By the Book

by Pamela Paul

  Care to call out your nominees for most overlooked or underappreciated writer?

  Rose Macaulay, for her wistful humanity and her glorious sense of humor. There is a scene in The Towers of Trebizond in which the narrator realizes that she has copied the wrong sentence out of her Turkish phrase book and has accidentally been soliciting the attention of a hotel guest when she merely wished to explain that she didn’t speak the language; it ranks among the best comic scenes in fiction. Emma Lazarus, for her humanitarian passions. She wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor”), but we’ve largely forgotten the sedate beauty of her other work, including the prose poems By the Waters of Babylon. Rumer Godden, who is incorrectly categorized as a children’s writer, and who writes with so much understatement that readers can miss the depth of her insight and her vivid grace. An Episode of Sparrows was reissued, and I find it quietly transporting.

  You recently earned a doctoral degree in psychology from Cambridge. What were the best books you read during the course of your research?

  I was studying motherhood, and I started with D. W. Winnicott, progenitor of the theory of the “good enough mother.” Winnicott presumed that mother-infant interactions were reciprocal and satisfying to both. “The most remarkable thing about a mother,” he observed, “is her ability to be hurt so much by her baby and to hate so much without paying the child out, and her ability to wait for rewards that may or may not come at a later date.” Winnicott sees this selflessness as a hallmark of successful mothering. The book that influenced me the most was Rozsika Parker’s Torn in Two, published in the United States as Mother Love, Mother Hate. Parker’s book argues that competent mothering requires two conflicting impulses—to protect and nurture the child, and to push the child out into the world—and suggests that ambivalence is the engine of achieving these dichotomous objectives. Her book notes that we have stigmatized the pushing away and sentimentalized the clinging, and that in doing so, we have denied basic truths about motherhood, causing mothers who experience ambivalence to see themselves as bad mothers when ambivalence is in fact a healthy, necessary state.

  What kinds of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?

  I like the long and associative, and read a lot of neo-Proustian stuff. I tend to be put off by action stories—by anything that is about sports, physical danger, or machines. My four-year-old son, however, loves stories about sports, physical danger, and especially machines. So I may be revising my point of view.

  What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

  Every Peanuts anthology ever. I played Linus in my summer camp production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and have been addicted to the comic strip ever since. I read them when I’m stressed out, and they serve as something of a security blanket.

  Do you ever read self-help? Anything you recommend?

  I’m never clear on how “self-help” differs from “help.” Books help; they’ve helped me to understand love, taught me empathy, and given me courage. Even when they merely entertain, they help. For a delicious analysis of the extremely unhelpful self-help industry, see Jessica Lamb-Shapiro’s forthcoming Promise Land.

  What’s the last book that made you laugh out loud? That made you cry? And the last book that made you angry?

  Jennifer Finney Boylan’s endlessly witty Stuck in the Middle with You made me laugh out loud over and over again; it’s about her experience as a transgender parent, who started off as her children’s father and ended up as their “Maddy”—not quite a mom, but definitely no longer a dad. Louise Erdrich’s Painted Drum made me cry: “And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.” Cracked, by James Davies, made me furious. Davies argues against psychopharmacology by proposing that all medical approaches to depression, bipolar illness, and schizophrenia are tainted by profit and are therefore ipso facto fraudulent. But everything is tainted by profit; a farmer profited from growing the chicken I ate for dinner last night, but its deliciousness is not a fraud. Davies’s book, like Irving Kirsch’s Emperor’s New Drugs, Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, and Daniel Carlat’s Unhinged, embraces a smug populism that will keep people from taking medications that could save their lives.

  If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

  It would behoove the president to read Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s searing masterpiece of relentless close-up journalism. No other book I’ve read charts so clearly the trajectory of poverty and its corrosive compulsions. It’s impossible to read it and not become a more empathetic person. The president could use its lessons on the quadrant of society that we’ve largely abandoned.

  Did you identify with any literary characters growing up? Who were your literary heroes?

  Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, of course. Sebastian Flyte. I suffered under the misapprehension that I was an Old World aristocrat manqué, rather than a middle-class, striving, and slightly affected New Yorker descended from peasants.

  What books have you most enjoyed reading (or rereading) with your children?

  We’ve been reading Winnie-the-Pooh, and I am trying to nail the voices of Pooh and Eeyore and Owl half as winningly as my father did. We have a bit of a Moomintroll addiction. And then there are Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories, by which I remain as wholly captivated in adulthood as I was in childhood. We’re entranced by Tim Egan’s recent Dodsworth series about a nattily dressed indeterminate animal (badger? woodchuck?) traveling the world with his hapless, ill-behaved duck.

  Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

  Oliver Sacks relates fascinating case histories and he writes fluently, but he treats his subjects with a tinge of the ringmaster’s bravado—an underlying tone of, “Hey, if you think that’s weird, wait until you get a load of this one!” It is possible to have clinical rigor without such voyeuristic emotional deficits.

  If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

  The J writer, or Yahwist, of the Torah. I’d want to ask him what he intended to be literal and what he intended to be figurative. And I’d point out that confusion around this question has had a toxic effect on the rest of history.

  If you could be any character from literature who would you be?

  Godot. I rather like the idea that everyone is waiting for me.

  What book have you always meant to read and haven’t gotten around to yet? Anything you feel embarrassed never to have read?

  Moby-Dick.

  What do you plan to read next?

  Moby-Dick. But I’ve said that before.

  Andrew Solomon is the author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon.

  * * *

  On My Nightstand (Continued)

  Right now I’m looking right at Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior; the new Diane Keaton autobiography; Having It All, by Helen Gurley Brown (research); and The Consolations of Philosophy, by Alain de Botton —all in various states of having-been-read-ed-ness.

  —Lena Dunham

  My current audiobook (Yes, they count; of course they count; why wouldn’t they?) is The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt. It was recommended by Lemony Snicket (through his representative, Daniel Handler), and I trust Mr. Snicket implicitly. (Or anyway, as implicitly as one can trust someone you have never met, and who may simply be a pen name of the man who played accordion at your wedding.)

  —Neil Gaiman

  Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy. His last book, Foreskin’s Lament, really made me laugh.

  —David Sedaris

  Raylan, by Elmore Leonard, one of my writing heroes. There is nobody better at lowlife dialogue. And also, b
y the way, not a cooler guy on the planet.

  —Carl Hiaasen

  I’m reading Zona, the latest book by one of my favorite contemporary writers, Geoff Dyer. The premise of the book sounds immensely boring—an essay on Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker—but fortunately, like most of Dyer’s works, it isn’t about anything other than the author: his obsessions, his fears, his encroaching (and always endearing) feelings of insanity.

  —Alain de Botton

  The Summer of 1787, by David O. Stewart. As I grow older, I am increasingly fascinated by our founding fathers. The challenges they faced and the compromises they made, good and bad, to create a nation have inspired us and people around the world. I wish today’s political leaders, especially in Washington, would show the courage and willingness to fight for what they believe in, but possess an understanding of the need to compromise to solve the nation’s problems. They all need to go off and read 1787.

  —Colin Powell

  Mary Poppins, by P. L. Travers. Dancing to the Precipice, by Caroline Moorehead. Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel. I’ve always got two or three on the go.

  —Emma Thompson

  The Priceless Gift: The Love Letters of Woodrow Wilson and Ellen Axson Wilson, edited by Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, and Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, volumes one and two, by Ray Stannard Baker. (Research for my next novel.)

  —Joyce Carol Oates

  Moonraker, Ian Fleming, 1955.

  —Michael Chabon

  Right now I’m shuttling between The Map and the Territory, by the French novelist Michel Houellebecq, and The Patrick Melrose Novels, by Edward St. Aubyn, which everyone I know seems to be reading. Houellebecq’s known for being a provocateur. He’ll say things like “Life was expensive in the west, it was cold there; the prostitution was of poor quality.” He says a lot of depressing, un-American things I get a big kick out of.

  —Jeffrey Eugenides

  * * *

  Malcolm Gladwell

  What’s the best book you’ve read so far this year?

  There have been many. I loved Jonathan Dee’s new novel, A Thousand Pardons. The best science book I read was Adam Alter’s Drunk Tank Pink, which is a really provocative look at how much our behavior is contextually determined.

  Which writers do you find yourself returning to again and again—reading every new book and rereading the old?

  Did I mention Lee Child? The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis. I reread Malcolm’s Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession just to remind myself how nonfiction is supposed to be done. I love how ominous her writing is. Even when she is simply sketching out the scenery, you know that something wonderful and thrilling is about to happen. Lewis is tougher, because what he does is almost impossible to emulate. The Big Short, one of the best business books of the past two decades, was about derivatives. I read Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. I’ll never play like that. But it’s good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like.

