James Magruder, On Reading

"The first book I ever read: The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss.

The last book I read: Kiss Me, Stranger by Ron Tanner.

The next book I am going to read: Ocean State by Jean McGarry.

One book I was too young for when I first read it: The Magic Mountain.

Two books that I had become too old for when I re-read them: Vanity Fair and The Catcher in the Rye.

Two books that I can never get past the first chapter of: The Castle and The Trial.

One book that I have read more times than is good for me: A Confederacy of Dunces.

One book that was absolutely worth the wait: David Copperfield.

Writers I'm ashamed not to have read a word of: Kerouac, Pynchon, (Cormac) McCarthy, Mailer, Trevor, Lessing, Murdoch, Musil.

Writers I expect I'll never return to: James, Faulkner, Woolf, Hemingway.

One writer worth picking up midway along the path: Conrad.

One book I must return to: Anna Karenina."


{James Magruder's debut novel, Sugarless (University of Wisconsin Press), was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the 2010 William Saroyan International Writing Prize. He has also published stories, and he has a second book coming out in 2012. He has done some interesting theatre work as well. For more information, visit his website at www.jamesmagruder.com.}