Reagan Arthur joined Little, Brown in 2001, after more than 10 years at St. Martin's Press and Picador USA. She's worked with writers such as Kate Atkinson, Josh Bazell, Kate Braestrup, Eleanor Catton, Joshua Ferris, Tina Fey, Elin Hilderbrand, Kathleen Kent, Elizabeth Kostova, Denise Mina, James Patterson, George Pelecanos, Ian Rankin, Megan Abbott, Frederick Reiken and Dan Simmons. Arthur became publisher of Little, Brown on April 1, 2013. Answering questions about books seemed a fitting way to celebrate her one-year anniversary.
On your nightstand now:
In addition to manuscripts and many issues of the New Yorker, my nightstand tends to host the books that my husband has read and recommended. So, right now: Daily Rituals by Mason Currey and New York Diaries, edited by Teresa Carpenter.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Impossible to name just one! But today I choose Apples Every Day by Grace Richardson, a terrific young adult novel set in a Canadian boarding school where they play outdoor ice hockey and complain about blancmange, among other exoticisms for a Southern California kid.
Your top five authors:
Excluding living and Little, Brown authors: Christopher Isherwood, E.B. White, Patricia Highsmith, Edith Wharton, Richard Yates.
Book you've faked reading:
A Clockwork Orange, at my first coed party in junior high, after a cute boy said it was his favorite book and I nodded enthusiastically in agreement. Then he said how cool it was that Anthony Burgess invented his own language and I nodded again and spent the rest of the conversation wondering, "Is this a trap?" and was afraid to check for years. Never saw that boy again, but I never faked reading a book again, either: too traumatic.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose novels.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I used to buy a lot of old New Directions paperbacks from Brooklyn street vendors because I loved their black-and-white covers.
Book that changed your life:
I'm not sure it changed my life, but I read A. Scott Berg's Max Perkins: Editor of Genius shortly after I graduated from college. I'd always hoped to live in New York and work in publishing. I knew neither would be the same anymore (I give my 21-year-old self some credit), but [Berg] both romanticized and helped clarify a world and a profession I knew I wanted to be part of.
Favorite line from a book:
"Isn't it pretty to think so?" from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Which character you most relate to:
Harriet the Spy. (Does every bookish female of a certain age say this?)
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Great Gatsby.