Monday, August 09, 2021

The Writer's Library - Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager


The Writer’s Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives
is a collection of author interviews compiled by Nancy Pearl, “America’s favorite librarian,” and Jeff Schwager, a noted critic of books, movies, and theater. What makes the interviews such compelling and entertaining reading for avid readers is that each of them focuses on the influence that particular books have had on the various writers throughout their entire lives, but especially during their formative years.


The twenty-three authors, all but one of whom was interviewed in person, are:

Jonathan Lethem Laila Lalami

Louis Alberto Urrea          Jennifer Egan

T.C. Boyle Susan Choi

Andrew Sean Greer Madeline Miller

Michael Chabon                 Maaza Mengiste

Amor Towles Louise Erdrich

Dave Eggers Laurie Frankel

Viet Thanh Nguyen Jane Hirshfield

Richard Ford Siri Hustvedt

Charlie Johnson Vendela Vida

Donna Tartt Russell Banks

                Ayelet Waldman


(Just in case you are curious, the Donna Tartt interview was conducted via email.)


I was fortunate that several of my favorite authors are included on the list, but as it turned out, I enjoyed the thoughts of those authors with whom I was previously unfamiliar as much as I did those of my old favorites. In their shared introduction to the book, Nancy and Jeff address the book’s title and their interview style/intent this way:


“Thus the title, The Writer’s Library. Not necessarily the writers’ physical libraries, but the libraries they carry around in their hearts and minds; the books that have shaped their tastes, their psyches, the subject matter that fascinates them, the craftsmanship that fills them with envy, the stories that have resonated so deeply that they feel like stories they themselves have lived. For in telling us about the books that informed their lives, they would tell us the stories of their lives.”


And, in almost every instance, their plan worked brilliantly. The interviews are all very conversational in style with the exception of the emailed one with Donna Tartt. That interview reads more like a monologue than an interview, and as such, it suffers in comparison to the other twenty-two in the book. 


Among my favorite quotes from The Writer’s Library are these:


“Someone once said that history gives you the facts, and fiction gives you the truth of the facts.” - Nancy Pearl, interviewing T.C. Boyle


“Life is too short for bad books.” - Michael Chabon 


“The mark of a great novel is that it is engaging as a story, it feels organic in it composition, and yet the way in which all the various components interact creates an infinite number of harmonic combinations in the service of meaning. That’s why different readers of great works can discover different ideas, form different emotions, draw different conclusions, and support the validity of their impressions by pointing to various elements of the text. The best books don’t mean one thing.” - Amor Towles


“…short stories are something that to me are perfect because they have sort of the grace and insight of a poem and the narrative of a novel but, you know, much shorter, so you can have your fix in twenty or thirty minutes with a great short story.” - Viet Thanh Nguyen


“There’s not much crossover, you know. When I give readings, I don’t see any black faces out there, and I think to myself, Couldn’t I just have a couple of black readers, please? Because I, you know, I read black writers - I read everybody. I write black characters. I think that the nature of identity politics has bled into literary outcomes. The whole worth of literature is that it’s trying to show us we’re less distinct from each other than we thought we were.” - Richard Ford


“Reading fiction can move us into new places and provide new perspectives on the world. It can create an expansion of consciousness and serve as an intimate form of knowledge. This has been forgotten in our culture because the imaginary is regarded as soft, feminine, and unserious.”  - Siri Hustvedt


“It is what you read that matters and that you read not to shore up your own smug beliefs but to press yourself beyond them. Books become us. They are literally embedded in our nervous systems in memories. Those memories shift over time, but they form us nevertheless.” - Siri Hustvedt


“…I think that in addition to everything that fiction does to entertain and enlighten us, it needs to make us better people, give us insights into, or at least empathy for, other people.” - Nancy Pearl during her Charles Johnson interview


So there you, have it, a taste of what I most enjoyed in the twenty-three interviews. I found the book largely to be inspiring and comforting in the sense that, perhaps, my lifetime of reading has done some actual good and has made me a better person that I would be if I had not been a reader all my life.


