Are you kidding me? I carry at least one book everywhere I go and at pretty much any time. I carry something on my commute to work, if I'm going downtown to meet someone for dinner, to the gym, on a walk. I carry something to read when I walk between the bedroom and the livingroom. One thing to understand is, I live in New York City. Most of us non-celebrity types either walk where we are going or get there by mass transit. To own a car is prohibitively expensive, it takes ages to drive anywhere, and I hate the way cars clog up our already crowded city with noise and pollution. There is nothing like a subway ride for reading! Usually I allow a little extra time to get where I'm going and I'm always sorry if I end up getting delayed, not just because I don't like to be late, but because I won't have those few minutes when I'm on my own at the restaurant bar and I can pull out my book and read! Sheila and I joke that the first time we met, we knew we'd be friends because we both arrived early to the bar with a book to read. We still do.Do you carry books with you when you’re out and about in the world? And, do you ever try to hide the covers?
Name a book (or books) from a country other than your own that you love. Or aren’t there any?
You're kidding, right? How can you love books and reading and not read further afield than your own back yard? Understanding the experience of others is one of the chief reasons I read. A few favorite non-American titles are:
Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?It's easier to ask when I don't snack. Olives, cheese, a glass of wine, a cup of tea are all fair game while I'm reading. Or, if I'm alone at home or at a restaurant, I'll read over a meal.
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I mark my school reading. I used to engage in great enthusiastic dialogues with all my books, all over them in ink, but now for my pleasure reading I tend to use little post-it tabs and will occasionally make a note on one of them.
How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
Bookmark. Usually bookmarks take on certain magical meanings related to the last book they marked and will, therefore, seem appropriate or inappropriate to the book in which I'm thinking of using them. I don't buy bookmarks, but when I go to favorite bookstores or visit new bookstores, especially while travelling, I'll try to get a bookmark from the shop. Then if my reading experience from that shop was favorable, that bookmark will become a favorite. Silly of me, I know, but true.
Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
I read both, but I read more fiction for pleasure than non-fiction.
Hard copy or audiobooks?
I read books - those funny objects with ink printed on pages made of paper and those pages bound somehow within paper or hard covers. Audio books aren't books they're another medium, which is fine when I want a radio-like experience, but the auditory and the visual modalities are different. They collect different information from my environment. They require different organs, they use different parts of the brain to process them and, finally, they create different sensory, intellectual, and emotional experiences. When I wish to read, I want a book that I consume with my eyes, in silence. Listening to fiction or drama or journalism is fine, it's just something else altogether, even if the source was a book.
Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
There are books where I cannot stand to not read to the end of the chapter, but it's a book-by-book need for me. It's not a regular neurosis. I can always find my place again in any book that really interests me.
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
Depends on whether I'm home. If a dictionary is nearby I will probably look it up right away. Otherwise I will infer the meaning from context and will intend to look it up but it may not happen.
What are you currently reading?
I just finished Night Train to Lisbon. I'm in-progress with The Slaves of Solitude, Identity and Story, and The Fall of Berlin 1945 and Lorrie Moore's new book is waiting in the wings (I cannot wait to start that one!)
What is the last book you bought?
Just a few hours ago (shhhhh!) I bought a book called The First Interview - a book on clinical interviewing for my clinical externship and two books by Margaret Drabble, her early novel The Needle's Eye and her new memoir The Pattern in the Carpet.
Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
As the answer above likely indicated to you, I have several in-progress at once.
Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
Any time. Any place. On public transportation, in bed, waiting for friends in a restaurant, standing on the subway platform - wherever.
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
Stand alone, I'm not opposed to a series, but it can make me a little neurotic about reading it in order or finishing it.
Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
Two - Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley and The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers. Over and over and over. And Crime and Punishment of Dostoevsky too.
How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
Loosely by genre and within that genre I might group a given author or theme, but basically by feel.
Which do you prefer?
