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Chris Monks is the author of The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life and has been the editor of McSweeney's Internet Tendency since 2007. He and Samantha Riley have edited a new collection of their favorite material from the site, Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: Twenty-One Years of Humor from Mcsweeney's (McSweeney's, November 5, 2019).
On your nightstand now:
Since I am a humor editor, I feel like I should kick this off with mention of a humor book, but humor books sometimes wind up feeling more like work than anything. It's my cross to bear. Anyway, I've been reading Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. It's dark, sharply written and, yes, funny.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Anything by Maurice Sendak. I loved his stories because you could and were encouraged to chant along with them, "Let the wild rumpus begin!" "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter!" They weren't just literature, they were theater, and I loved them.
Your top five authors:
Arthur Bryant (best BBQ in Kansas City!); Bea Arthur (although, to be honest, I think Golden Girls is overrated); King Arthur (not much for monarchies in general, but the guy knew how to wear a crown); Arthur the Aardvark (mainly because of this)--wait, I think I'm doing this wrong.
Okay, I don't have a top five list of favorite authors, it's more like a top 47. So, too many to list, but for starters how about Lorrie Moore, Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver, Kent Haruf and Paul Beatty.
Book you've faked reading:
Pretty much every book I was assigned in high school. After I graduated, I spent a couple years working before going to college and that's when I finally started to appreciate reading. I'd spend all my money on trade paperback versions of classics. I started with the ones that had the coolest covers, like Pale Fire and As I Lay Dying and then went on from there.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The only things I am a true evangelist for are sandwiches, Van Morrison and the Philadelphia 76ers, but if I'm forced to go on a street corner and shout at strangers about a book, I would probably do it for Winesberg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. I first read it during that period in my life between high school and college and it just hit me in all the right places. I love art and literature that really goes for it emotionally, right up to the edge of being maudlin and overblown. Anderson adeptly walked that line in his stories.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Too many to count. I wish book covers weren't important, because it's so superficial, but odds are high I won't read a book if the cover is lousy. Any book that's been turned into a film and features a version of the movie poster is dead to me. One perk of electronic literature, though, is that you rarely see the cover, if ever. I find this something of a relief.
Book you hid from your parents:
My parents were very progressive, so I never felt like I had to hide much from them, let alone books. There was this one novel my mom had that depicted the sexual awakening of a woman in the 1970s. I forget the title and author, neither were important to me at the time. What mattered was how it was full of lurid sex scenes that both enraptured and repulsed me. I would sneak it out of her bookshelf when she wasn't home, then place it back before she returned. One day she came home from work and I had left the book out. She pretended not to notice but, yep, she definitely noticed. A few days later, she casually mentioned the book to me and asked what I liked about it in particular. That was a such a fun conversation.
Book that changed your life:
Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin. I read it when I was 11 or 12 and "light dawned on Marblehead": Oh, so people can write funny too.
Favorite line from a book:
I'm terrible at remembering lines, but the last couple pages of Tony Earley's Jim the Boy always tear me up. "But you're our boy."
Five books you'll never part with:
Barrel Fever by David Sedaris
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
If I were a true humor editor/writer, I would call-back in a funny way to a book I referenced earlier, and this would be perfectly tied up in a neat, fancy bow. But, alas, my older son just took off for college and I am in a fragile emotional state, so the only book that pops into my head is The Stupids Step Out by Harry Allard and James Marshall because it brought me and my sons pure joy when we first read it in our pj's before bedtime way back when.