by Pamela Paul
If someone walked in, they’d see me at the right-hand desk, typing in an inelegant two-index-finger style, periodically sitting back, scratching my head, and looking at the view, which is of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, and which never fails to delight me.
What book should everyone read before dying?
My newest hardcover.
What do you plan to read next?
My to-be-read pile is enormous, but winking ominously at me is Jane Austen’s Emma. I have never read Jane Austen—in my American wife’s eyes an incredible deficiency for an Englishman, matched only by the fact that I don’t really like Mozart. I hadn’t read Jane Eyre either, until she made me, and I’m glad I did, so I’ll get to Emma eventually—but perhaps not soon.
Lee Child is the author of a series of thrillers featuring the protagonist Jack Reacher, including Killing Floor, The Enemy, and One Shot.
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I’d Love to Meet (Continued)
I would enjoy having lunch with J. K. Rowling. I’d probe her imagination and ask how she is dealing so well with her success and multimillionaire celebrity status.
—Colin Powell
Edgar Allan Poe. I don’t have a question, but dude just seems like he could use a hug.
—Ira Glass
I took this question so seriously I lost hours to it. I went through all of my favorite writers, discarding them for various reasons: P. G. Wodehouse, for instance, was so shy that it might be a very awkward meeting. Judging by his letters, his main interests were Pekingese dogs and writing methodology. As I don’t own a Peke I’ve got a feeling we’d just discuss laptops rather than exploring the secrets of his genius. I finally narrowed the field to two: Colette and Dickens. If Colette were prepared to talk freely, it would be the meeting of a lifetime because she led such an incredible life (her biography, Secrets of the Flesh, by Judith Thurman, is one of my all-time favorites). By the narrowest of margins, though, I think I’d meet Dickens. What would I want to know? Everything.
—J. K. Rowling
Mark Twain, but when he was forty, not seventy. He was a pretty nasty old man. I’m not sure what I would ask Mark Twain, but I’m pretty sure it would not be for investment advice.
—John Grisham
A wonderful writer has given the best of herself or himself in the work. I think many of them are frustrated by the thinness and inadequacy of ordinary spoken language, of ordinary contact even with the people they know best and love best. They turn to writing for this reason. I think many of them are magnanimous in a degree their lives cannot otherwise express. To meet Emily Dickinson or Henry James would be, from their side, to intrude on them, maybe even to make them feel inadequate to expectation. I can’t imagine being a sufficient reason for the disruption. We do have their books. That said, I would like to meet William James.
—Marilynne Robinson
George Orwell. I would start by asking about the mustache.
—Dave Eggers
I would love to meet J. K. Rowling and tell her how much I admire her writing and am amazed by her imagination. I read every Harry Potter book as it came out and looked forward to each new one. I am rereading them now with my kids and enjoying them every bit as much. She made me look at jelly beans in a whole new way.
—Sheryl Sandberg
I think I would like to meet Charles Dickens—I would just really want to ask him, “Really, how do you do that?”
—Caroline Kennedy
Old Daddy Shakespeare, of course. I don’t believe in asking writers questions. I’d just follow him about for a day and see what the routine was. I’d be invisible, of course. I wouldn’t want to spook him.
—Hilary Mantel
Sorry to be boringly predictable, but Shakespeare. Who are you? And how did a humble country boy like you become the greatest genius, and part creator, of our beloved English language? Might you have been even better if you’d studied at Oxford or Cambridge?
—Richard Dawkins
I’d like to ask Shakespeare if he composed while walking, or was he entirely sedentary?
—Sting
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Arnold Schwarzenegger
What book is on your night stand now?
Right now I’m reading a book called Incognito, by David Eagleman, about the human brain. I’ve always been interested in psychology, so learning about the things that influence our thinking is really important for me. In bodybuilding, I was known for “psyching” out my opponents with mind tricks. I wish I had this book then because the stuff I was doing was Mickey Mouse compared with what’s in this book.
What was the last truly great book you read?
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. I absolutely love to hear stories about people who have tremendous vision; and when you talk about vision, Steve Jobs has to be in the conversation. He was such a revolutionary. It is completely inspirational to read about someone who saw the world, imagined something better, and then went out and made his vision a reality.
I got to know Steve when I was governor of California, and he wanted to help pass a law to encourage organ donation. A lot of people have the drive to be successful, but not the same drive to give back once they’ve found success. Steve saw what it was like to desperately need an organ, and he could have easily just paid for his operation and been done with it. Instead, he came with his big vision and wanted to rewrite the laws to make it easier. He did the necessary work, and we were able to hammer out a law and push it through. I think that his compassion should be a bigger part of his legacy. His story is the ultimate California dream.
What is your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?