Actually, I prefer not answering either/or questions. Complexity and nuance is the name of my game so I hate questions like this but I'll try to be a good sport.
Differentiation of the forebrain vesicle is a bit more complex, although in essence a deep groove (when viewed from the outside) forms rostrodorsally to produce an endbrain vesicle, followed by an interbrain vesicle.You asked. It's from Brain Architecture by Larry W. Swanson. and now for all of you who went 'huh?' to the above, this volume is the next closest...
Aside from the torments of longing i endured, away from her, swinging between bouts of wild elation and terror lest she should change her mind, the one cloud on our horizon was the question of where we were to live.From The Seance by John Harwood.
One morning in Chicago I had tiptoed to the kitchen with the intention of making some coffee. While customarily spilling grounds all over the counter, I spotted a can in the corner whose red label read SADNESS. Was there so much of it they could can it and sell it? A bolt of pain went through my intestines before I realized that it was not SADNESS but SARDINES. It was too late for recovery, for sadness was now the dark matter in the universe of still objects around me: the salt and pepper shakers; the honey jar; the bag of sun-dried tomatoes; the blunt knife; a desiccated loaf of bread; the two coffee cups, waiting. My country's main exports are stolen cars and sadness.I just love this excerpt. The way Brik, the writer in Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project, is surprised into a realization about himself through this little domestic detail. Strong emotion bubbles through this book of alternating plots - the Jewish immigrant, Lazarus Averbuch, who is accidentally shot to death in a moment of panic in the Chicago Police Chief's house in 1908 and is then branded a dangerous anarchist to get the Chief and his family off the hook - and the contemporary writer in Chicago, a Bosnian immigrant, who goes in search of Averbach's story - returning all the way to Lazarus's and his own roots in Eastern Europe.
What was your first introduction to William Shakespeare? Was it love or hate?
I watched the Zefirelli film of Romeo and Juliet and the Prokofiev ballet pretty early in my childhood and really enjoyed them. I believe the first full play that I had to read for school was either Macbeth or Julius Casesar. I think the first play I saw live was Twelfth Night. I remember having a fairly hard time with the language but feeling like understanding them was like being a member of a secret society. It was neither love nor hate. I could see how much the plays meant to the adult's in my life and I wanted to be a member of the club. I also remember Francie, the heroine of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, being read a page of the bible or of Shakespeare each night, and as I admired her I remember thinking that that was a good idea to do myself.
Which Shakespeare plays have you been required to read?
I think in the course of my schooling I have had to read them all, and many of the sonnets besides. There was a certain point where I switched from needing to have them assigned for a literary or acting class to actually wanting to read them. I now frequently re-read the plays, especially Hamlet and Winter's Tale.
Do you think Shakespeare is important? Do you feel you are a “better” person for having read the bard?
The scope of human experience that he writes of in his plays and the broadness of his appeal - the reach his work has few parallels. I don't think reading any text, great or small, secular or religious, makes you a better person. Your deeds do that. But the range of humanity one is exposed to in Shakespeare and the beauty of many of his works can certainly help broaden one's mind and help give one more insight into oneself and others. When my father died, it was Hamlet that I turned to
Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?
Hamlet, A Winter's Tale, and Measure for Measure. Lear is pretty wonderful too.
How do you feel about contemporary takes on Shakespeare? Adaptations of Shakespeare’s works with a more modern feel? (For example, the new line of Manga Shakespeare graphic novels, or novels like Something Rotten, Something Wicked, Enter Three Witches, Ophelia, etc.) Do you have a favorite you’d recommend?
I love adaptations, they don't replace the plays, but over time for anyone who is going to read them, I think they will only increase the notion that the plays have something to do with our lives. I saw a great adaption by my favorite clown troop - 500 Clowns - of Macbeth that knocked the socks off the play. It was molto fun. There are lots of good operatic versions of the plays - Verdi's Otello is pretty terrific.
