By the Book (43 page)

—
Jeffrey Eugenides

Malcolm Gladwell

What's the best book you've read so far this year?

There have been many. I loved Jonathan Dee's new novel,
A Thousand Pardons
. The best science book I read was Adam Alter's
Drunk Tank Pink
, which is a really provocative look at how much our behavior is contextually determined.

Which writers do you find yourself returning to again and again—reading every new book and rereading the old?

Did I mention Lee Child? The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis. I reread Malcolm's
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession
just to remind myself how nonfiction is supposed to be done. I love how ominous her writing is. Even when she is simply sketching out the scenery, you know that something wonderful and thrilling is about to happen. Lewis is tougher, because what he does is almost impossible to emulate.
The Big Short
, one of the best business books of the past two decades, was about derivatives. I read Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. I'll never play like that. But it's good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like.

Your new book is in part about underdogs. Who are your favorite underdog writers—underappreciated, yet to be recognized, or altogether forgotten?

The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world. Years ago, he wrote a book called
The Person and the Situation
with Lee Ross. If you read that book, you'll see the template for the genre of books that
The Tipping Point
and
Blink
and
Outliers
belong to. That book changed my life. A few years ago, I learned that it was out of print and had been out of print for some time—which broke my heart. (Thankfully there's a new edition.)

Who are your favorite social science writers? Anyone new and especially smart we should pay attention to?

I mentioned Adam Alter, who is a psychologist at New York University. I also really like Adam Grant, who is a psychologist at Penn and the author of
Give and Take
. What really excites me as a sports fan, though, is all the smart sports books coming from an academic perspective:
The Sports Gene
, by David Epstein;
The Numbers Game
, by Chris Anderson and David Sally; and
The Wages of Wins
and
Stumbling on Wins
, by Dave Berri and others.

Many a book is now touted as
The Tipping Point
for X or Y, or generally
Gladwellian
. What do you make of the many imitators and homages?

I'm flattered, naturally. Although I should point out that it is sometimes said that I invented this genre. I did not. Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross did.

What books, to your mind, bring together social science, business principles, and narrative nonfiction in an interesting or innovative way?

Can I return again to Michael Lewis? Bringing together social science and business principles is easy. Doing that and telling a compelling story is next to impossible. I think only Michael Lewis can do it well. His nonbusiness books like
The Blind Side
, by the way, are even better. That book is as close to perfect as a work of popular nonfiction can be.

Did you identify with any fictional characters as a child? Who was your literary hero?

In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we were living in Bible Belt farming country miles from civilization. Buckley seemed impossibly exotic. We used to go into Toronto and prowl the used-book stores on Queen Street looking for rare first editions of
The Unmaking of a Mayor
and
God and Man at Yale
. To this day I know all the great Buckley lines. Upon coming to Canada for a speech, for example, he is asked at the border for the purpose of his visit:

Buckley: I have come to rid Canada of the scourge of socialism.

Guard: How long do you intend to stay?

Buckley: Twenty-four hours.

In southern Ontario farming country when I was growing up, we considered that kind of thing deeply hilarious.

In general, what kinds of stories are you drawn to? Any you steer clear of?

I don't think I will ever write about politics or foreign policy. I feel like there is so much good writing in those areas that I have little to add. I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like. My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview.

What's the last book to make you laugh out loud? To cry? And the last book that made you angry?

I read Jeremy Adelman's biography of Albert O. Hirschman early this year and was deeply moved by it. Hirschman wasn't just a man with a thousand extraordinary adventures (fighting fascists in Spain, smuggling Jews out of France, writing
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
and a handful of other unforgettable books). He was also wise and decent and honest. I finished that book with tears in my eyes.

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

I have—by conservative estimate—several hundred novels with the word “spy” in the title.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

The new Lee Child, of course! It might be nice for him to escape for a few hours to a world where one man can solve every one of the world's problems with nothing but his wits and his fists.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn't? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

I feel terrible for saying this. But I started reading
The Cuckoo's Calling
before I knew it was by J. K. Rowling, and I couldn't finish it. Is there something wrong with me?

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

Shakespeare's wife, of course. So I could settle this whole thing once and for all.

If you could meet any character from literature, who would it be?

