Emma Straub is the author of Other People We Married (just out in paper from Riverhead) and the forthcoming novel Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures (also from Riverhead). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Tin House, Slate, the Paris Review Daily and many other journals. She works as a bookseller at Brooklyn's BookCourt; designs and silkscreens posters with her husband; and is a staff writer for the teen girl hotspot, Rookiemag.
On your nightstand now:
About 50 books--some galleys, some hardcovers, some paperbacks, my diary. Right now I'm reading Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim, the NYRB edition, and it's just delightful. Next up is the new Heidi Julavits novel, The Vanishers.
Favorite book when you were a child:
As a child, I really loved mysteries. I read every Christopher Pike book, then every Agatha Christie. Maurice Sendak, Archie comics, Roald Dahl, Lynda Barry.
Your top five authors:
Of all time? Whew. Okay. George Eliot, Jane Austen, Jennifer Egan, Lorrie Moore, maybe Tom Perrotta? Or Colm Toibin? Oh, that's hard.
Book you've faked reading:
I don't do this anymore. I work at a bookstore, and I don't like lying to people in order to make them give me money. But, oh yes, in my misguided youth, I think I faked reading books all the time. I would never admit which ones. Not the ones that impressed you, dear boy I had a crush on, rest assured.
Book you're an evangelist for:
I love selling people on contemporary authors who I think should be hugely, hugely famous: Kate Christensen is probably my favorite. The Great Man is such an incredible novel. Have you read it? You really should.
Book you've bought for the cover:
My husband is a book designer, so I take covers very, very seriously. The Coralie Bickford-Smith Penguin Classics are to die for. Right now I really love big type, not just because that's what my book looks like. The Art of Fielding, The Marriage Plot. Big, loopy and beautiful.
Book that changed your life:
Recently? I'd say both Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and John Williams's Stoner. Any book that shows you how life can be described in new and expert ways changes your life, don't you think?
Favorite line from a book:
Is it cheating to use the first or last line? I'm tempted to do both: "Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderly again...," from Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, and "Reader, I married him," from Jane Eyre.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Well, right now I'm rereading Middlemarch, and there are so many subplots that I do feel like I'm reading it for the first time. And loving every minute of it.