White Thoughts set the questions. Here’s my off-the-cuff list:
- One book that changed your life:
My Carnet de Marriage
This is the booklet officially recording my marriage. - One book that you’ve read more than once:
Group Portrait with Lady by Heinrich Boll … after an interval of twenty years and greatly fearing that it wouldn’t mean so much to me the second time. Not to worry, it was every bit as good.
- One book you’d want on a desert island:
Godel, Escher, Bach; an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. There’s eating and drinking in it.
- One book that made you laugh:
At Swim Two Birds by Flann O’Brien. Postmodern masterpiece boasting no less than three beginnings.
- One book that made you cry:
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa. Dramatic account of the distasteful last days of the infamous Dominican Republic’s Trujillo regime.
- One book that you wish had been written:
The sixth Ripley novel from Patricia Highsmith … and the seventh, eighth …
- One book that you wish had never been written:
Ulysses by James Joyce. So many people have wasted so much time on this one.
- One book you’re currently reading:
Les Bienveillants by Jonathan Littell. Currently talked about French novel by American writer about evil goings-on during World War II.
- One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. Actually, I’ve tried and I will succeed eventually.
