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On your nightstand now:
A collection of children's stories called You Read to Me, I'll Read to You. W.F. Ryan's The Bathhouse at Midnight (which sounds dirty, but is actually a book on Russian magic and divination). Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects (which I suspect is a crazy piece of feminist fiction masquerading as mom-core). Among Others by Jo Walton, The Rook by Daniel O'Malley, a pile of ephemera topped by a postcard from David Malki's Wondermark, and a little cluster of Herman Inclusus icons by Stuart Kolakovic, given to me by my editor. Also, lip balm.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Many Moons by James Thurber. It taught me the word "surfeit" and to beware of bureaucrats.
Your top five authors:
I'm very fickle, but today we'll go with Diana Wynne Jones, Maurice Sendak, George R.R. Martin, John Irving and Neil Gaiman.
Book you've faked reading:
I've never read anything by Jonathan Franzen, but I've nodded through plenty of brunches pretending that I have.
Book you are an evangelist for:
Most of my recommendations come with caveats, but Carter Beats the Devil is an exception. It's a charming, magical, perfectly plotted book. I also like to foist the Gebhard & Winter Architectural Guide to Los Angeles on people. People who knock this city haven't bothered to get to know it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The Mirror of Her Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson. (Oddly enough, I Googled it, and it's nothing like I remember.)
Book that changed your life:
Frank Herbert's Dune. It was the first book that I was sorry to finish because I was so reluctant to leave the world. To this day, I can recite the first 25 lines of The Canterbury Tales and the Bene Gesserit litany against fear. Maybe I should write a book of nerd party tricks.
Favorite line from a book:
I'm constantly dog-earing pages, but I'm partial to muttering these lines from Auden: "After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle / Break the embraces, dance while you can."
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
This is such a tough question. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle comes to mind, but do I get to read it as a kid? That book was so dire, so epic. It made me feel like absolutely anything (good or bad) was possible. I'd hate to mess with that. So, I'm going to stick with Rachel Cusk's The Country Life. I read it on a plane, and there's a certain line (if you've read it, you know which one) that actually made me shout, "HA!" Then I laughed for a solid 10 minutes. It's an amazing moment that makes you question everything you think you know about the protagonist. I'd love to experience that again.
photo by Teness Herman