1) What book was most important to you in high school? Why?

I would say that the most important book that I read during high school was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I much preferred it to the novel many high schoolers like (Wuthering Heights); Jane Eyre seemed more gritty, more real, more possible, even with its fantastical elements. Jane was the underdog that wins! She stood up for herself against all odds and all types of oppression. She was a force unto herself.

2) What book was most important to you when you were an undergraduate English major? Why?

As an undergraduate and English major, I would say Jane Austen’s Emma stood out most to me. Emma is another female character determined to forge her own path, but she is comical and un-self-aware at times in ways that are highly amusing. However, the
reason I loved the book had as much to do with the professor teaching the book as the book itself. Dr. Hill LOVED the book. His excitement in sharing the novel with all of us was contagious.

3) What book is most important to you now? Why?

I really have no way of knowing what book is most important to me now. There have been so many books, and so many different ways to calculate importance. I think that Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is brilliant. It is metafiction at its best and really asks all readers to consider the importance of stories (and the arts in general) in our lives. Similarly, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is outstanding in demonstrating how important multiple stories are. We are never living in just one story. There are always multiple perspectives happening. Lastly, I would say Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children really made me think and think hard about what is real and how worldviews are built out of stories and myths we engage with. So many voices, so many lies and fabrications, so many different understandings of the most basic “facts.”

4) What book have you reread the most often in your life? Why?

I would guess I have reread Midnight’s Children and Life of Pi the most in my life. It’s hard to know because I reread as I teach something, but I also read these books just to understand fiction and the world. I have also reread Keri Hulme’s The Bone People more times than I can count. It is long, wild, and brilliant. There is always something new in those three books.