By PJ Parrish
Am a little under the weather today, so this post is a bit of a cheat. I love reading a feature in the New York Times Book Review called By The Book. Famous writers are asked a series of standard questions about their tastes. Always fun to read their revealing answers. I’m not famous but I’ll give it go. And then you guys can weigh in.
What books are on your nightstand?
Just went and checked. Well, this was surprising. Two out of three are non-fiction and I am pretty much a novel-addict. Am plowing through (still!) Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King. It’s the story behind the painting of the Sistine Chapel. I am not Catholic but I am fascinated by all things papal and this recounting of the power politics behind maybe the world’s greatest masterpiece is riveting. Pope Julius was so incensed over Michelangelo’s slow, secretive progress that he took to disguising himself and sneaking up into the scaffolding. Michelangelo caught him one night and hurled planks at the poor guy. The pope, bellowing curses, fled. The artist, fearing for his life, bolted off to Florence to hide until the pope cooled down. That scene didn’t make the Charleton Heston movie.
Second is Once In a Great City: A Detroit Story by David Maraniss. An elegantly told elegy for my home town that was abandoned by the world. Third (spine yet uncracked) is The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle. I’m off to Paris in 10 days and I always take along a book set in my destination. This thriller just won the Edgar for best Paperback Original. Met Kimberly in the bathroom at the Edgars. She was so gobsmacked she could barely talk.
What’s the last great book you read?
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I’ve read it twice now. An American epic. It’s tenderness gets to me and the characters still walk around in my head.
If you were to write something besides thrillers, what would you write?
Erotica. Tried it once. A sad middle-aged woman goes to Italy and gets laid. (This was pre-Under the Tuscan Sun so don’t jump on me.) My title was brilliant: Tarantella, which is a crazed Italian dance thought to cure deadly spider bites and bring the victim back to life. I still have the manuscript. It’s awful. I unwittingly wrote a comic novel.
What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?
When I was writing thrillers, I never read anything. Just couldn’t. My brain was too out there on Planet X to concentrate. I used to survive by binging on sports TV. This is how I became a hockey fan.
What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
That Keith Richards is really bitchy. In his biography Life, he says of Bruce Springsteen: “If there was anything better around, he’d still be working the bars of New Jersey.” And he says Mick Jagger is, ahem, not well-endowed: “He has a tiny todger.” (Which is an interesting new word I learned).
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
Soupy Sez: My Zany Life and Times. It’s the autobiography of the infamous Detroit kids TV star Soupy Sales. It’s hilarious and ultimately quite sad. I loved this guy.
What moves you most in a work of literature?
Emotional honesty from the writer. Opening a vein. You can’t fake it. Though many try.
Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?
I grew up reading the backs of cereal boxes so I will read anything. But I don’t like political thrillers. The reality is bad enough.
How do you organize your books?
By category. All my dance books, from my near two decades as a dance critic, are grouped together. All my royal family books share a high shelf. Thrillers and mysteries, mostly from friends, dominate the lower rungs. 🙂 And there’s one shelf where all my France/Paris books live together in happy utopian disdain.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
Several very old and rare books on slavery. It was research for one of our series novels involving the underground railroad but I got carried away. One historic title is so offensive I shelve it spine in.
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
Charlotte’s Web. Got it as a little kid. It got lost, along with much of my childhood paraphernalia, in our many moves. I found a beat-up copy at a barn sale last summer here in Michigan. It smells musty and is inscribed “To my daughter Anne.”
Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?
Well, my hero, I’d have to say, is Charlotte the spider. She’s confident, thoughtful and a true-blue friend. Villain? Two: Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. Moping around in moors, mired in self-pity. And he locks his wife in the attic! And Lady MacBeth, with one of the best lines in all of fiction: “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” Wish I had written that.
So, crime dogs? How would you answer any of these questions? Pick one or two or all. Would love to hear your secrets.
Q: What books are on your nightstand?
A: None. Two old issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
Q: What’s the last great book you read?
A: The Emperor’s New Drugs.
Q: If you were to write something besides thrillers, what would you write?
