If you could ask your favorite author (alive or dead) one question … who would you ask, and what would the question be?

"Why, Jess, honey, I'd be delighted."

My instant response is to ask my girl Carson McCullers something, but I can’t think of any one thing that I could possibly ask her. I’m not really interested in where authors get their stories from, because I know that it is such a personal and inexplicable process, but I would like to hear about her creative process. Personal questions are invasive, and it is possible I already know too much about her. How did she feel about achieving great literary success at such a young age? What was it like living at 7 Middagh Street? Tell me more about those summers with Tennessee Williams?

How about I just settle for: “uh Ms McCullers? Would you care to join me for a drink or two and a chat?”

(Although, that is a bit like answering the three wishes question with “three more wishes”, isn’t it?)

Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?

In normal, everyday interaction with family and family I don’t think I have ever lied about what I have or haven’t read. There’s not really much point, is there? If I haven’t read something, it only means there is the opportunity to discover something possibly amazing and be able to discuss it in the future with people who already have.

However, in my work as a bookseller, I have said I’ve read something I’m trying to sell when I haven’t. I may have flicked through it, and I do try to be as informed as possible on much of our stock, but sometimes it just slips out “oh yeah, I really liked it.” It’s usually when I’m feeling a bit pressured and the customer isn’t giving me much guidance in assisting them, but it is terrible and I feel a little bit guilty about it afterward. I suppose it’s just a part of the routine of working as a retail monkey.

What’s the saddest book you’ve read recently?

The book as a whole wasn’t sad, but there was one chapter in Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List which really got to me. Just hit a bit too close to home. A character, Robin (male) is describing his friendship with Robin (female) who wants to be more than friends. It is male Robin’s only chapter in the entire book, and it is written in a frantic stream-of-consciousness style. Here is where we get a bit personal. A few months ago I lost my yeah kind of a douchebag but still my best friend due to similar misunderstandings and this chapter just managed to really hit that nerve. Perhaps not universally sad, but definitely sad at the time that I read it.

“[...] I just want to do shit like talk to her and drink with her and sit and do homework with her, because when we do shit like that, it’s not nearly as boring as it is when I do it alone, because every now and then she’ll grunt or laugh and I’ll say, What? and she’ll come up with the most random shit, which totally makes me think she’s the greatest, only I don’t want to sleep with her. And Gerald, he was saying, Dude, you know there’s a word for that kind of relationship, and I was like, Please tell me what it is because this is killing me, and Gerald was smiling and taking a big drag before he said to me, Friendship, man–that shit’s called friendship.”

And just to make this post a little lighter, here’s a song I manage to get stuck in my head whenever anyone mentions crying, tears or hot boys from New Zealand – “Hurt Feelings” by Flight of the Conchords. They never fail to cheer me up when I’m down:

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

In terms of fiction, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers has affected me profoundly, and in so many ways. It reminded me of the places a novel can take you. When I was reading it I was transported to two places at once: 1. to some distant nostalgic place in my childhood, of getting lost in books and tales of other people, of sitting curled up and reading for hours and hours. 2. to the place evoked in the story. McCullers’ use of language is so deceptively sparse, yet manages to contain and convey all elements of human experience within it. There were times when I was just totally knocked out by how wonderfully she expressed particular things, but most of all, loneliness. This woman just seemed to understand it and able to sum it up in such a succinct way that makes you feel, maybe, a little less alone. It is a book about how we see people as we want to, as we need to, we endlessly project our needs and desires onto them, however far removed from reality that may be. Everything is misunderstood, miscommunicated. Human frailty and strength. The hopelessness and necessity of hope. I know that this is a book that I will frequently return to.

Likewise, the best non-fiction book I’ve read recently would have to be The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers by Virginia Spencer Carr. I make no secret of the fact that I am slightly obsessed with Ms. McCullers. Discovering her work has been one of my highlights of this year. It is inspiring, sad, beautiful and strong. Evocative, poetic, humane. There aren’t enough words for how I feel about her work. Then there was the haunting dark-eyed woman that stared out at me from the Google Image Search. She looked so child-like and yet she wrote of these eternal human struggles in such a powerful way. I was hooked, I was intrigued and I had to know more. This biography was really, really thorough. All the scandalous aspects of her life are examined in details – of particular interest is her tumultuous relationship with Reeves McCullers. She married him quite young, divorced him a few years later, then after he’d gone to fight in the war and she was a hugely successful writer, remarried him. This marriage ended in Reeves’ suicide, intended to be a double suicide, which Carson narrowly escaped from. It has all the makings of salacious gossip, but it is treated with such careful respect for all involved, while not afraid to look at the really messy, horrible parts of their relationship. Her instant success at such a young age, her endless struggle with the creative process, her spiritual loneliness, her unrequited loves. I think she was a beautiful and sad individual, troubled and talented. Through all she went through, she seemed to maintain a really strong sense of self and spark. Her life story was terribly melancholic, but I also found it hugely inspiring.

One of my favourite parts was when McCullers and Tennessee Williams got their revenge on an interfering neighbour by pouring good scotch into their pig trough; they spent the evening sitting and laughing at the pigs getting drunk. Williams said of the event: “It was an expensive amusement – all that scotch – but we both felt better afterwards.”