Curtis Sittenfeld: 'Alice Munro expanded my sense of what’s possible'
The book I am currently readingWhat It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah, a short-story collection that’s just so deft and knowing and perfect.
The book that changed my lifeShortly before the pandemic, I read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. It’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve thought of it every day since.
The book I wish I’d writtenTrick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusionby Jia Tolentino.These essays about contemporary life, the internet and everything else are blazingly smart and rigorous.
The book that had the greatest influence on my writingAnything by Alice Munro. She expanded my sense of what’s possible with her emotional precision and sophistication, the rich inner and outer lives she gives her (often rural and overlooked) characters, the scope of her plots, and the sharpness of her intelligence.
The book I think is most underratedI had never heard of the story collection Bobcatby Rebecca Lee until a writer friend recently gave it to me. The stories have a very weird sensibility that I loved.
The book that changed my mindI didn’t think I needed to read a nonfiction account of a white American man’s two years in the tiny African country of Lesotho … but the completely charming Everything Lost Is Found Again by Will
McGrath proved me wrong.He accompanied his medical anthropologist wife, teaching maths while she conducted research, and the tone of his quasimemoir is irresistibly warm, funny, curious and self-effacing.
The last book that made me cryGood Talk by Mira Jacob, a graphic memoir about coming of age and raising a biracial son around the time of the 2016 US presidential election, is incredibly poignant and powerful.
The last book that made me laughThe novel Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher is written entirely in the form of letters from a hilariously disgruntled English professor.
The book I’m ashamed not to have readThe list is long, but Middlemarch is somewhere near the top.
The book I give as a giftThere’s a tiny box set of charmingly illustrated rhyming books by Maurice Sendak called TheNutshell Library. It makes a delightful baby present.
The book I’d most like to be remembered forI think my readers have the most affection for Prep, which was published in 2005. I get a particular kick out of hearing from adult women who first read it when they were 13 or 14 and have grown up along with my novels.
My earliest reading memoryLying in bed, finishing EB White’s Charlotte’s
Web, and feeling enthralled and devastated.
My comfort readPeople magazine – celebrity and non-celebrity news that’s juicy enough to hold my interest but tame enough not to make me feel dirty afterwards.
Help Yourself by Curtis Sittenfeld is published by Doubleday(£8.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. charges may apply.
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