Jill Bialosky (The Life Room) ponders where we would be without books and more... In this month's 1-On-One!

Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader?

No way.  Everything I’ve ever learned about writing has been through reading. Reading is like nutrition to a writer.  Without it we are hungry. We might even possibly die of longing.

According to a report of the Independent Book Publishing Association, over five million American adults belong to reading groups. What, do you believe, is the basis for this country’s love for literature and books?

Books wake us up. As Kafka said:  “If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, what’s the point of reading?...A book ought to be an icepick to break up the frozen sea within us.”  Without books we would not know who we are or where we came from or where we need to go.  As Jorge Luis Borges said, “I always come to life after coming to books.”  Without them we’d be lost.

Have you ever belonged to a reading group?

Well, yes.  I suppose my life is one big reading group. I don’t go anywhere without a book in my bag, or a manuscript tucked away somewhere.  Most of my friends are readers and we are constantly talking about books. Sometimes all you need is one friend to tell you about a book and then the chain begins.  Sometimes a reading group can be a discussion about a book over dinner with the family.  I love the idea of reading groups--of strangers getting together after they’ve all read the same book. Boy can you discover a lot about someone based on how they feel about a certain character or situation in a book.   

If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why?

The Norton Anthology of Poetry.  If I had to be stranded on an island I’d like to be comforted by the words of poets.  A professor of poetry once told me that he teaches poetry because he doesn’t understand it.  But he likes the mystery of discovery in a poem.  I like that idea. That we read to understand.  I might also want to read War and Peace, because maybe I’ll finally have a chance to finish it. 

If you could have dinner with 3 writers (dead or alive) who would they be and why?

Henry James.  I’m in love with his work. I might be afraid to meet him however. I would be upset if he did not live up to my expectations.
 
Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)?

Mobydick.  I’m not really embarrassed to admit it, but it isn’t exactly beach reading.

Favorite book when you were a child?

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

If you have children, is this the same book you read to them? If not, what is your favorite book for your children?

There are so many books that I’d like to share with my child. I don’t know where to begin.  For now I am happy re-reading some of the classics he’s reading in school.  I am learning about them all over again through his eyes.

Favorite heroine in literature and why?

Isabelle Archer in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.  I love her complexity, spirit, and intelligence.  She is deeply affected by the world around her and by her intimates and she chooses the happiness of others over herself, which in a way is a definition of happiness.

Favorite first line from a book?

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy)

Favorite last line from a book?

I can’t recall a favorite last line because when I love a book I never want it to end.  I do love the last line of Keat’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." 

I suppose I like these lines because I puzzle over them.

Words to Live By: 

“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.”
—Vincent Van Gogh

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