What’s your favorite movie version of a Shakespeare play?
Kenneth Branaugh's Much Ado with the most lovely Emma Thompson.
Dewey has created a meme on negativity in book blogging to which I give my best review - I steal it.
1. When you dislike a book, do you say so in your blog? Why or why not?
Oh yes, absolutely. I blog to interact with a community and to write from the flow. Neither of those can happen without honesty. I hope I don't go out of my way to be snarky, snarky can be too easy but there are times a book or a film just piss me off. Arrogance and ignorance do that most often. That can be the downside with having lots of author interviews, hype, and DVD extra features. When I sense a certain smugness and then the work fails for me, I tend to express that in no uncertain terms. I also think that writing is more exciting when it is filled with real feeling. When a work angers me, when I scream about it, that can, in its way, be a compliment. Sometimes I will rail that I feel a writer, actor, or director just hasn't done their job well. That's my opinion - love it or leave it. I was a creative artist for years. I got lots of reviews and other less professional opinions, thankfully none in the form of fruits or vegetables. I got some really negative reviews that I actually learned something from. Others were by jerks with no taste. Others mystified me. Whatever. I had a rule as an actor and I shared it with my students - it's not honest to insulate yourself only from bad commentary. Either put yourself in a place where you can hear criticism, or have someone clip all the reviews for you and save them for a time when you can. And if you're an artist, you need to find a reason to do your job other than other people's good opinion of you.2. Do you temper your feelings about books you didn’t like, so as not to completely slam them? Why or why not?
It depends on the arrogance factor. A good honest failure can be an artist's ultimate triumph, it's part of the process. It can also be revealing to see how a great artist fails and valuable (to me). It depends how it hits me. I tend not to indiscriminately slam someone who has tried honestly to do a good job. But I see no reason to temper my feelings on my own blog. When I taught creative artists for years I tempered my feelings in that arena, but I'm not offering that service here; I charge by the hour for that. And I'm not offering feel-good therapy either for the creators or my fellow intelligent readers. I'm expressing something about my experience of their work. I try to keep my comments to the work, but other times it can be difficult to separate those two things and out it comes. My vast readership (ahem) is free to disagree or even ignore it.4. What is your own most common reaction when you see a negative review of a book you loved or a positive review of a book you hated?
It's their right - honestly. When I really like the writer of it and have other points in common - like with my good friend and fellow blogger Sheila, I try to learn something about them. Sheila put a pretty negative comment about Anne Enright's book on my post about the the first 100 pages of The Gathering just the other day, when I really raved about the strength of the writing. I found it interesting and it made me read deeper. Also, when someone really raves about something, it usually perks me up. I think, wow - there must be something really important going on to get their dander up like that. I wonder what it is! It's fun to have friends you don't agree with all the time. If they always order what you order in the restaurant, how can you ever try any new foods?5. What is your own most common reaction when you get a comment that disagrees with your opinion of a book?
I guess I just answered that. I haven't had to delete anyone for that reason...yet. Only because they are selling crap. Usually, I'd like to leave them up because I've been deleted not for being obnoxious but merely for disagreeing with the crowd on a couple of blogs. I found it narrow minded and felt it reflected a certain insecurity of their own opinion. But it's their real estate and their atmosphere, so it's their right.
6. What if you don’t like a book that was a free review copy? What then?
I have no qualms at all about giving a free review copy a thumbs down, and even an intense one at that if I think it's really deserved. I always tell the publisher, writer, or publicist that up front. This is my blog, I write my opinion here, this may be marketing for you but my writing is an extension of my soul and, as the song says...you don't own me.
