Former journalist,
college professor and city planner Charles
Euchner is the author or editor of nine books; the latest is Nobody Turn Me Around: A People's
History of the 1963 March on Washington
(Beacon, June 2010). He is the creator of the Writing Code, a seminar program
for businesses, schools and universities, and journalists and authors.
On your nightstand now:
The Eyes of Willie
McGee by Alex
Heard, about the execution of a black Mississippi man for an alleged rape, and
the tangled story of race and sex and some of the first mid-century rumblings
of civil rights activism. Open by
Andre Agassi is a model of strong writing; his ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer,
the author of The Tender Bar, seems
to do every single thing right. I'm also reading John Milton Cooper's Woodrow Wilson, the last century's
version of Barack Obama. I'm constantly reading about the brain--books like How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, and Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph Hallinan,
and The Meme Machine by Susan
Blackmore--because I'm constantly trying to understand, as a writer, how
readers experience the world and how best to connect with them intellectually
and emotionally. 
Favorite book when you were a child:
Probably Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book carries so many memories burned into my psyche--those lazy summer days on the Mississippi, the cleverness of Tom's incipient entrepreneurship, the deep childhood friendship of Tom and Huck and Jim, the annoying presence of adults who cannot fathom the dreams of youth, the iconic bootlicker Sidney, the budding romance of Tom and Becky, and the encounter with danger in the cave. It's hard to imagine a book that speaks more honestly and humanely about what childhood is all about, whatever the century. And, yes, while it's an indelible portrait of America, I bet it's also the story of childhood anywhere kids are rambunctious and adventurous.
Your top five authors:
Milan Kundera is the most powerful voice for the modern era (at least, that I know) with his depiction of totalitarianism and the heroism people need in their everyday lives to maintain their humanity; The Unbearable Lightness of Being brings together all of life's tragedies and joys with memorable characters and moments. Truman Capote's style amazes me. He manages to be both lush and direct at the same time in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Even more impressive is In Cold Blood, which offers a clinic on every challenge that writers face; I even give a seminar called "The Truman Show" on what his technique can teach writers. Yes, I know he skirted the truth in the book, but his fibs were completely unnecessary and do not undo his mastery of nonfiction narrative. To laugh, I'll read David Lodge (I especially love Changing Places) and Thomas Berger (especially The Houseguest, Being Invisible and Meeting Evil). Joyce Carol Oates has a range that's hard to fathom. Can I add a few more? Thanks. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Robert Caro's The Power Broker (flawed, but the best book I've ever read about American politics) and Tom Wolfe (though he cannot seem to write endings worthy of his novels).
Book you've faked reading:
Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, in college. It was just too damn long. My faking was not unnoticed. I got a terrible grade for a paper comparing the book and movie treatments of the story. I still feel guilty and will one day read it.
Book you’re an evangelist for:
Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. One of the last century's most important architects, Alexander's design strategy offers a code for how to live authentic, rich lives. A Pattern Language describes 253 specific strategies to build spaces ranging in size from the corner or a room to a whole region. Alexander insists on organic process. Rather than dictating every move in a rigid plan, Alexander argues for designs evolve. All great spaces, Alexander says, are really complex concatenations of small pieces. Each one of those small pieces enhances everything around it; as Alexander teaches in another work, The Timeless Way of Building, every act of construction should also be an act of repair. A Pattern Language is such a life-transforming work that I offer friends a money-back guarantee. Get it and read it, and if you are in any way dissatisfied, send it to me for a complete refund.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I can't think of any--which just means that the power of subliminal seduction is too powerful for me to notice, not that I'm immune to slick packaging. I do buy books when I see blurbs from people whose writing style I like and whose judgment I trust.
Book that changed your life:
I once asked Ann Cook, who taught a two-semester Shakespeare class at Vanderbilt, what her favorite play was. "Whatever I'm reading at the moment," she said. Every book changes my life, at least a little. For example: I just read a book about "subliteral language" and I learned a lot about how people say things when they don't want to be honest with themselves or others. The writing was awkward and the ideas half-baked, but I packed away some interesting nuggets. When I was in grad school, I read Marx and Wittgenstein, whose ideas influence me everyday, though not in ways you might suspect. When I broke down Capote's In Cold Blood, I learned more about writing than ever before, so that changed my life too. Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul helped me open up to some long-dormant spiritual concerns; Henri Nouwen's The Parable of the Prodigal Son took me deeper. Chris Alexander's A Pattern Language showed me the connection between ideas and practice, in ways I think about every day. I'm ready to be changed all the time. Got a suggestion?
Favorite line from a book:
I always laugh out loud when I read a passage in which the narrator describes grad school life in Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. The passage starts like this: "Long ago Jack Burden was a graduate student, working for his Ph.D. in American History in the State University of his native state. This Jack Burden (of whom the present Jack Burden, Me, is a legal, biological, and perhaps even meta-physical continuator) lived in a slatternly apartment with two other graduate students, one industrious, stupid, unlucky, and alcoholic and the other idle, intelligent, lucky, and alcoholic." Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be academics!
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Anything by Hemingway. I have dipped into some of his journalism, For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms lately. I would love to have a Hemingway marathon on a road trip. His genius gets lost in all the clichés about his simple, terse style. He wasn't a genius because he wrote simply. He was a genius because he wrote just enough to make you feel the sensations of the moment and then let you bring something to the story too. And he was a genius because he captured people in their moments of recognition.