  Your new book is in part about underdogs. Who are your favorite underdog writers—underappreciated, yet to be recognized, or altogether forgotten?

  The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world. Years ago, he wrote a book called The Person and the Situation with Lee Ross. If you read that book, you’ll see the template for the genre of books that The Tipping Point and Blink and Outliers belong to. That book changed my life. A few years ago, I learned that it was out of print and had been out of print for some time—which broke my heart. (Thankfully there’s a new edition.)

  Who are your favorite social science writers? Anyone new and especially smart we should pay attention to?

  I mentioned Adam Alter, who is a psychologist at New York University. I also really like Adam Grant, who is a psychologist at Penn and the author of Give and Take. What really excites me as a sports fan, though, is all the smart sports books coming from an academic perspective: The Sports Gene, by David Epstein; The Numbers Game, by Chris Anderson and David Sally; and The Wages of Wins and Stumbling on Wins, by Dave Berri and others.

  Many a book is now touted as The Tipping Point for X or Y, or generally Gladwellian. What do you make of the many imitators and homages?

  I’m flattered, naturally. Although I should point out that it is sometimes said that I invented this genre. I did not. Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross did.

  What books, to your mind, bring together social science, business principles, and narrative nonfiction in an interesting or innovative way?

  Can I return again to Michael Lewis? Bringing together social science and business principles is easy. Doing that and telling a compelling story is next to impossible. I think only Michael Lewis can do it well. His nonbusiness books like The Blind Side, by the way, are even better. That book is as close to perfect as a work of popular nonfiction can be.

  Did you identify with any fictional characters as a child? Who was your literary hero?

  In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we were living in Bible Belt farming country miles from civilization. Buckley seemed impossibly exotic. We used to go into Toronto and prowl the used-book stores on Queen Street looking for rare first editions of The Unmaking of a Mayor and God and Man at Yale. To this day I know all the great Buckley lines. Upon coming to Canada for a speech, for example, he is asked at the border for the purpose of his visit:

  Buckley: I have come to rid Canada of the scourge of socialism.

  Guard: How long do you intend to stay?

  Buckley: Twenty-four hours.

  In southern Ontario farming country when I was growing up, we considered that kind of thing deeply hilarious.

  In general, what kinds of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?

  I don’t think I will ever write about politics or foreign policy. I feel like there is so much good writing in those areas that I have little to add. I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like. My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview.

  What’s the last book to make you laugh out loud? To cry? And the last book that made you angry?

  I read Jeremy Adelman’s biography of Albert O. Hirschman early this year and was deeply moved by it. Hirschman wasn’t just a man with a thousand extraordinary adventures (fighting fascists in Spain, smuggling Jews out of France, writing Exit, Voice, and Loyalty and a handful of other unforgettable books). He was also wise and decent and honest. I finished that book with tears in my eyes.

  What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

  I have—by conservative estimate—several hundred novels with the word “spy” in the title.

  If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

  The new Lee Child, of course! It might be nice for him to escape for a few hours to a world where one man can solve every one of the world’s problems with nothing but his wits and his fists.

  Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

  I feel terrible for saying this. But I started reading The Cuckoo’s Calling before I knew it was by J. K. Rowling, and I couldn’t finish it. Is there something wrong with me?

  If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

  Shakespeare’s wife, of course. So I could settle this whole thing once and for all.

  If you could meet any character from literature, who would it be?

  I’d like to go for a long walk on the Hampstead Heath with George Smiley. It would be drizzling. We would end up having a tepid cup of tea somewhere, with slightly stale biscuits. I would ask him lots of questions about Contro
l, and he would evade them, gracefully.

  What book have you always meant to read and haven’t gotten around to yet? Anything you feel embarrassed not to have 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.

  What do you plan to read next?

  Something with the word “spy” in the title.

  Malcolm Gladwell is the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw, and David and Goliath.

  Scott Turow

  What book is on your night stand now?

  I’m loving Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son, set in North Korea. The novel won this year’s Pulitzer but, more important, comes with the enthralled recommendations of writer friends. Like most readers, I’m inclined to rely on the word of people in my life whose tastes I respect.

  What was the last truly great book you read?

  When I noticed that Patti Smith’s Just Kids had won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2010, I ranted about contemporary culture, so celebrity-besotted that we were now giving vaunted literary prizes to rock stars. Then I read the book. It is profound and unique, a perfectly wrought account of what it means to give your life to art and to another person. I expect it to be read with wonder for a long time.