title, and Sheckley made me want to write short stories about far-off vacuum-packed futures.

  In seventh grade, my English teacher told me to read a poetry collection called Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle. There’s a poem in there about a burro sent by express that ends, “Say who you are and where you’re going.” There’s also a bit by Robert Francis that goes, “Or tell me clouds / Are doing something to the moon / They never did before.” That poem really got to me.

  What do you plan to read next?

  Why bother to plan? I’ll probably reach down tomorrow morning and haul up some old paperback from the floor.

  Nicholson Baker is the author of novels including The Anthologist, Vox, and The Fermata, and works of nonfiction including Human Smoke and Double Fold.

  Emma Thompson

  What book is on your night stand now?

  Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers. Dancing to the Precipice, by Caroline Moorehead. Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel. I’ve always got two or three on the go.

  What was the last truly great book you read?

  Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. It was a marvel.

  Any literary genre you simply can’t be bothered with?

  Horror. I can’t manage it. I become—well—horrified. Self-help books have a similar effect.

  A young, aspiring actress wants your advice on what to read. What books do you suggest?

  A Strange Eventful History, by Michael Holroyd, because it’s so interesting about the discipline of acting. Any biography on Marilyn Monroe, just to convey the pointless destructiveness of fame.

  What’s your favorite Shakespeare?

  King Lear. The most humane portrait of the human condition I know.

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

  The president—any president—could usefully acquaint him/herself with Walt Kelly’s cartoon strip of Pogo Possum living in the swamps of Georgia. Very perspicacious about politics. The prime minister might revisit Geoffrey Willans’s Molesworth, which is so illuminating about the character and habits of little boys. I am not being rude. Both president and prime minister have to deal with a great quantity of childish behavior.

  What was the last book that made you cry?

  I was on holiday years ago with Corelli’s Mandolin. Rendered inconsolable and had to be put to bed for the afternoon.

  The last book that made you laugh?

  In Wells Tower’s first collection of short stories, there is a description of a mouse emerging from behind a fridge eating a coupon which made me laugh for a good ten days.

  The last book that made you furious?

  In Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles, there’s a passage on cruelty which includes a granny, a little boy, and a pair of secateurs. I hurled the book across the room and would have hurled Michel too, had he been in reach.

  Name a book you just couldn’t finish.

  Les Misérables. I agreed with him on all fronts and finally just became sort of exhausted.

  What were your favorite books as a child? Did you have a favorite character or hero?

  All of Joan Aiken, Alan Garner, Leon Garfield, and John Masefield. In particular—The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Aiken), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Garner), The Box of Delights (Masefield), and The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (Garfield).

  As far as heroes—from the age of ten, it was Sherlock Holmes. Before that, probably Asterix.

  What’s the best book your mother ever gave you to read?

  I had my heart broken for the first time when I was sixteen. My mother gave me War and Peace, which, in three volumes, soaked up a lot of the tears.

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

  I wasn’t sure how to answer this one so I discussed it with my twelve-year-old daughter. She suggested Plato. I was impressed. So Plato it is. I think I’d want to ask him how he’d imagine life had changed by 2012.

  Have you ever written to an author? Did he or she write back?

  I wrote to René Goscinny when I was seven or eight, a fan letter about Asterix. He wrote back, saying that he was very proud to have made a little English girl laugh.

  You’re organizing a literary dinner party and inviting three writers. Who’s on the list?

  Sappho, for a bit of ancient gender politics; Aphra Behn for theater gossip; and George Eliot because everyone who knew her said she was fascinating. All women, because they know how to get talking about the nitty-gritty so quickly and are less prone to telling anecdotes. I’d have gone for Jane Austen if I weren’t convinced she’d just have a soft-boiled egg and leave early.

  What’s the best book by an actor you’ve ever read?

  I’ve never read a book by an actor. I was brought up by actors. All my family are actors. I’m an actor. Give me a break.

  Of all the literary adaptations you’ve acted in, which is your favorite?

  I love Remains of the Day—Ruth Prawer Jhabvala adapted Ishiguro’s book so brilliantly that both film and book lose nothing and gain so much. Tony Hopkins is at his best. Selfishly though, Sense and Sensibility must take precedence because there’s nothing to compare to the experience of acting something you’ve spent five years adapting whilst convinced that it will never be made.

  What’s the best movie based on a book you’ve seen recently?

