On your nightstand now:
Way too many books. On the top of the pile, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I loved the Mother Goose nursery rhymes because they made absolutely no sense, and I could ponder them endlessly. I also adored The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and the poem "Little Boy Blue" by Eugene Field, which had a similar theme of a toy's devotion to a child. Maybe that's why I still have my favorite childhood toy, a stuffed dog named Wiggles who has a bell in his tail.
Your top five authors:
I don't know how other authors can even begin to narrow it down. Do we focus on how they influenced us personally or their skill at craft? Off the top of my head, I would have to name so many poets who I would shudder at the thought of never having read. Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, just to name a few.
Book you've faked reading:
I am sure I must have faked reading a book or two when I was in high school and I was assigned to read something I didn't like, but those books have vanished from memory. If I had it to do over again, I probably would have faked reading Beowulf.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Reads as beautifully today as it did the first time I read it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. I was in an airport looking for something to read and that cover did it for me.
Book that changed your life:
Dick and Jane. As dry and voiceless as the stories were, they were still the key that unlocked the world of books to me. I could read on my own! What a gift. There is nothing more life changing than the gift of reading. I was in awe of the thousands of books waiting for me at the library.
Favorite line from a book:
"So now do you know why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life." From Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. I remember being stunned by the honesty, balance and insights of this Revolutionary War story. Little wonder it earned a National Book Award nomination and Newbery Honor.
