By the Book (10 page)

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

George Orwell. I would start by asking about the mustache.

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

Christopher Hitchens was the most erudite and eloquent human I've ever met. He could speak on any topic, any hour of the day or night, at length, and captivate anyone in the room. I didn't agree with all of his politics, but he was always an extremely warm and generous man.

Is there a writer you consider to be a mentor or model in some way?

William T. Vollmann's range inspires me—and his empathy and curiosity. He gives absolutely everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I try to follow his lead on that.

Where do you get your books? Are you a downloader, online shopper, borrower, used-bookstore browser?

I'm a paper-only reader, and I get most of my books at the independent bookstores in the Bay Area. I like used books, too, so I raid the big used-book sales the libraries around here put on. That's where you can fill any holes in your collection for, say, a buck a book. Once I got a full Balzac set for twenty dollars. Not bad.

What do you plan to read next?

A few years ago a poet named Arif Gamal gave me his book,
Morning in Serra Mattu: A Nubian Ode
, and after reading and loving the first few pages, I lost it. I found it the other day while cleaning my office, and now am about halfway through it. It's an epic poem about growing up in northern Sudan, and it's really beautiful, unlike anything I can remember. I'm so glad I found it again. Feels like some kind of reunion.

Dave Eggers
is the author of
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
,
How We Are Hungry
,
You Shall Know Our Velocity
,
What Is the What
,
Zeitoun
, and
A Hologram for the King
, among other books
.

 

My Library

At home we have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of beautiful leather-bound editions of classic literature that my husband has bought for years. They are mostly decoration: they look smart. Personally, I have my own bookshelves for books in Spanish that I keep because they are hard to get in the United States. All the rest comes and goes. I don't collect anything, not even good novels. Once a year I gather all the books I have read already or will not read ever (several boxes) and give them away. I don't miss them, because if needed I can buy them again.

—
Isabel Allende

My husband is a streamliner; I am a pack rat. I've even hung on to all my textbooks from college—you know, just in case I have the sudden urge to read Schopenhauer's
The World as Will and Representation
.

—
Sheryl Sandberg

We had it organized by topic for nonfiction and alphabetically by author for fiction and poetry—but then the ceiling leaked and we had to paint the rooms and now it's every book for itself.

—
Caroline Kennedy

Reference books in the dining room, older books needing and deserving protection in bookcases in the living room, theology and philosophy on shelves in the bedroom, classical and ancient Near Eastern literature in the study, modern history and Americana in the room that has only bookshelves in it, unclassifiable books in stacks on the stairs.

—
Marilynne Robinson

I am proud to say that I give away or sell at little to no profit almost all of my books. I have mentioned a few favorites earlier, but as a rule I don't believe in keeping books. After I have read, reread, and reread a book it seems sinful to keep such a reservoir of fun and knowledge fallow on a shelf. Books are meant to be read, and if I'm not reading them then someone else should get the opportunity.

—
Walter Mosley

Sylvia Nasar

What book is on your night stand now?

Two biographies of Frances Trollope, Anthony Trollope's mother; an Elizabeth Gaskell novel; and E. M. Delafield's
Diary of a Provincial Lady
. Some Cold War history.

When and where do you like to read?

In bed and in the car. I read page turners in bed and listen to more challenging books in the car.

What was the last truly great book you read? Do you remember the last time you said to someone, “You absolutely must read this book”?

The Widow Barnaby
, by Frances Trollope, a deliciously witty satire about a vulgar, heartless, outrageously flirtatious widow of a village pharmacist who poses as a lady of great fortune. Beribboned and bedizened, Martha Barnaby drags her beautiful but penniless niece from watering hole to watering hole in her hunt for a rich second husband. The angelic Agnes dutifully complies when forced to wear the same hideous black gown every day for months, while acting as her aunt's personal maid. And I loved
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
, by Helen Simonson, about two aging lovers whom children and relatives try to boss around.

Do you consider yourself a fiction or a nonfiction person? What's your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?

Before I wrote
A Beautiful Mind
, I never read anything but novels and plays for pleasure. For the next fifteen years I've mostly read history, biography, and economics. But when I was finishing
Grand Pursuit
I got into novels again.

What book had the greatest impact on you? What book made you want to write?

I haven't thought about O. Henry in years, but I suppose his stories had a great influence on me. Also, Agatha Christie. Until I actually did it, I never had the idea of writing a book. I was particularly inspired by
Nora
, by Brenda Maddox, the biography of James Joyce's wife, and
The Man Who Knew Infinity
, about Ramanujan, the Indian mathematical genius, by Robert Kanigel.