  The Social Network. I admired it in a kind of breathless fashion.

  If you could play any character fro
m literature, who would it be?

  I’ve plumped for Barnaby Rudge since I’ve been in love with him for thirty-five years and he could just as easily be played by a girl as a boy. I’d like to explore my inner idiot.

  P.S. My daughter suggested Peter Rabbit.

  Emma Thompson is an Oscar-winning screenwriter and actress who is also the author of two children’s books.

  * * *

  The Movie of My Book

  First, there’s a primal wow to be had from seeing your characters walking and talking, larger than life, played by faces I’ve known for much of my life. Second, there’s a slower-burning pleasure in merely thinking of your story being out in the world, trickling into minds, wherever there are cinemas. Then, inevitably, the film gets lost in the hurly-burly of life, and I don’t think about it at all, at least until the next interview.

  —David Mitchell

  Who doesn’t love a good movie? For this reason, I would enjoy seeing all of my books adapted to film. There are currently three or four “in production”—not sure what that means but I suspect it means little is happening. Gone are the days when I sold the film rights for a nice check, then sat back and waited eighteen months for the movie. Long gone. Calico Joe is being developed by Chris Columbus, who wrote a great script and plans to direct. It appears to be a fast track and should be fun to watch. My involvement is always limited, as it should be. I know nothing about making movies and have no desire to learn.

  —John Grisham

  Lasse Hallstrom’s The Cider House Rules [is my favorite movie adaptation of my books]. I loved working with Lasse. I wrote the screenplay, but it is Lasse’s film; he is why it works. I also think Tod Williams’s The Door in the Floor is an excellent adaptation of A Widow for One Year; he smartly adapted just the first third of that novel, when the character of Ruth (the eponymous widow) is still a little girl. He did a great job; he was the writer and director, but I enjoyed working with him—just giving him notes on his script, and then notes on the rough cut.

  —John Irving

  In [my] TV career, as well as my day job, I was the union organizer for the last couple of years. It was a time of huge change and upheaval, and management strategy depended on what they thought I was going to think. One time I found (OK, stole) a psychological profile of me they had commissioned. It was absolutely fascinating—someone else’s detailed opinion of me. The movie is like that—someone else’s detailed opinion of Reacher. Someone else’s view. In this case, the someone is a bunch of smart, savvy film people who are also genuine fans of the books. I’m well aware of the alchemy that has to take place, and my observation of the process was obviously intensely personal and self-interested, but also academic in a surprisingly detached way. I found myself agreeing with their choices 99 percent of the time. I would have done it no differently. Cruise instinctively understood Reacher’s vibe and attitude, and his talent gets it all on the screen. When I read that psychological profile all those years ago, I found myself nodding along, ruefully. They nailed it, I thought. Same with the movie. Which is more than just a cute metaphor. There’s always a little autobiography in fictional characters, and actors try to inhabit the character, so to an extent I was watching Cruise play a version of me, and yes, I recognized myself.

  —Lee Child

  Sadly, I feel my books have been better than the movies made from them. I’m a total movieholic, so that state of affairs is more depressing to me than it ought to be. My current paranoid theory is that I’m a victim of “caricature assassination” in certain Hollywood quarters—“Oh, that airport author has another best-selling page-turner.” True story: When Along Came a Spider was in galleys, I got a large offer from a studio. All I had to do was change Alex Cross into a white man.

  —James Patterson

  * * *

  Michael Chabon

  What book is on your night stand now?

  Moonraker, Ian Fleming, 1955.

  What’s the last truly great book you read?

  If I might be permitted to count them as a single overarching work—a great work—the five Patrick Melrose novels by the English writer Edward St. Aubyn. But Moonraker is pretty awesome.

  What was the last book that made you cry?

  That is a very rare occurrence. I remember tearing up the first time I read Nabokov’s description, in Speak, Memory, of his father being tossed on a blanket by cheering muzhiks, with its astonishingly subtle foreshadowing of grief and mourning.

  The last book that made you laugh?

  A more common occurrence, if not exactly frequent. Again, St. Aubyn takes the prize. I don’t think I would be able to define a work of literature as great if it didn’t make me laugh at least a little.

  What were your most cherished books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from children’s literature?

  The D’Aulaires’ Norse Gods and Giants. The Phantom Tollbooth. A Wizard of Earthsea. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Harriet the Spy. John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy. Bradbury’s R Is for Rocket. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I loved trickster heroes … and Holmes.