A: I write in multiple genres. I’m planning a sequel to my mystery-western-romance.
Q: What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?
A: Depends on the book. When doing WWII thrillers, history books. For Psychological works, I read similar topics, Carl Jung works, etc.
Q: What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
A: That anti-depressants have a very narrow range of effectiveness and a weak scientific basis.
Q: What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
A: Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics.”
Q: What moves you most in a work of literature?
A: Compassion.
Q: Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?
A: I like fantasy, SciFi, Mysteries.
Q: How do you organize your books?
A: Organize? What’s that?
Q: What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
A: Bluejackets’ Manual.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
A: A copy of Winnie the Pooh with a bookplate inscribed in my father’s best handwriting, with my name, and “Christmas 1944.” I’d have been 5 at the time.
Q: Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?
A: Lately, I’ve been fond of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, who fulfill both roles. RLS was one of the foremost psychology scholars in the UK and based his book on actual cases. Each of us really does contains a second autonomous, sentient entity, one supposed to protect us, but which can take over and turn against us. It has no conscience. It is responsible for alcoholic relapse, sleepwalking, deja vu, hypnic jerks, highway hypnosis, bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder, alcoholic blackouts, DPDR, and behavior under hypnosis. It is also our creative engine and the source of dreams.
Organize? What’s organize? This always gets me. I couldn’t bear to have the books willy-nilly. But then I’m one of those people who goes nuts if she sees a towel in a closet not properly folded.
How do you organize your books?
Organize?
Put me down as another Soupy fan.
My favorite book no one else has heard of is Witing With a Word Pricessor by William Zinsser. It’s a hilarious account of a former newspaperman who loved his Underwood, trying to learn to write on a big ol’ IBM Displaywriter (in 1983). Brilliant.
BTW, Keith Richards is right about Springsteen.
Zinsser….I remember him fondly. We can bond over Soupy but I must leave your camp on Bruce. 🙂
Favorite hero—Walt Longmire. He’s tough as nails but doesn’t know it. He just does what needs to be done with an almost indomitable will.
Favorite antihero—Thomas Covenant from Stephen Donaldson’s fantasy series.
What books are on your nightstand—A James Lee Burke which I finished last night about 10:30 , I’m still working my way through The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard (only his short stories including 3:10 to Yuma), Who knew he’d written so many western shorts?
Me for one (who didn’t know Leonard wrote a SERIES of westerns.)
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
Others have probably heard of this book. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. It’s an apocalyptic thriller, which I normally dislike, but the crow narrator sucked me in. I also love the sequel, Feral Creatures. Oh, how I wish she’d turn them into a series.
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
1st Edition of Silence of the Lambs in pristine condition. Thanks, Garry!
Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?
Thrillers, romantic suspense, and mysteries are my go-to genres. Not a big fan of YA, but I’ve read a few books I enjoyed by authors I trust. I stay away from political books of any kind.
I really like dystopian thrillers — and movies. Am working my way though The Last of Us on TV right now. Based on a game, I am told, but it’s pretty compelling as a series/movie. And man, they are NOT afraid to kill off good characters. Will check out Hollow Kingdom. Thanx
Perhaps I should add for a book that no-one has heard of, ‘A Star Curiously Singing’ by Kerry Nietz, part of his Dark Trench series, except I’m sure many people have heard of his books. I like his techie sci-fi, but not what I would consider borderline horror—’Amish Vampires in Space,’ etc. (I will confess I avoided the last one based on its name, so I can’t really offer an opinion on it. I just know that when he writes creepy, it is very creepy.)
Great questions, Kris!
If I weren’t writing mysteries, I’d be writing fantasy and science fiction again.
I also organize my books by category, though not necessarily in alphabetically order by author for the non-fiction, but rather sub-category of non-fiction. Fiction is strictly organizing by category and then alphabetical order by author 🙂
People might be surprised to learn I have a collection of books on pirates and the Age of Piracy on a shelf in my writing room. I became fascinated by them after being introduced to both the old computer game “Pirates” and Rafeal Sabatini’s “Captain Blood” and took a deep dive into the topic. For a long time I thought I’d write a historical mystery featuring pirates. Perhaps I still will.