Actually, I'm amending my answer to this question because I don't feel more of an obligation to "be nice" with free review copies, in fact, I think it is even MORE important to deliver the content straight, no chaser. And it is more respectful too. If I'm writing a post about a book I chose I may not like it because it didn't live up to my expectations of it, or I may have not been in the right mood to receive it. Boo hoo, I lose. But if I'm given a copy for the purposes of publicity then, let's be honest, books are sold (like most things) on hype, sometimes not too infrequently, on ridiculous hyperbolae. I feel then that I'm not only responding to the book, but when received from the publicist, to the marketing. If they've trumpeted the book as the next DaVinci Code or the next David Copperfield then I'm going to respond - yes you have reached high and you have succeeded or - you know what, um, no. No, you're not the next Dickens. If a writer sends me the book, then to write less than my honest response is disrespectful and I have tremendous respect for creative artists. Sometimes when artists ask my opinion I turn around and ask them what they would like the feedback for. If I read an early draft of a play I may send the writer comments that constitute my first impressions, and couch them as such. Sometimes I'll say - do you want to know what I think, or do you want to know that I liked it. If the answer was the second, I will often decline to offer anything but general emotional support, because that is actually what is being requested. Sometimes as a director reacting to preview performances I will not offer my opinion at all, aside from a brief appreciation of the person, because I feel it could have unintended consequences as the work is not finished and I am not actually part of the creative team. But when a professional artist or publicist sends me a finished piece of writing asking to use my forum and to express my views then I respect them by doing just that as honestly as I can.
7. What do you do if you don’t finish a book? Do you review it or not? If you review it, do you mention that you didn’t finish it?
If I haven't finished a book I might still write something about it. I will always be clear about how much I read and exactly why I stopped. Life is too short for bad books or bad wine.
Now it's time for school - which some days can be one endless bad review. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so steal this if you wish.
Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?
Leisure time? What leisure time? I'm in grad school. But there are some other things I do in order to avoid doing what I should be doing. Walking, yoga (when I'm a good boy), cooking and eating really yummy food, or eating it out, or just eating in general (but it has to be good), making and drinking tea, exploring wines, going to the theater (but I used to much more), watching movies - mostly from the library and so mostly at home, listening to music, playing the piano.
This week’s question is suggested by (blogless) JMutford:
Sometimes I find eccentric characters quirky and fun, other times I find them too unbelievable and annoying. What are some of the more outrageous characters you’ve read, and how do you feel about them?
This question depends a lot on your tolerance for eccentricity. One drag queen's eccentric is another person's soccer mom - you know what I mean? Also the flagrantly normal rarely make interesting subjects for novels, not those I read, at any rate. But, let's see, some memorable eccentrics. I'll start with the obvious:Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? When a book gets really popular, like The Time Traveler’s Wife, then I’m sure I don’t want to read it. When I finally got over myself and read it, it was terrific. This is just probably my need to be special, or something.
If you could bring three characters to life for a social event
Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it? Troilus and Cressida, it sounds like something you order at a vegetarian restaurant. Many others I’ve hinted at, but only through silence and nodding vigorously.
As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book? I have known I’ve read a book, really really known I’ve read that book, and re-read it not remembering a damn thing in it. Very sad.
You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP
A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? That’s hard, I love the French language but don’t really love French lit all that much. I’d probably have to go for Russian. I have a dream of learning Russian before I am forced to be bored to death by James Fenimore Cooper – think of all the reading I could do! German is tempting, but I think I’m way more likely to get through Dostoyevski in the original than Thomas Mann.
A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread one a year for the rest of your life
I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging
That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. Yes, a fireplace, a cushy armchair and also a chaise and a comfy sofa, and a puppy who has been trained not to pee on books. Lots of wood paneling, a place for my red wine or my tea pot, note paper, purple pens to write with. Enough shelves – whatever that means, I still don’t know. A view – a forest and some running water in it. I don’t need valuable books per se, I don’t care about books as far as investment in concerned, but I would like a few beautiful editions of favorites. The original Hogarth Press versions of Virginia Woolf would be nice, particularly The Waves. The complete Arden Shakespeare. Lots of old penguin editions of English writers, including all of Iris Murdoch. They can be old as long as they don’t fall apart. A lot of biographies new and old of absolutely everyone. The complete works of Hesse, Cather, Stegner, Chekhov, De Lillo, Sarton, Mann, Dostoyevski, Dickens
This week’s question is suggested by Puss Reboots:
How much do reviews (good and bad) affect your choice of reading? If you see a bad review of a book you wanted to read, do you still read it? If you see a good review of a book you’re sure you won’t like, do you change your mind and give the book a try?