I'd like to go for a long walk on the Hampstead Heath with George Smiley. It would be drizzling. We would end up having a tepid cup of tea somewhere, with slightly stale biscuits. I would ask him lots of questions about Control, and he would evade them, gracefully.

What book have you always meant to read and haven't gotten around to yet? Anything you feel embarrassed not to have read?

I have never read any Tolstoy. I felt badly about this until I read a Bill Simmons column where he confessed that he'd never seen
The Big Lebowski
. Simmons, it should be pointed out, has seen everything. He said that everyone needs to have skipped at least one great cultural touchstone.

What do you plan to read next?

Something with the word “spy” in the title.

Malcolm Gladwell
is the author of
The Tipping Point
,
Blink
,
Outliers
,
What the Dog Saw
, and
David and Goliath.

Scott Turow

What book is on your night stand now?

I'm loving Adam Johnson's
The Orphan Master's Son
, set in North Korea. The novel won this year's Pulitzer but, more important, comes with the enthralled recommendations of writer friends. Like most readers, I'm inclined to rely on the word of people in my life whose tastes I respect.

What was the last truly great book you read?

When I noticed that Patti Smith's
Just Kids
had won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2010, I ranted about contemporary culture, so celebrity-besotted that we were now giving vaunted literary prizes to rock stars. Then I read the book. It is profound and unique, a perfectly wrought account of what it means to give your life to art and to another person. I expect it to be read with wonder for a long time.

What's your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures? Do you like to read other legal thrillers?

I read little nonfiction, but I have no boundaries about the fiction I relish. The only unfailing criterion is that I can hitch my heart to the imagined world and read on. Yes, I enjoy the novels written by lawyer friends, but regard that as a busman's holiday.

What's the best book about the law ever written?

A Theory of Justice
, by John Rawls. It's not beach reading, but I don't know of a more lucid articulation of the intuitions many of us share about what is just. Among works of fiction, Melville's
Billy Budd
would be my first choice, especially in the present day, when the sexual undertones that once dared not speak their name are so apparent.

And the best book about Chicago?

Although the eponymous protagonist of Saul Bellow's
Herzog
wanders through many locales, the extended sections of the novel set in Chicago are remarkable for their vividness, humor, and idiosyncratic insights. All of Bellow's writing about Chicago was accomplished with such energy that you have to wonder if he had his finger in an electric socket.

What book has had the greatest impact on you?

Probably
The Count of Monte Cristo
, which I read at age ten. Its account of prison escape, sword-fighting, and long-nurtured revenge transported me, and somehow inspired the thought that if it was this exciting to read a book, then it had to be even more thrilling to write one, to live the experience for years instead of days, and to feel the whole adventure come to life within you. Such is the wisdom you get from ten-year-olds. But now and then, there are days when it turns out he had it right.

Who are the writers you most admire?

Living? Ian McEwan and Cormac McCarthy lead by a thimble's width in a very close race. Le Carré and Ruth Rendell are the writers of suspense I most cherish. And among those no longer walking among us, I prize Tolstoy, Dickens, Bellow, Graham Greene, Hemingway, Tillie Olsen, and everybody's all-star, Shakespeare.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

The
Book Review
actually posed the same question to me before President Obama took office, and I find, demonstrating Hobbes's eternal wisdom about consistency, that my answer would no longer be the same. In 2008, I recommended a book about the
Vasa
, the seventeenth-century Swedish warship that sank on its maiden voyage, killing more than one hundred sailors, because no one dared tell the king the boat wasn't seaworthy. These days I think I would choose Malraux's
Man's Fate
, for that novel's nuanced meditation on the great personal costs and redeeming value of political idealism.

Describe your reading habits. Paper or electronic? Do you take notes?

Because I spend so much time traveling, I tend to do most of my reading on the same iPad on which I write. For me, it's words, not paper, that matter most in the end. This practice has had the additional benefit of greatly reducing the time I spend storming through the house, defaming the mysterious forces who “hid my book.”

Read more than one book at a time?

I'm often sampling more than one book, as I'm deciding what I'll devote myself to next.

Listen to audiobooks?

Audiobooks are generally reserved for poetry. How neat is it to listen to Philip Levine on the way to the grocery store?