Kate Whouley (Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved), a voracious reader, tells about how she started and what she read -- then and now. In this month's 1-On-One!

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

I don’t think so. Passionate reading is the first step of the writing journey. As readers, we understand the power of the imagination, we love a good story, and—as we grow—we come to appreciate the telling—the style, rhythm of the prose, smoothness of the writing.  Personally, I come to writing as an engaged and ever-curious reader who loves to inhabit new and different worlds. I’m interested in writing books I’d like to read myself—which is a good thing, because I spend years with each one.

What books are you reading now or do you plan to read?

There’s a strange blend in my reading corner right now. I’ve been immersed in early medieval history—research for my current book project, and I am midway through Hunger by Knut Hamsen. Based largely on the author’s own experience in the late 1800’s, Hunger is a gorgeous, horrifying and literal portrait of the starving artist. He came out okay in real life, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920. I’ve also been reading my way through the Polly Brewster Books, a series of books for girls published in the 1920’and 30’s, by Lillian Elizabeth Roy. Polly is a young feminist, living long before her time, who manages to outwit rattlesnakes and bears, discover gold mines, and learn to fly. She—and her author, whom I discovered through a little book called Alice in Beeland—intrigue me and I’ve been having fun locating the original editions on E-Bay!

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

I’d cheat and take two: Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. I had a college professor who taught these two books in a course, and I remember his saying, “Whenever I read Tolstoy, I think, 'This is it. It’s all right here.'  Then I turn to Dostoevesky and I think, 'This is it. Everything’s right here.'”  I felt exactly the same way all those years ago, and a lifetime love affair was born.  I love Tolstoy for his panoramic views and Dostoevsky for the way his characters speak their souls. So I’m taking both of them.  Together, I get it all—twice.

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

Wow. Would we all be at the same table? That means I’d have to be sure they got along. And then there are the menu issues—even tougher when you have pure spirit to dinner.  I’m thinking I might stick to living writers whom I know as wonderful people: Anne LeClaire (Law of Bound Hearts is her latest beauty), David Gessner (Return of the Osprey is my favorite of his) and Suzanne Strempek Shea (Selling the Lite of Heaven still tops my list).

Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)?

I like to read the French versions of instructions for appliances and personal care products aloud to my cat.

Favorite book when you were a child?

So many! The first book I took out of the library on my own was One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. In second grade, I read all those orange biographies that were precisely, always 192 pages long. The I discovered Louisa May Alcott—and read everything, even the most obscure stuff. I moved onto Charles Dickens, because my mother taught high school English, and they were around the house. I read all of Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie. Oh, there are more: Harriet the Spy, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler, and of course, the essential book for every New England childhood--Make Way for Ducklings, given to me by the grandmother who took me to see those very ducks in Boston’s Public Garden.

Favorite first line from a book?

"It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love." —Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Words to live by?

“I am still learning.” —Michelangelo