I do not say this with either pride or shame (or prejudice, for that matter). I don’t have much interest in “relationship” novels or romance. Questions like this disconcert me, because I’m sort of an omnivore, apt to go from the latest John Sandford to D. I like straight novels if the subject looks interesting. I read some horror/supernatural stories, but not as many as people might think. I love mysteries and suspense most of all.

What genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid? But I also get a kick out of The Filthy Critic, and Hondo, in The New York Post. Nonfiction: Rick Perlstein, particularly for “Nixonland” Abigail Thomas and Mary Karr. Novelists: Jonathan Franzen, for “Strong Motion,” and Kate Atkinson for the Jackson Brodie novels, which are marvels of plot. Who are your favorite writers - novelists, nonfiction, journalists, poets - working today? He also wrote the best single line I’ve ever read in a novel: Of a funeral he wrote, “There were that day, o Lord, squadrons of birds.” Probably Don Robertson, author of “Paradise Falls,” “The Ideal, Genuine Man” and the marvelously titled “Miss Margaret Ridpath and the Dismantling of the Universe.” What I appreciate most in novels and novelists is generosity, a complete baring of the heart and mind, and Robertson always did that.

Who is your favorite novelist of all time? I don’t read in bed, so there’s nothing there except for a glass of water and a bottle of Tums. What books are currently on your night stand? “I do not say this with either pride or shame (or prejudice, for that matter). The author, most recently, of “Finders Keepers” has never read Jane Austen.

Stephen king 11 22 63 review