Bob Smith's first book of comic essays,
Openly Bob, won the Lambda Literary Award for humor. In September,
Carroll & Graf will publish his debut novel, Selfish and Perverse,
about three gay men and one lesbian in Alaska. Armistead Maupin has
said about his new book, "A thoroughly seductive and satisfying read.
It makes you laugh, it makes you horny, it makes you want to fish for
salmon." Here Smith, who lives in New York City, answers questions we occasionally put to people in the
industry:On your nightstand now:
Send Me by Patrick Ryan (reading it for the second time), Chaos by Edmund White, Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin and Sway by Zachary Lazar
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Lord of the Rings
Your top five authors:
Mark Twain, Evelyn Waugh, Dawn Powell, Christopher Isherwood, Barbara Pym
Book you've faked reading:
The Ambassadors by Henry James. (It was back in college. I never finished the book for a class.)
Books you are an evangelist for:
The Man of the House by Stephen Macauley and A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
Book you've bought for the cover:
Bruce McCall's Zany Afternoons. I love his comic illustrations and bought the hardcover first edition back in 1982 when every hardcover purchase was momentous.
Book that changed your life:
Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories
Favorite lines from books:
"Cassie was forty-three, well all right, forty-eight if you're going to count every lost weekend."--Dawn Powell, The Golden Spur
"Elsie congratulated herself on providing herself with such juicy nourishment for she had devoured most of her old friends, her enthusiasms were thinning out, and she had reached a time of life when the zest for adventure properly takes itself out in belaboring a daughter-in-law, ruining a grandchild or defending a worthless son."--Dawn Powell, The Wicked Pavillion
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Emma by Jane Austen
Author reading you'd most like to have attended:
Charles Dickens performing A Christmas Carol
Three authors you'd like to go on bar crawl with:
Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams and Joe Orton