Edited & introduction by Pamela Paul, Foreword by Scott Turow
Have you ever wondered what authors, actresses, scientists or professors read? If you have, then this book is for you. Pamela Paul, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, has put together a collection of interviews of 65 well-known people, ranging from Lena Dunham and JK Rowling through to Sting and Lee Child. Each person is asked a series of questions about their book reading habits or the books they have published, and Pamela has collated the answers and formulated them into an easy question and answer format for us to read.
The answers give you a deeper insight into the person, help you understand them and get to know their personality better. Most of the authors come across humble, modest and sometimes a little humorous - with the exception of John Irving. One of the questions to the authors is “of the books you have written, which one is your favourite?” to which most authors reply that choosing just one book is like picking a favourite child, you just can’t do it. But John Irving, who came across as arrogant and pompous, took the opportunity to promote his own work and listed no less than five of his titles in his lengthy eleven sentence answer. He also answered the question “what do you plan to read next?” with a very blunt and dull “I plan what I write, not what I read.”
Some questions are repeated for each person, for example “what book is on your nightstand now?” and “if you could require the President to read one book, what would it be?” Other questions are related specifically to the interviewee, for example, Colin Powell, the former secretary of state and national security advisor is asked to recommend a book to a student of government, (his answer is “none, and I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone”).
It is also a book that will make you feel better about your own reading habits as a lot of interviewees are asked to “name a book that you just couldn’t finish” or “what book did you feel you were supposed to like but didn’t.” These earned answers of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” P.J O’Rouke stunned me when he said his daughter stopped him reading the final Harry Potter novel it was “too much teenage mush,” and Dave Barry’s perfect answer of “the Twilight series. I can’t get past the premise, which is that a group of wealthy, sophisticated, educated, highly intelligent, centuries-old vampires...have chosen to be high school students.”
With the questions repeating themselves often, the book can get a bit tedious at times, and it becomes easy to skip the question and go straight to the answer. Some of the interviewees are fascinating people and I felt their questions could have been a touch deeper but overall, it was an interesting read that at times made me laugh, yawn and nod along with their answers feeling that I wasn’t as out of touch with literature as I had thought. This is a great book to peruse when you have some spare time.