Welcome to the Book Marks Questionnaire, where we ask authors questions about the books that have shaped them.
This week, we spoke to Catherine House author Elisabeth Thomas.
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Book Marks: First book you remember loving?
Elisabeth Thomas: The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Camping out in a warm little boxcar, surviving on blueberries, bread, and cool fresh milk… it all sounded terribly romantic.
BM: Favorite re-read?
ET: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.
BM: A book that blew your mind?
ET: Not to be hyperbolic, but THICK by Tressie McMillan Cottom changed the way I think about beauty, money, race, family, everything. I can’t wait to reread it again and again.
BM: Last book you read?
ET: The Street by Ann Petry, a haunting, violent, and darkly funny story.
BM: A book that actually made you laugh out loud?
ET: Alessandro Boffa’s You’re an Animal, Viskovitz!
BM: Favorite book no one has heard of?
ET: The Happiness Flower by Eva-Lis Wuorio, the story of a schoolgirl who befriends an ancient Finnish elf called a peikko. I think I borrowed my copy from my elementary school library and never gave it back… I’m sorry!
BM: Favorite book you were assigned in high school?
ET: Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for Latin class.
BM: Favorite book of the 21st century?
ET: It changes all the time! But at the moment, I’ll say the uneasy, nightmarish Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.
BM: Book(s) you’re reading right now?
ET: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles (new to me, enjoying tremendously) and the very lush, very decadent Chéri by Colette (a reread).
BM: Favorite children’s book?
ET: The Light Princess by George MacDonald, or My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, or Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales translated by Diana Crone Frank and Jeffrey Frank. I read a lot of children’s books; I like their magic logic.
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Elisabeth Thomas grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she still lives and now writes. She graduated from Yale University and currently works as an archivist for a modern art museum. Catherine House is her first novel.
Elisabeth Thomas’ Catherine House is out now from Custom House
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