Casey Schwartz on Harriet the Spy, Invisible Man, and Hating Jane Eyre
Rapid-fire book recs from the author of Attention: A Love Story
Welcome to the Book Marks Questionnaire, where we ask authors questions about the books that have shaped them.
This week, we spoke to the author of Attention: A Love Story (out now in paperback), Casey Schwartz.
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Book Marks: First book you remember loving?
Casey Schwartz: Harriet the Spy.
BM: Favorite re-read?
CS: Travels with my Aunt by Graham Green.
BM: What book do you think your book is most in conversation with?
CS: In a funny, not exactly conscious way, My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel.
BM: A book that blew your mind?
CS: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.
BM: Last book you read?
CS: Dreamland by Sam Quinones.
BM: A book that made you cry?
CS: Sherry Turkle’s The Empathy Diaries.
BM: What book from the past year would you like to give a shout-out to?
CS: Hadley Freeman’s House of Glass is jaw droppingly good.
BM: A book that actually made you laugh out loud?
CS: Percival Everett’s Erasure.
BM: What’s one book you wish you had read during your teenage years?
CS: Invisible Man.
BM: Favorite book to give as a gift?
CS: Kafka Was the Rage by Anatole Broyard.
BM: Classic book you hate?
CS: Jane Eyre!
BM: Classic book on your To Be Read pile?
CS: Native Son, The Magic Mountain.
BM: What’s a book with a really great sex scene?
CS: The Way Things Were by Aatish Taseer.
BM: Favorite book no one has heard of?
CS: How German Is It by Walter Abish.
BM: Favorite book of the 21st century?
CS: This is an almost impossible question, but I’m tempted to answer with the My Brilliant Friend trilogy.
BM: Favorite book you were assigned in high school?
CS: The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow.
BM: Book(s) you’re reading right now?
CS: Telephone by Percival Everett and Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald and yes, Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney.
BM: Favorite children’s book?
CS: Don’t know yet because my kid is only 20 months old and we haven’t gotten to the masterpieces (though I tip my hat to Hop on Pop), but it used to be Bob and Jack: A Boy and His Yak.
BM: Book you wish would be adapted for a film/tv show?
CS: Euphoria by Lily King.
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Casey Schwartz is the author of Attention: A Love Story and In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis. She contributes regularly to The New York Times and lives in New York City.
Casey Schwartz’s Attention: A Love Story is out now in paperback from Vintage
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