On your nightstand now:
Never Shower in a Thunderstorm: Surprising Facts and Misleading Myths about our Health and the World We Live in by Anahad O'Connor. I was hoping to find an excuse to keep smoking, i.e., that the connection between smoking and lung cancer, etc., was all a big misunderstanding, but I am already more than halfway through and my prospects are not looking good.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I loved the Finnish Moomin troll books by Tove Jansson. They tell the adventures of a family of white hippopotamus-looking trolls or elves that were in hindsight pretty depressed and strange for characters from a children's book series.
Your top five authors:
Gunter Grass whose storylines have a South American "woe and behold" feel to them but penned with a Prussian detachedness that makes for a mesmerizing read; Tom Sharpe who writes hysterically funny satirical novels; Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson whom I have recently become hooked on (an addiction that will not be fed for long as he tragically died before his time); Philip K. Dick for his apparently limitless imagination; and Arnaldur Indriðason for his Icelandic crime series featuring the gloomy protagonist Erlendur.
Book you've faked reading:
When I was in high school, we were supposed to read a novel in Danish by a Danish author and write a book report. I chose Tænk på et tal by Anders Bodelsen for the sole reason that it was the only Danish book that I knew was available on video in English, as the screenplay for Silent Partner with Elliott Gould was based on the book. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but have since sort of regretted not reading the novel as I am sure it must be great.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. I find it simply exquisite; the text's intelligence is sublimely disguised as silly and to-die-for-cute.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Simple 1-2-3 Cooking for Kids. It had a picture of a pasta dish with a hot dog on top, and the hot dog had been partially cut into strips to make it look like an octopus. I have since tried to make this same dish but failed miserably, and my grandson refused to come anywhere near it, much less eat the vaguely obscene monstrosity.
Book that changed your life:
The Trial by Franz Kafka. While reading it I held on to the hope that there would be an explanation as to what was going on, but that turned out to be overly optimistic. When done, I was so unimpressed and bewildered at how bad the novel was, considering how highly praised it had been, that it taught me not to assume I would automatically like everything that others acclaim. Later I learned that The Trial was published posthumously and Kafka had not finished it, stating in his will that the manuscript was to be destroyed. From this, I drew yet more wisdom: as an author I will make sure to do my own deathbed shredding.
Favorite line from a book:
"You shall not go, for you know not how to behave yourself in company where there is much drinking, you who are not good to deal with though you be sober."--Skallgrímur Kveldulfsson addressing his three-year-old son, Egil, in Egil's Saga, explaining to the toddler that he cannot attend a feast since he tends to become rowdy when drunk.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Agatha Christie's Endless Night as the ending was so surprising that you can't really relive the book knowing the solution to the mystery.