Bottom Line: Reader, beware! Your TBR list is going to grow exponentially if you read The Writer’s Library. By my count, and considering the possibility of a duplication or two, I added some 88 individual books and/or authors to my own. 


Jeff Schwager

Nancy Pearl

16 comments:

  1. Some of my favorite writers and wonderful quotes! The first one by Nancy Pear in the T.C. Boyle is my favorite. I will look for this one--thanks, Sam.

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    1. I didn't mention it in the review, Jen, but some of my favorite interview stories concerned when the various authors first learned to read and whether or not they grew up in homes that had lots of books. I think you'll like this one as much as I did.

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  2. I will likely read this book and add to my dangerously high TBR book stacks. I have two of Nancy Pearl's Book Lust books.

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    1. I have a couple of those Book Lust books put away somewhere myself. I remember highlighting them pretty heavily, in fact. I hope you enjoy this one as much as those.

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  3. Sounds like a great book. I really like some of the passages you shared. I'm afraid it would add staggeringly to my own TBR list, too! Although I admit I have not read any of these authors, and not even heard of some of them . . . but that doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate their thoughts on books any less I'd hope.

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    1. I've read about half of these authors, some pretty extensively, but I ended up enjoying the interviews from the new-to-me authors just as much. Some of them have really remarkable personal histories that make me very curious about their work. This one is going to lead me in some very unexpected directions.

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  4. I'm adding this book to my TBR list immediately... and promise not hold you responsible for whatever else gets added as a result! Thanks, Sam.

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    1. Whew...that's a relief. I made an entirely separate list of additions to my TBR that came from reading this one because I'm curious about where the spider web that begins with these authors will ultimately lead my reading.

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  5. Even though the only author I've read on this list is Pearl, I still think this book sounds interesting. It's always fun to hear people talk about why they love books and reading!

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    1. This is a pretty diverse selection of authors, so about half of them are new to me. But some of my longtime favorites are also on the list, especially Chabon, Boyle, Banks, and Erdrich. Their personal stories are lots of fun, and the interviews really capture their individual personalities.

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  6. I love this review, Sam. I know hardly any of the authors but enjoyed your quotes very much. The one by Richard Ford struck home and felt sad. And I liked the 'smug beliefs' comment from Siri Hustvedt. I love the sound of this book. It made me think about which books have influenced me and I came up with a bunch of Austen and Bronte books I read as a teen. In my twenties I found Anne McCaffrey. This year, the book I think about most is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (read in January) and I have absolutely no idea why. The Writer's Library is going onto my 'want to read' shelf.

    By the way I finished The Killer Inside Me a couple of days ago. Wow.

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    1. That quote from Ford made me a little sad, too, Cath. I fear that we are becoming more racially segregated these days rather than less, and that is a terrible thing to have happen to the world.

      The book was a whole lot of fun for me...and your own memories of the books that influenced you and maybe even changed your life a little bit make me believe that you would enjoy getting into their heads a little bit, too.

      The Killer Inside Me is one I still think about every time I start nosing around the books of that era again. It seems so much ahead of its time that I can hardly believe that it was written so long ago.

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  7. I always enjoy reading these kinds of books that are about books. And I love that idea in the first quote that we carry libraries in our hearts and minds of all the books that have shaped us. :D

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    1. It's a nice image, isn't it? And I think it's true of avid readers...that's what makes us so different from people who don't read, I think. We evolve in ways that they more seldom manage.

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  8. There are several favorite writers of mine on that list, including Richard Ford, and I can only agree that his quote is incredibly sad and unfortunately it is likely accurate. The writers that I read are an incredibly diverse group and I am much richer for that. I heartily recommend that to other readers.

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    1. I read anything and everything that makes me curious, Dorothy, and I really don't care who wrote it or where it was written. You're right...I'm much richer and more empathetic about other points-of-view because of that. And I've had some wonderful surprises...such as finding so much great fiction by Muslim writers from around the world. It seems sometimes that one book or author just logically leads to the next; that's one of the things I most love about reading fiction.

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