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| photo: Andrew Bartholomew | |
Anna Pitoniak's debut novel is The Futures (Lee Boudreaux Books, January 17, 2017). An editor at Random House, she graduated from Yale University, where she majored in English and was an editor at the Yale Daily News. She grew up in Whistler, British Columbia, and now lives in New York City.
On your nightstand now:
I have a tall stack of books that, out of stubbornness or optimism, I refuse to shelve properly because I am convinced I'm going to get around to reading them any day now. Right now I'm in the middle of A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. Also in the stack are The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, An End to Suffering by Pankaj Mishra, Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith, An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine and 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I can't pick just one! I loved I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. But my all-time favorite is probably the Guests of War trilogy by Kit Pearson: The Sky Is Falling, Looking at the Moon and The Lights Go on Again. The novels are about two English children sent away to Canada during World War II, and I found them captivating. I lost track of how many times I reread that trilogy.
Your top five authors:
Vladimir Nabokov, Donna Tartt, John le Carré, Kazuo Ishiguro and Michael Lewis. In very different ways, each of them writes books that I find completely un-put-downable.
Book you've faked reading:
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. We had to read it in college, and while our professor was nice enough to let us skip the whaling chapters, I'm afraid I didn't get through many of the non-whaling chapters, either. I remember the early scenes at the inn in New Bedford and that's about it. Sorry, Professor Smith. 
Book you're an evangelist for:
Stoner by John Williams. I read it this summer, after hearing others evangelize about it. It is a luminous, extraordinary novel, and it moved me in ways that I still don't fully understand.
I also have a tendency to read books that were blockbusters about 15 or 20 years ago, and become obsessed with them, and wonder why no one is talking about them. When the answer is that, 15 or 20 years ago, everyone was talking about them. This was recently the case with Personal History by Katharine Graham and Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. These books don't need my evangelism, but still.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Anything with Ina Garten on the cover. I love her.
Book you hid from your parents:
David Letterman's Book of Top Ten Lists and Wedding Dress Patterns for the Husky Bride--maybe not for the reasons you think. My parents got this book as a gift in the 1990s. My mom and dad would take turns reading the Top Ten lists aloud to each other, and they would wind up in such hysterical laughter that they would literally roll around on the floor, crying and struggling to breathe. I was a kid, and I was totally freaked out. The jokes were about Bill Clinton and Bibi Netanyahu and they went right over my head. My parents were clearly possessed by demons. Or maybe I was just annoyed that they weren't paying attention to me. So, I hid the book in my sock drawer for at least a year, until I deemed it safe to bring it back out.
Book that changed your life:
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov. I didn't think of myself as an aspiring writer the first time I read it, at least not consciously, but with hindsight I can see that it unlocked something inside of me. It showed me how writing, when done right, could reveal a certain kind of invisible magic that runs through ordinary life. I've reread Speak, Memory so many times that it has become a touchstone, a talisman, a reminder of the intense pleasures that beautiful writing can bring.
Favorite line from a book:
"He was himself, and he knew what he had been." --Stoner by John Williams
Five books you'll never part with:
An inscribed copy of Andrew's Brain by E.L. Doctorow, the last book he wrote, and which I was lucky enough to work on; my shelf of Penguin Classics; a well-used copy of How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, which was invaluable after graduating from college, and is still invaluable today; and my old tattered paperbacks of Speak, Memory and The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov, both of which I wrote my thesis on, and both of which are held together with packing tape.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I got my hands on an early copy just before it came out in 2012, so I read it without any spoilers, or any knowledge of a twist coming--which is the best way to experience a book like that. I don't think I've ever been so addicted.
Book you want to read next:
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Every summer, for the last several years, this has been on my list; I figure I need a nice long chunk of time to devote to it. Every summer, I fail to get around to it. I haven't done it yet, but maybe next year will be the year.