What did you eat/drink today?
A bowl of blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and kiwis w/ a little kefir on top (it's like yogurt), a piece of bread w/ Rochetta cheese (yum), Keemun Panda tea (a black tea), a few almonds, some turkey and mustard and cornichon for lunch, some cerignola olives and a glass of sauvignon blanc for a snack. For dinner and I'm meeting a friend for dinner (Italian) so I don't know yet!What do you never eat/drink?
Brains, coconut (blech), pink grapefruit in the morning (otherwise ok), bad canned soup, fast food (life's too short), bad wine (why?)
Favorite failsafe thing to cook (if you cook) or defrost if you don't:
Pasta with either scallions and tomatoes or sardines, lemon and parmigiano, or some chicken breasts with cumin, lime juice and flat leaf parsley
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Water, mustard, cheese, olives, white wine, tamari, something yogurt-like
What is your favorite kitchen item?
My 9 cm wusfhof kitchen knife, my teapot from Vermont, my gorgeous All Clad stainless steel sautee panWhere would you recommend eating out - either on home turf or elsewhere?
'ino on Bedford Street, Wallse on W. 11th Street (NYC), Les Olives near St. Paul de Vence in Provence, or this fantastic restaurant I ate in in Rome off a side street by the Coliseum - have the buccatini all'amatriciana (best meal ever)
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
A tomato-peppar martini (only at the Wallse bar), fantastic red wine, really cold water, olives, oysters on the half-shell, tuna tartar, a fantastic roast lamb dish, a cheese course, apricots, raspberries, very dark chocolate something, marzipan, espresso (who cares if I'm up all night? It's the last meal!)Four jobs I've had
Interestingly, I can start just like Harriet - Assistant Stage Manager, and general all around theater lackey off-Broadway. My first New York show: Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, with Ellen Burstyn and Burgess Meredith, for whom I also ended up working privately on the side.
Lab assistant for a parasitologist in my first summer job following high school. We studied schistosoma, a parasite living in snails, birds and humans. I cared for (and killed) many of the snails and learned how to prepare electron micrographs of tissue.I sold typewriter ribbons (and other business machine ribbons) on the telephone. This lasted perhaps 10 days. I was forced to change my name to something less "ethnic," that was the first sign that I was not long for the business. When I did leave, I was not paid for my time and the business vanished overnight from the office they occupied with every telephone and scrap of paper. I was demoralized but my mother was so incensed, she spent weeks tracking down the owner, showing up at the front door of his home. I had a check to show for the miserable ten days after all. That's my mother for you.
Four places I've lived
New York City - for the first 18 years of my life, and the last 14.Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Not a happy six months but I met some great people there.
Four places I've been on holiday
All over France, I just love it there. Tarascon in the Provence holds particularly fond memories for me, including bicycling to the pont du garde and picnicking there.
Southern Spain - mmmm. A crash of cultures can be seen in the architecture, tasted in the food, heard in the language. The Alhambra is everything everyone has ever said it is. Saw a bullfight in Seville. Don't miss a little town called Ubeda. We stayed in a palace of the royal family that beceomes a b&b when they're not around.
Skagen, Denmark. It's the northern tip of Jutland (I think) and covered in sand dunes. It had a lovely youth hostel when I was there and I bicycled around for days.
Four favourite foods
Olives
Cheese
Smoked salmon, a little lemon and capers would be nice, thanks.