I prefer nonfiction, especially biographies and history books. You could spend your whole life reading history and you would still have several more lifetimes’ worth of learning to do. I don’t have much time in my schedule to read, so when I have a chance to sit down and get into a book, I want to make sure it is a story of greatness that inspires and teaches.
Some of my favorite books about politics are Reagan’s autobiography, An American Life, as well as Lou Cannon’s incredible anthology about him, and James Wooten’s Dasher: The Roots and the Rising of Jimmy Carter. Of course I have mentioned many times how much Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose contributed to my economic views.
And what books would you suggest to an aspiring governor?
I think Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals is incredibly important. Today’s politicians can learn so much from Lincoln. I think the most important lesson is that, despite our politics, we should never treat each other as enemies. We can have disagreements about the direction of the country, but at the end of the day we all want to serve our country. Lincoln proved a powerful lesson by appointing his critics and political foes to his cabinet. He wanted the best minds around him offering advice. Not Republican or Democrat minds. Just the best minds. All of us can learn from that.
Are there any books you found to be particularly insightful about California?
I think any of Kevin Starr’s books fit the bill. No one—no one—knows California like Kevin Starr. When I ran for governor, I read binder after binder of briefings, but none of it taught me as much as one lunch with Kevin. He is an incredible historian, and he writes in a way that always makes what he’s saying interesting. To this day, every time I see Kevin, I learn something new.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
I could never choose one book for a president. There are so many things you need to learn. I would have to say, “Here is a book about Eisenhower building the highway system, so you can read about the vision it takes to build up our country, because we need to build again. Here is a book about how we developed our current energy policy, because we need to learn from that as we plan for our future energy needs.” Then I would give them a kindergarten teacher’s manual and let them know, “You’re going to need this when you deal with Congress.”
&
nbsp; What were your favorite books as a child? Did you have a favorite character or hero?
When I was young, we were constantly exposed to the works of Peter Rosegger, who was a hero in Styria, my home state. He wrote incredible stories with a focus on our region, so he was one of the favorites.
We also constantly read these terribly violent stories by the Grimm Brothers. I mean, the cleaned-up versions of these are nowhere near the horror stories we used to read. It’s no wonder my brother was a total scaredy-cat and afraid to walk home alone after you realize he had been exposed to the tales of the Grimm Brothers.
But I have to say that Karl May wrote my favorite stories. He was a German who had never seen a real cowboy or Indian, but somehow he wrote fantastic stories about this wise Apache chief named Winnetou and his cowboy friend Old Shatterhand. The stories taught me a powerful lesson about getting along despite differences, but more importantly, they opened up my world and gave me a window to see America. I still don’t understand how Karl May was able to paint such an incredible picture of something he had never seen, but I do know that the cowboy stories immediately captured my attention and made me interested to learn everything I could about America.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
Winston Churchill. He is one of my heroes, and when I look at all of the books he somehow had time to write, it just blows my mind. To be such a vital figure in modern history and at the same time write incredible history … I would love to talk to him about how he had time to be great as a leader and as a writer. If there is one person who shows us the power of history, it has to be him. It’s an old cliché that history repeats himself, but when you read Churchill’s speeches attacking the idea of appeasing Hitler or warning about the Cold War, you realize how brilliant he was. He was ahead of the game, which is a funny thing to say about someone who spent his spare time writing and researching history.
What’s the best movie based on a book you’ve seen recently?
I love everything about the Harry Potter franchise. You have an incredible, epic journey with amazing characters that I think plays just as well on the screen as it does on the page. But I’m also a sucker for a major success story, and it is very difficult to match J. K. Rowling in that category. Talk about inspiration: to go from being a struggling single parent to where she is today, it’s just incredible. I love to hear stories like that, and her personal story is as epic as the stories she wrote about Harry Potter.
If you could play any character from literature, who would it be?
One of my favorite characters in history is Cincinnatus, and I’ve read everything I can find about him. I would love to play him in a film about ancient Rome. He was given the keys to the kingdom—pure, absolute power!—and he did the job and then went back to his farm. He didn’t get drunk on the power. He did the job he was asked to do, dealt with the invasion, and walked away. That is the purest form of public service I can imagine, and it would be fun to try to capture that character on film.
The United States was lucky to have George Washington as a founding father, because he had that same civic virtue, and of course he had read about and admired Cincinnatus.
Arnold Schwarzenegger served as governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Before that, he was an actor and a champion bodybuilder. He is the author of the memoir Total Recall, among other books.
Francine Prose
What book is on your night stand now?
A volume of Brassaï photographs. Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes (the new translation calls it The Lost Estate). And Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives, by Jose Rodriguez.
When and where do you like to read?
The passenger seat of a car on the New York State Thruway, on a sunny day without much traffic.
What was the last truly great book you read? Do you remember the last time you said to someone, “You absolutely must read this book”?
