On your nightstand now:
The Overlook by Michael Connelly.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
Your top five authors:
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Wolfe, Stephen King, Joseph Heller, Evelyn Waugh.
Book you've faked reading:
Everything of Henry James assigned by professors.
Book you are an evangelist for:
Moby-Dick, simply the greatest novel ever.
Book you've bought for the cover:
None, but I greatly admire the original cover of All Quiet on the Western Front with the haunted face of a German soldier.
Book that changed your life:
Catch-22, where I learned how tragedy and horror can be depicted though dark comedy, and In Cold Blood, where I learned how to write a "nonfiction novel."
Favorite line from a book:
Raymond Chandler on the nerve-wracking Santa Ana winds: "Anything can happen; you can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."
Book you most want to re-read:
The Great Gatsby, a big story in few words.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Brideshead Revisited, for its poignancy.