Olives
Four places I'd rather be
Actually, I love my home so often I'd rather be here than many places, preferably with the Ragazzo and reading.
Paris, but without the bedbug bites I got last time.
A particular bed in a particular hotel room in a particular Swiss town (German part) waking up under a feather bed after sleeping off jet lag for about 14 hours and seeing the alps out of my window.
In Queechie, Vermont after picking strawberries with my friends in the late summer, lying in the gorge with the water running over me drinking cocktails made with the strawberries.
Bernard MacLaverty's Cal - 150 pages that are as densely packed with passion and tension as any I've read in Dostoyevsky or Hardy. The 19-year-old title character lives in Northern Ireland. A Roman Catholic, he is hounded and physically attacked by the Protestant Orangemen. His friends have joined the IRA in response to the violence with which they are threatened. Cal finds the violence too much for him. The struggles of nations would not be important if they didn't effect the lives of individual people. This book is about the converging of conflicts political and personal - the political and religious struggles of an oppressed people, a first great passionate love, and the dilemmas of a sensitive and thoughtful teenager as he makes the moral choices that are going to shape his whole life. I felt deeply the greatness of these struggles as I read. Read my full rave here.
This book has everything - love, suspense, moral conflict, social criticism, psychological acuity, and crack writing. It is pitch-perfect on the a fast-paced, ostentatious, brutal beauty of Rome. Lambert's writing is rich with observations both interior and exterior that imbue character and place with clarity and instantaneous complexity. This novel, though entertaining to read, is an unambiguous critique of the moral hypocrisy that infects the powerful and the nature of crime which combines an abuse of power with the dehumanization of innocent people. Read my full rave here.
Molly Fox is a celebrated actress - a woman who delves deep into what makes up a 'self.' It is her profession to create characters from that knowledge through the medium of her self. Yet, when it comes to letting others truly know her, she does not. 'Can we ever know another?', this novel asks. The Irish novelist Deirdre Madden fashions a deep and beautiful book on this potentially abstract musing that is redolent with the pain of the distance we have from all others - even those we love most - and simultaneously rich with the rewards of the communion we can make through long acquaintance. She is particularly good at using the processes of the actor and writer to reflect on the ways we can inhabit the inherent contradiction of knowing another, but the mechanisms are so integrated with the events of this narrative that it is difficult to reveal them without ruining your reading of this book. This book is a powerful work of art with an undisturbable sense of wholeness. Read my full rave here.
The struggle to keep the champagne bubbling when it's gone flat is the action filling Evelyn Waugh's 1930 satire Vile Bodies. Stephen Fry's brilliant film adaptation, Bright Young Things released in 2003 captures the feel of a breathless, manic party. Jim Broadbent, Stockard Channing, Peter O'Toole, Simon Callow, Stephen Campbell Moore, Emily Mortimer, James Mcavoy, Imelda Stuanton, and Fenella Woolgar are some of the beautifully cast actors who maintain an understated hysteria, if you can imagine understated hysteria. The love that director and cast have for these characters is what impresses me the most. It would be so easy to show us how vile these people are - how silly, how louche, how fey - but instead they love them to death. Raveworthy. Read my full rave here.
Tell Me Everything by Sarah Salway . I opened this book last night and didn't stop reading it until I had finished it. The nearest voice I can think to compare Sarah Salway's to is Lorrie Moore's, and coming from me that is a big compliment. In it Molly experiences a few breaches of trust as a young woman that leave her seriously wounded. She closes down and protects herself by eating. When we meet her she has become one of life's castaways, seriously overweight without a job, a home, or any sense of herself. She meets five people - Mr. Roberts who gives her a job, Mrs. Roberts, Tim - a man of mystery, Liz - a librarian who recommends French authors, and Miranda, a hairdresser. With these relationships she begins to reclaim herself. The story is full of perfectly wrought descriptions, complex observations of human pain and fantasy, and cogent storytelling. Read my full rave here.
