What are you reading, charming writer?

April 21, 2009 8:13 AM

What are writers reading? An eclectic mix of authors answer the perennial question.

A sampling of responses:
George Packer
Anne Fadiman
Cass Sunstein
Jane Smiley
Lydia Millet
Steven Zipperstein
Abraham Verghese
John Dunning
Stephen Burt
Tim Harford

posted by mattbucher (10 comments total)

I like a number of these writers, and I appreciate this post because I love hearing people thoughtfully talking about the pros and cons of what they're looking at right now. But I'm very curious as to why nobody (that I've been able to see) includes web content of any kind in their list. Probably half of what I read is on the web.
posted by sleevener at 9:11 AM on April 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeah, that is a little curious--maybe even disingenuous. However, I guess it does follow that those most likely to have their reading time dominated by dead-tree books would be other writers of dead-tree books. The NYT blog Paper Cuts, in their interviews with writers, makes it a point to ask questions like "How much time do you spend on the web?"
posted by mattbucher at 9:37 AM on April 21, 2009

there is this one member at metafilter who i think is awesome, but could use better grammar.
posted by the aloha at 9:40 AM on April 21, 2009

These things tell us about what these writers think we expect them to be reading, as much as they do about what these writers most enjoy.
posted by honest knave at 9:50 AM on April 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Judging based on these lists, I should never read anything by any of these people.
posted by sonic meat machine at 11:02 AM on April 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

Perhaps all would be the wiser if they heeded the words of Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow, who refused to submit a list. "I care not for this cargo cult," he writes. "Books are cheap and readily available. To read is the thing, voraciously and eclectically. No guide is needed."
posted by Turtles all the way down at 11:09 AM on April 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I had read the Zipperstein book. Great! Next I went to the author he wrote about and discovered that the bio was a hell of a lot better than the novelist Zipperstein wrote about. In sum, a great book about a 3rd rate writer.
posted by Postroad at 11:13 AM on April 21, 2009

Here's mine, from September 2007. Of the nine books I was partway through two years ago, I've finished three.
posted by escabeche at 1:28 PM on April 21, 2009

I'd rather read everything Stephenie Meyer outputs, IN ESPERANTO, to the exclusion of ALL OTHER READING for the rest of my life than read anything of a certain female author linked above EVER AGAIN. But I digress...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:42 PM on April 21, 2009

Bitter: Would that female author by any chance be the one linked in the word "eclectic"?
posted by scratch at 7:13 PM on April 21, 2009