Carol Cassella is an anesthesiologist and writer. Her first novel, Oxygen (Simon & Schuster, July 2008), explores the tragic consequences of an operation gone awry. Before focusing on fiction, Cassella wrote articles about global public health projects for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She continues to practice medicine in Seattle, Wash., and lives on Bainbridge Island with her husband and two sets of twins. She is currently working on her second novel.
On your nightstand now:
Well, they aren't always on my nightstand because the stack gets so high they topple onto the floor. I am a terribly slow (but careful!) reader and an ambitious book buyer. Currently I have A Crime so Monstrous by E. Benjamin Skinner and Blood of Brothers by Stephen Kinzer, both of which I'm reading as research for my next novel. Also: Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos (so lovely), One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson, Better by Atul Gawande, Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, You're Wearing That? by Deborah Tannen (I always have at least one parenting book), The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro. There are more, but it gets embarrassing. You should see the bookshelves.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Ooh, I've always hated picking favorites. Never had a favorite color!
I was younger than my siblings by four years and so books became my favorite playmates. Jokes, Riddles and Funny Stories--I read that every rainy day and managed to laugh every time. One Christmas I was given a book of short stories from China. I can't recall the name or author, but I read it dozens of times. As an adult, I realized that I felt a unique kinship with Asia as a result of that book. Cheaper by the Dozen by Gilbreth, the Bronte sisters, Gone with the Wind, The Secret Garden--I read all of them over and over. It makes me sad to realize I can't find the time to repeat books anymore--there are too many new and unopened ones on my shelves and so many more yet to be written.
Your top five authors:
On my current list I would include Cormac McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov for his verbal music, Harper Lee, Philip Roth for his unflinching eye, Kate Atkinson for her ability to turn a character's mind inside out and still let you love them, George Eliot because you could be stuck on a desert island with Middlemarch and be pretty perpetually entertained.
Book you've faked reading:
I picked up War and Peace on a backpacking trip through Asia and got all the way to the last 100 pages. Then I left the book in a noodle shop and couldn't find another copy. I never finished it! Well, I'm not dead yet. And, of course, Ulysses. I took a whole college course in that novel and still skipped sections.
Book you are an evangelist for:
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I think it is one of the best American books of the century. Also Lolita; how could one person write so many perfect sentences?
Book you've bought for the cover:
Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett. It lived up to the promise.
Book that changed your life:
They all change my life for the time I live inside them. Can I cheat here? My own novel thoroughly changed my life by transforming my concept of work and my relationship with words.
Favorite line from a book:
Uh oh, a "favorite" again. How about this one for the time being:
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
A go-back here: Middlemarch. Or All the Pretty Horses. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier is also on the list. I wonder, often, what it must have been like to live in an age when you could read all that was published. How wonderful. How frustrating!