Stephen King Credit Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
The author, most recently, of “Finders Keepers” has never read Jane Austen. “I do not say this with either pride or shame (or prejudice, for that matter). It’s just a fact.”
What books are currently on your night stand?
None. I don’t read in bed, so there’s nothing there except for a glass of water and a bottle of Tums.
Who is your favorite novelist of all time?
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. 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.”
Who are your favorite writers — novelists, nonfiction, journalists, poets — working today?
Novelists: Jonathan Franzen, for “Strong Motion,” and Kate Atkinson for the Jackson Brodie novels, which are marvels of plot. Nonfiction: Rick Perlstein, particularly for “Nixonland”; Abigail Thomas; and Mary Karr. Journalists: Laura Miller. But I also get a kick out of The Filthy Critic, and Hondo, in The New York Post.
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