BTW, another Soupy Sales fan here.
Hope you feel better soon.
My favorite Soupy bit is him being a waiter to Sinatra, Sammy, and Trini…and “Italian dressing.”
HA!!! Forgot about this one. If I knew how to post it, I would post his infamous bit with the stripper who wings his bell.
And hit it!
C-O-W spells a cow.
C-O-W spells a cow.
A cow is the one who chews up grass
And that’s how milk gets in your glass.
C-O-W spells a cow.
Yeah Soupy! I, too, love pirates. It springs from my love of one movie — a cheesy but good Yul Brynner flick called The Buccaneer (1958). Had a crush on him for years after that. But he was awful in Taras Bulba.
Taras Bulba was a Tarabul movie.
Love these questions!
Organize? Does that mean “a place for everything and everything in its place”? My books are the only items that are never in their place. Unless they’re on my Kindle, but Kindle does all the work.
I love, love, love political thrillers! My fave authors of such at this moment in time are Brother Gilstrap, Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins, and Joel Rosenberg.
I don’t really have a “nightstand” and I don’t read in bed–I sleep. But, there is a copy nearby of Madeleine L’Engle’s trilogy, A Wrinkle in Time, including all three works in the series. Love those stories.
Hope everyone has a great day!
Actually, I do love one political thriller — All the Presidents Men.
👍
On my bedside table: story starter books and pre-calculus texts (and ‘The Mona Lisa Vanishes,’ but I carried it into the kitchen).
Last great book read: Most recently reread ‘The Scarlett Pimpernel’ and ‘The Little Princess,’ both which I enjoy. Also listening to ‘Lady Molly of Scotland Yard’ again. Also a sci-fI fan.
What I would write other than thrillers? I don’t actually write thrillers, but I like to write middle-grade fiction because you can have fun with it. I would write sci-fi.
Read or don’t read while writing: Eclectic reading either way. I just try to avoid poor writing.
Learned from a recent book: About ornamental designs in art throughout history. (I’m doing a mandala series as an artist.)
Moves me in literature: Authenticity of voice and story telling.
What do I avoid reading: Romance. What genre do I like: Sci-fi and older literature. Anything with good story telling.
Organized: By category
What might people be surprised to find on my shelf: Most likely the many math books.
Best book as a gift: Bible from my parents or ‘Snow Treasure’ given to me by a relative when I was young. (I’m Norwegian descent, so that’s a significant story.)
Favorite heroine: Tris from ‘Divergent.’ The Divergent series is one of my favorites. This is a really hard question, because I have a lot of favorite heroes and heroines. Sarah Crewe, Molly Gibson, Sir Percy, Rilla Blythe, Sandfly, Mma Ramotswe, Lady Molly, Atticus Finch. There is no end to the list. Primarily, people who are wise and who stand up for what is right in the face of oppression from some source.
Good list of heros!
Stephen King – Bag of Bones
Heroes:
Spider-Man
Sherlock Holmes
MacGyver
Spenser
Villians
Randall Flagg
Red Skull
Didn’t King kill off Randall? (Am not well read in the King oeuvre.)
Thanks for the shout-out for Soupy Sez. It was a unique experience for me working with Soupy on his memoir. It wasn’t easy. By this time in his life, Soupy was suffering from what I believe was Parkinson’s. It was almost impossible to conduct a full-blown interview with him because his ability to speak was severely limited. He’d start talking at a pretty much normal tone, but within minutes his voice would get softer and softer until it was nothing more than a whisper. That’s why the book is really stitched together by interviews with people who knew and worked with Soupy. He was a lovely man, by the way, and despite how popular he was at one time, he made very little money during his career.
The irony is, after working as a magazine journalist and then nonfiction book writer, I wound up writing crime novels–just finished my 10th.
Hey Charles,
Well, geez, thanks for dropping here. And thanks for writing the book. I got it as a gift from my best friend who was also a Soupy disciple. I’m glad someone was there to tell his story. And so cool (if I can use an old nerd word) that you’re now one of us crime dogs.