Welcome to the Book Marks Questionnaire, where we ask authors questions about the books that have shaped them.
This week, we spoke to spoke to Stay Up With Hugo Best author Erin Somers.
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Book Marks: Favorite re-read?
Erin Somers: Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth.
BM: What book do you think your book is most in conversation with?
ES: It’s Gatsby if Carraway was a feckless millennial.
BM: A book that made you cry?
ES: Women Talking by Miriam Toews.
BM: A book that actually made you laugh out loud?
ES: A Way of Life Like Any Other by Darcy O’Brien. Just the funniest, most wonderful book.
BM: Favorite book to give as a gift?
ES: David Berman’s Actual Air, John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead.
BM: Classic book you hate?
ES: I can’t get into Jane Austen. Probably a personal defect.
BM: Favorite book no one has heard of?
ES: Max Apple’s The Oranging of America — it’s out of print and deserves the full rediscovery routine.
BM: Favorite book of the 21st century?
ES: Elif Batuman’s The Idiot.
BM: Favorite book you were assigned in high school?
ES: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.
BM: Book(s) you’re reading right now?
ES: Patrick Modiano’s Such Fine Boys.
BM: Favorite children’s book?
ES: Hard to top Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
BM: Book you wish would be adapted for a film/tv show?
ES: Iris Owens’ After Claude would make a nice, nasty little indie.
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Erin Somers is the author of Stay Up With Hugo Best. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Tin House and elsewhere.
Erin Sommers’ Stay Up With Hugo Best is out now from Scribner
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