Joyce Carol Oates is the
recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the
winner of the National Book Award. Among her major works are We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde and The Falls.
On your nightstand now:
John Stuart Mill's Autobiography; Margaret Drabble's new collection of stories, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman; and Oliver Sacks's The Mind's Eye.
Favorite books when you were a child:
Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking-Glass.
Your top five authors:
Emily Dickinson, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare.
Book you've faked reading:
Why would I want to fake anything? I would just tell the truth.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Dickinson's Collected Poems.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Again, why would I do this? Seems a bit naïve.
Book that changed your life:
No single book changed my life but I was quite enthralled by Nietzsche when I first began reading his work as an undergraduate at Syracuse University.
Favorite line from a book:
"Reader, I married him." --Jane Eyre
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Moby Dick.