A year after reading it, I’m still urging people to read Peter Nadas’s dense, filthy, brilliant 1,100-page novel, Parallel Stories. I’ve told lots of people to read Mavis Gallant’s stories; Jo Ann Beard’s In Zanesville; A Chronology, a collection of Diane Arbus’s writings; and Mark Strand’s recent book of prose poems, Almost Invisible.
Do you consider yourself a fiction or a nonfiction person? Any guilty pleasures?
I consider myself a sentence person. Really guilty pleasures? Skimming memoirs by writers I know for gossip about people I know.
What book had the greatest impact on you? What book made you want to write?
One Hundred Years of Solitude convinced me to drop out of Harvard graduate school. The novel reminded me of everything my PhD program was trying to make me forget. Thank you, Gabriel García Márquez.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
The Torture Report: What the Documents Say About America’s Post-9/11 Torture Program, by Larry Siems, head of PEN American Center’s Freedom to Write Program. But since the president probably already knows what’s in it, I’d suggest he read The Complete Stories of Anton Chekhov. Chekhov helps you imagine what it’s like to be someone else, a useful skill for a political leader.
Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? One that teaches you something or one that distracts you?
Distract me. I cry enough. Though some books I love—Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë, Kosztolanyi’s Skylark—are almost unbearably sad. Books make me laugh out loud so rarely I remember the ones that have: Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Iris Owens’s After Claude. Geoff Dyer’s Zona. Here’s a funny bit from Jess Walter’s novel Beautiful Ruins, another book I have been telling friends to read: “The first impression one gets of Michael Deane is of a man constructed of wax, or perhaps prematurely embalmed. After all these years, it may be impossible to trace the sequence of facials, spa treatments, mud baths, cosmetic procedures, lifts and staples, collagen implants, outpatient touch-ups, tannings, Botox injections, cyst and growth removals, and stem-cell injections that have caused a seventy-two-year-old man to have the face of a nine-year-old Filipino girl.”
What were your favorite books as a child? Is there one book you wish all children would read?
Mary Poppins. The Borrowers. The Martian Chronicles. Little Women. The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. I was a very early reader with a child’s ability to slip back and forth between fantasy and reality—and an intermittent inability to tell the difference. I lived inside those books. Their characters were my friends, especially the melancholy exile Earthlings on Mars. I was always disappointed to find myself back in my room.
I wish all children (American or not) would read large-print versions of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. James Marshall, William Steig, and Maurice Sendak are gods of the picture book. Parents, check out Marshall’s The Stupids and Steig’s The Amazing Bone.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
I read ten pages of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, then put it down (forever) and went to see if there was anything good to eat. Whenever I admit I can’t read Trollope, some helpful person suggests the one Trollope novel I should try, and I always promise to try, even if I already have.
Which of the books you’ve written is your favorite?
People seem to like Blue Angel. I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia. Like most writers, I assume, my favorite is the novel I’m working on now. It’s called Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. I can still get lost in it. I have to, in order to write it.
Do you remember the last book someone personally recommended that you read and enjoyed? Who recommended you read it and what convin
ced you to pick it up?
My husband read aloud so much of Parallel Stories that I figured I might as well finish the rest. It was as good as he promised, and we were both glad to have someone to talk to about this crazy book. Marriage counselors should advise client couples to read extremely long, difficult, bizarrely entertaining Hungarian novels.
What’s the one book you wish someone else would write?
The poet Charles Simic says there should be a book called The History of Stupidity. He says it would be the world’s longest book: an encyclopedia. I don’t think he plans to write it, but I wish that someone would.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
Isaac Bashevis Singer said something like, “If Tolstoy lived across the street, I wouldn’t go meet him.” I know what he meant about Tolstoy, but I’d like to live across the street from Jane Bowles, Robert Walser, Gogol, Kafka, or Heinrich von Kleist. Or maybe at the Spanish campground where Roberto Bolaño worked as a watchman.
What do you plan to read next?
Jonathan Dee’s A Thousand Pardons, which I just received in galleys. Maybe I’ll read it next, or maybe I’ll save it for when I really need it: in the dentist’s waiting room or on a long airplane trip.
Francine Prose is the author of many books, including Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man; Blue Angel; Anne Frank; and Reading Like a Writer.
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On Not Having Read
I have never read any Tolstoy. I felt badly about this until I read a Bill Simmons column where he confessed that he’d never seen The Big Lebowski. Simmons, it should be pointed out, has seen everything. He said that everyone needs to have skipped at least one great cultural touchstone.
—Malcolm Gladwell
I’m looking at Shelby Foote’s three-volume history of the Civil War on my shelf—somehow I’ve never managed to read the whole thing. And I’ve never read most of the novels of Thomas Hardy, although I don’t feel embarrassed about it. Even though I love a lot of his poetry, his novels are just too sad for me.