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

Grand Pursuit
, of course.

What are your reading habits? Paper or electronic? Do you take notes? Do you snack while you read?

I love buying (cheap) first editions of books I use for research. I didn't see the point of a Kindle until my friend Trish Evans pointed out that I could carry the collected works of every nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century writer with me. Being able to travel with an entire library is amazing.

Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? One that teaches you something or one that distracts you?

I like books that make me do both, which is one reason I adore Victorian fiction. All English novelists, it seems, have a deliciously wicked sense of humor, including Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë. I do also like novelists like Tolstoy who combine strong plots with philosophical or political musings.

What were your favorite books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from one of those books? Is there one book you wish all children would read?

Grimms' fairy tales. My favorite was “The Bremen Town Musicians,” about a dog, cat, donkey, and rooster, all over the hill, who learn that they are about to be discarded or worse. They decide to take matters into their own hands. I made my mother and grandmother read it to me so often that I could recite the whole story word for word.

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?

The Marriage Plot
, by Jeff Eugenides, and
The Stranger's Child
, by Alan Hollinghurst. I'd heard Jeff Eugenides on NPR and immediately wanted to read his novel. I adored the first two Hollinghursts. But I found both of these novels somewhat cold and inanimate. That said, there are so many books that I wasn't able to appreciate until I'd made two or three tries—
Middlemarch
, for example, or
Swann's Way
—and these may fall into that category. Reading is so contextual, like wine.

What's the best book about economics you've ever read? The worst?

There are so many great ones, but these are exquisite:
John Maynard Keynes
, by Robert Skidelsky.
Bankers and Pashas
, by David Landes.
The House of Rothschild
, by Niall Ferguson.
Economic Sentiments
, by Emma Rothschild.
Poverty and Compassion
, by Gertrude Himmelfarb.

Worst? To be worst it would have to have had a wide following, because otherwise who cares? I suppose
Das Kapital
, by Marx;
The Condition of the Working Class in England
, by Engels; and
Mein Kampf
, by Hitler.

If somebody walked in on you writing one of your books, what would they see? What does your work space look like?

Painted woodwork; tiled fireplace; a 1920s art-glass fixture; a ten-foot-long desk; nineteenth-century paintings of lighthouses and railroads; old globes; books, of course; and through the windows, my garden, currently a riot of orange and salmon-colored tulips and pink and white viburnums. I can look up and see whether I'm about to miss the garbage collection or Emma, the Labrador, is chasing the neighbor's cat.

Do you remember the last book someone personally recommended that you read and that you enjoyed? Who recommended it, and what persuaded you to pick it up?

Victoria Klein, my Anglophile interior designer friend, gave me
The Widow Barnaby
. Trish Evans, my Australian publicist/novelist best friend, introduced me to the Provincial Lady series, her favorites as a young girl. Christopher Potter, a London editor and writer friend, gave me
Cold Comfort Farm
and
The Diary of a Nobody
the Christmas before last. And Avinash Dixit, the Princeton economist, turned me on to P. G. Wodehouse and Patrick O'Brian. What convinced me? They all have slightly eccentric tastes and highly developed senses of humor, and they talk about books all the time.

Is there a book you wish you could write, but feel as if you can't or never will?

I'd love to write biographies of Frances Trollope; Elizabeth Gaskell; E. M. Delafield; Wilkie Collins; Frank Ramsey; John von Neumann; S. S. Chern and other Chinese and Japanese mathematical émigrés; Paul Krugman; and my father—as well as books about Cold War spies, the 1940s German economic miracle, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, medical hoaxes, do-gooders behaving badly. I hope to write more books, but since I'm always discovering new enthusiasms, I doubt I will be writing them all.

What is your favorite book to teach or otherwise ask your students of journalism to read?

Den of Thieves
, by James B. Stewart;
Globalization: The Irrational Fear That Someone in China Will Take Your Job
, by Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn;
An Hour Before Daylight
, by Jimmy Carter;
Economics
, by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells.

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

A great biography of John von Neumann, the most important mathematician of the twentieth century.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know? Have you ever written to an author?

Henry James is my idea of the perfect friend. He was a brilliant talker, journalist, traveler, gardener, decorator, correspondent, as well as my favorite writer. He is not primarily an intellectual like Proust or Tolstoy, deeply interested in abstract ideas, but he is much warmer, sensitive and compassionate. I did write to an author once, but her reply was so chilly that I never did it again.

What do you plan to read next?

Anna Karenina
.

Sylvia Nasar
is the author of
A Beautiful Mind
and
Grand Pursuit.
She teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Ira Glass