Elizabeth Currid-Halkett is the author of The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art and Music Drive New York City (Princeton University Press) and Starstruck:
The Business of Celebrity (Faber &
Faber), published in November 2010. She is assistant professor at the University
of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development. She lives
in Los Angeles.
On your nightstand now:
Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (like everyone else), Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas (I'm a professor so I am very interested in the future of higher education, also I am a huge fan of Menand's other work).
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I used to pretend my closet had the same supernatural quality of being an escape to Narnia, as that of Professor Kirke's. Sadly, I mainly just used to sit in it in the dark with a wild imagination, though the book is the reason that to this day I love Turkish Delight. During the Christmas season, I go to Fortnum and Mason in London and pick up a big box and eat it until I am positively sick from sugar overload.
Your top five authors:
The first three: Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan. When I am reading their books I genuinely want to be in the worlds they have created and their writing allows me to totally transport myself into the lives of their characters rather than being an outsider looking in. The last two: Michael Lewis and Jane Jacobs. Jacobs and Lewis are able to take such complex concepts and make them accessible and fascinating. Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities changed my life. After I read it I knew I wanted to study cities and understand their importance in civilization.
Book you've faked reading:
Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. This sham went on during the high school years. Only the joke was on me. No one with an ounce of literature awareness would think the precocious 16-year old touting a copy had actually read the book, let alone deciphered it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
How Did You Get this Number? by Sloane Crosley. I don't really need to be an evangelist for it because it is very popular and highly regarded. But she is one of my dear friends and it's a wonderful feeling to genuinely know that your friend's work is brilliant and well written.
Book you've bought for the cover:
You know, I don't think I've ever done that, which makes me feel like I should.
Book that changed your life:
Kate Chopin's The Awakening, which I read in high school. I do not consider myself a diehard feminist but it gave me such a sense of liberation and the potential the world offered, but also the implications of one's choices. Edna, the protagonist, was the first character I had come across that made me appreciate the complicated and complex nature of the human condition and the talent of authors who are able to capture it.
Favorite line from a book:
"I wish you were here dear, I wish you were here. I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear."--Joseph Brodsky. I suppose I'm cheating because this is a line from a poem. I first discovered this poem when I was in college. I loved the rhythm and the atmosphere Brodsky created. Many years later, when I met my husband and initially he lived in London and I lived in Los Angeles it always reminded me of him. It captured exactly how I felt when I was missing him terribly.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
To Kill a Mockingbird. This answer may seem trite but there's a reason it's on everyone's favorite books of all time list. I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and there was no shortage of intolerance and ignorance. The book instilled in me our duty to always do the right thing and to understand the basic humanity in all of us.