Paul Fischer is a film producer whose first book, to be published in February by Flatiron Books, is A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power.
On your nightstand now:
Michelangelo: His Epic Life by Martin Gayford, Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink and Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon. And Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book propped up against them--for when my infant daughter is lying on my chest but won't go to sleep.
Favorite book when you were a child:
It was always a tie between Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
Your top five authors:
Budd Schulberg, Michael Chabon, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Naguib Mahfouz.
Book you've faked reading:
The Bible, back in Catholic school. I think that's the only time I ever have. It was too long, too frustrating to read, and besides I'd already read the illustrated kids' version, which had all the violence cut out and featured what looked like a young, groovy, toga-clad Kris Kristofferson as Jesus. I was already pretty sure I'd always like that version better, but try telling that to the nuns.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.
Book you've bought for the cover:
This happens to me often, most recently with the 2014 Harvill Secker paperback of Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas, of which I knew nothing when I picked it up, other than it just--looked--perfect.
Book that changed your life:
The first installment of the Japanese manga series Dragon Ball. I was maybe seven years old, I liked picture books, and one day in the supermarket this 42-volume Japanese paperback collection caught my eye, and I asked my parents for it. As I remember it, my mother suggested we buy the first one and see how I got on; my dad, however, bought all 42, put them at home in a closet, and told me he'd only give me each installment if I finished the previous one. I devoured all 42 back to back like a demented little addict and have been hooked on reading ever since.
Favorite line from a book:
Two--both opening lines:
"In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier's greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini." --The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
"Marley was dead: to begin with." --A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle.