Casey Schwartz on Harriet the Spy, Invisible Man, and Hating Jane Eyre

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.

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.

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.