The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives, by Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager

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Nancy Pearl appears on NPR’s Morning Edition from time to time, discussing her recent reading recommendations. She was recognized by the American Library Association in 2011 as Librarian of the Year, and has a YouTube channel filled with interesting interviews with authors. In this book, she gets together with author Jeff Schwager to interview various noteworthy authors, asking a standard set of questions:

  1. Did you come from a reading famiy? When did you learn to read? What were your favorite books as a child?

  2. What was the first “grown-up” book you read and loved? Why?

  3. Was there a book that moved you to be a writer?

  4. What important canonical writer do you most identify with? What contemporary writer?

  5. Who is your favorite living writer?

  6. What do you read when you are writing?

  7. Do you prefer short stories or novels?

  8. What books have most influenced your writing?

  9. What little-known writers and books do you wish had a broader audience, and more recognition?

  10. Is reading a solitary activity, or do you need to discuss your reading?

From this simple set of questions comes a fairly diverse set of responses and discussion from the selected writers. Some writers and books represent the literary canon: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner in America; Shakespeare, Dickens, Henry James, Eliot, Austen, Emily Bronte in England; Flaubert, Hugo, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, all uniformly mentioned. No big surprises in the next tier of frequent mentions, such as Marquez, Ray Bradbury, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Melville, Thoreau, Le Guin, Flannery O’Connor, Lorrie Moore, and Updike. I loved reading about the favorite childhood books, such as Watership Down, Judy Blume, Susan Cooper (The Dark Is Rising), E.B. White, and Beverly Cleary

I was happy to see some other “honorable mentions” who are personal favorites, such as Ben H. Winters, Ron Hansen’s “Mariette in Ectasy”, Joan Didion, and Alice Munro. I enjoyed reading good writers’ reflections on their writing process, what works and what doesn’t. Here is a fantastic reading list you can turn to over and over, and never be disappointed. Of course, due to schedules some favorite authors do not appear here (Elizabeth Strout! Ben Winters!), but those who do are fascinating. I only scratched the surface— read this book and compile your own reading bucket list. Highly recommended.