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L. Alison Heller is a divorce lawyer and family mediator who helps couples divorce with their sanity intact. She grew up in Connecticut and attended Bates College in Maine. She temped and interned and shelved books, trying a little of this and a little of that, before obtaining a degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her family. The Never Never Sisters (New American Library, June 3, 2013) is her second novel.
On your nightstand now:
Cure for the Common Break-up by Beth Kendrick, who is always so witty and fun to read, and The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida. I've also saved a special spot for Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke's forthcoming debut, Your Perfect Life. I'm really excited about it as I'm already in love with their voices from their blog.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl. Also, Robert Kraus's Leo the Late Bloomer, Munro Leaf's Ferdinand the Bull and, of course, Don Freeman's Corduroy--a sweetly sensitive little trio.
Your top five authors:
Oh, so tough. My mind blanks when confronted with the need to narrow my favorites to five. But I have always found something that moves and/or engrosses me in anything I've read written by Jon Krakauer, Liane Moriarty, Junot Díaz, Roald Dahl and Emily Giffin.
Book you've faked reading:
Definitely Faulkner, definitely while in high school. I usually fess up to my ignorance, but in high school I remained mum, in order to give the misimpression that I'd completed (and understood) the assignment.
Book you're an evangelist for:
To make up for the answer above and prove that I was not a total slacker as a student, I remember reading William Golding's Lord of the Flies in school, not being able to shut up about it and immediately rereading it after finishing. More recently: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, Why Can't I Be You by Allie Larkin, Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, Me Before You by JoJo Moyes and Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (the latter inspired me to write a blog post about it and held up to a second read).
Book you've bought for the cover:
How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue, and--bonus!--it was a fantastic read. She writes with such unbelievable grace and beauty and really puts you right inside her characters' heads.
Book that changed your life:
I remember reading The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and getting that now-familiar feeling of diving into a maw of sweet, futile sadness. It was probably the first time a fictional work made me want to cry and keep reading (or the first time I realized it), but that's the thing about books--they all change your life while you're reading them.
Favorite line from a book:
This is on my mind because my friend and I were just talking about the genius of this book and this chapter in particular: "To say I'm an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair." --Tina Fey, Bossypants
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
My daughter and I read Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during our subway commute to her school this past fall. Her reading tastes made such a leap this year and seeing her enjoy the serial experience of reading a little each day, leaning on the edge of that bright orange seat for more, made me so happy.