What is the last great book you read?
“Thelonious Monk”, by Robin D. G. Kelley, the biography of a musical genius written by a certified polymath. Kelley is a world-renowned historian who reads and writes in several disciplines while preparing his gourmet family meals, does dad homework, notes pitiful undergraduate papers, directs the dissertations of an army of emerging researchers across the country. and plays a nasty jazz piano, while launching revolutionary books. Really disgusting, uh, sorry, I meant demoralizing, but sort of inspiring.
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
In my home office, surrounded by my beloved library, sitting on my desk chair, swiveling here, and swaying back and forth, or standing, when inspired, to proclaim radiance or courage from a passage, or to chat with a page or two, caught in a large cloud of witnesses that go back to centuries and which feed my knowledge and feed my imagination. I do this at all hours of the day and night, especially if I am preparing to write a book, then, when I have finished reading, I sit down to write 12 to 15 hours a day for a concentrated period. And reading also plays a role. As I write, I pay close attention to the sound and size of the sentences, phrases to which I come back several times in the books I read, remembering the quality of the profession to which I aspire. To hear these words in my ear, as they fill my eyes, is a sublime delirium.
What is your favorite book that no one else has heard of?
“Black Talk, Blue Thoughts and Walking the Color Line”, by Erin Aubry Kaplan, a beautiful stylist who breathes a vast literary tradition and exudes an elegant expression, with an attentive eye for details refined by her journalistic experience.
Which writers – novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets – working today do you most admire?
Too many names. Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Tayari Jones, Jesmyn Ward, Colson Whitehead, Marlon James, Charles Johnson, Paul Beatty, Arundhati Roy, Elizabeth Acevedo, Angie Thomas, Samuel R. Delaney, NK Jemisin, Walter Mosley, Jonathan Franzen, Donna Tartt, Zadie Smith, Gabriel Bump, Jasmon Drain, Russell Banks, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terry McMillan, Terese Marie Mailhot, TR Simon (children’s books paved with great intelligence and thought), Teju Cole, Jacqueline Woodson, Roxane Gay, Dominique Morisseau, Lin -Manuel Miranda, Katori Hall, Annie Baker, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Mia Chung, Richard J. Powell, Stanley Crouch (an immense talent beyond his rhetorical ferocity), Greg Tate, Angela Rye, Breakfast Club team, Alondra Nelson, Naomi Klein, Veronica Chambers, Brittney Cooper, Tanisha C. Ford, Treva B. Lindsey, Jodie Adams Kirshner, Saidiya Hartman, Melissa M. Valle, Eddie Glaude, Imani Perry, Daphne Brooks, LaMonda Horton-Stallings, Corey Fields, Robert J. Patterson, Davi d Masc iotra, Karla Zelaya, Noliwe Rooks, Karsonya Wise Whitehead, Zebulon Miletsky, Becky Yang Hsu, Zandria Robinson, Marcia Chatelain, Terrence L. Johnson, Angelyn Mitchell, Rosemary Ndubuizu, Marcus Board Jr., Nikole