  What was the last book you enjoyed reading with one of your children?

  We are presently reading a collection of Holmes stories, as a matter of fact. Just finished The Blue Carbuncle. Before that, there was a great Kipling dog story, Garm—A Hostage.

  Any contemporary comics you’d recommend?

  I am a huge, raving fan of writer Matt Fraction. His semi-indie Casanova series is an ongoing masterpiece of twenty-first-century American comics—and his run on Immortal Iron Fist with Ed Brubaker was pure, yummy martial-arts-fantasy deliciousness.

  You’ve worked on the screenplays for both Spider-Man 2 and John Carter. Is there any comic book adaptation that you’d consider a dream project?

  If Marvel Studios ever gets around to doing Jim Starlin’s Warlock, the most rollicking, existential, soul-vampiric, cosmo-lysergic work of funky space opera ever created, I hope they will think of me.

  Do you and your wife (the novelist Ayelet Waldman) like reading the same books? What books has she suggested you read, and vice versa?

  Our reading does not often overlap, mostly because she reads everything (no, I’m serious: she reads everything) and I just keep reading the same books over and over again. But every so often she’ll hand me something she knows I’m going to love. St. Aubyn happened that way. Sebald. Cloud Atlas. I had her reading Elmore Leonard a while back. He’s somebody I keep going back to.

  What are the best books about Judaism and the Jewish-American experience?

  God, I just love A Journey to the End of the Millennium, by A. B. Yehoshua. My favorite novel by an American Jew is probably Humboldt’s Gift.

  You’re organizing a dinner party of writers and can invite three authors, dead or alive. Who’s coming?

  Well, I eat dinner with writers a lot, and—like eating with children—the experience can really go both ways. I’d probably make it potluck, and then invite the best cooks who are (or were) also good company. If you were to assign writers an Invitability Score (prose style × kitchen chops × congeniality at the table), Ben Marcus (The Flame Alphabet) is always going to rate pretty high.

  Do you like reading poetry?

  Yes, I do, but my taste is very old-fashioned (with the exception of my beloved Frank O’Hara, unless he’s now old-fashioned, too): I like Keats, Tennyson, Milton, Shakespeare, Hopkins, all those dudes.

  Mythology has often played a role in your fiction. Is there any myth in particular that’s especially meaningful to you? Or that you just like rereading?

  Hard to pick. Tyr willingly sacrificing his arm in the jaws of Fenris the wolf. Daedalus and Icarus. Jacob wrestling with the angel.

  You can suggest three books to a literary snob who believes genre fiction has no merit. What’s on the list?

  The Turn of the Screw. Heart of Darkness. Blood Meridian.

  Is there any genre you’d be afraid of trying t
o tackle yourself?

  SpongeBob/Patrick fanfic.

  You can bring three books to a desert island. Which do you choose?

  Moby-Dick, Ulysses, and How to Build a Working Airplane Out of Coconuts.

  What do you plan to read next?

  Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel. And Diamonds Are Forever.

  Michael Chabon is the author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and Telegraph Avenue, among other books.

  * * *

  The Ideal Reading Experience

  Rain creates a Pavlovian response in me to relax with a good book. I find that peace at our beach house, and created a cozy nook just for that purpose. I admit that I am driven to work and have to remind myself that reading is not an indulgence or a luxury. I have to improve that aspect of my life.

  —Bryan Cranston

  I probably shouldn’t admit this since I work in the tech industry, but I still prefer reading paper books. I travel with an iPad, but at home I like holding a book open and being able to leaf through it, highlight with a real yellow pen, and dog-ear important pages. After I finish a book, I’ll often look to see how many page corners are turned down as one gauge of how much I liked it. I tried the Kindle app for the iPad on the elliptical, but when you get sweaty, you can’t turn the pages.

  —Sheryl Sandberg

  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.

  —Dan Brown

  I read on my iPad when I travel. I listen to audiobooks in the car. I read books in my bedroom, where I have a comfortable couch, a lamp, and two dogs to keep me warm. I confess that I am a messy, disorganized, and impatient reader: if the book doesn’t grab me in the first forty pages, I abandon it. I have piles of half-read books waiting for me to get acute hepatitis or some other serious condition that would force me to rest so that I could read more.