Published: February 28, 2013 - The New York Times
The author of “Nixon Agonistes,” “John Wayne’s America,” “Lincoln at Gettysburg,” “Reagan’s America” and, most recently, “Why Priests?” considers Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” “the best political writing of our time.”
What was the best book you read last year?
Peter Brown, “Through the Eye of a Needle.” Puts a stethoscope to the fourth through sixth centuries C.E.
When and where do you like to read?
Anywhere. Everywhere. In high school, I read in the stands through the school’s football and basketball games.
Are you a fast or slow reader? How many books would you say you read in a year?
Slow but constant. Never counted.
How do you decide what to read next? Do you read more than one book at a time?
First I read what I must for my next project (at the moment, Elizabethan politics).
Who are your favorite authors?
Shakespeare (of course), Augustine, John Ruskin, Samuel Johnson.
What’s your preferred literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?
Wodehouse deserves no guilt, but is a constant pleasure. So is “Doonesbury,” the best political writing of our time.
You’re a fan of audiobooks. Are there any particular kinds of books you prefer to listen to rather than read?
I would rather listen to plays in the car than read them.
How do you organize your personal library?
Subject-and-period.
What are your most cherished books, and where do you keep them?
The Cook and Wedderburn 39-volume “Works of John Ruskin,” the perfect scholarly edition, on the east wall of my office. I treasure it not only for the content but because this set is haloed with generosity. The great Victorian scholar John Rosenberg gave me his extra set for the ridiculously low price he paid to get it from a basement in post-World War II London. He is my literary saint.
Are you a rereader? What books in particular do you find yourself returning to, and why?
Nabokov was right: there is no real reading but rereading. I rummage in old favorites all the time.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
Garry Trudeau’s “Signature Wound,” to see what damage Obama has done to thousands of our young people with his stupid wars.
What were your favorite books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from one of those books? Is there one book you wish all children would read?
My mother read me Albert Payson Terhune’s dog stories before I could read them myself. The taste must have taken, since I devoured “The Yearling” when I was 10. My wife read the Seuss books to our children, a great choice.
What book had the greatest impact on you? What book made you want to write?
Augustine’s “The Trinity.” Explores all the ways we are, as persons, one-and-many, as the way to know a one-and-many God.
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