(Photo: Brad Paris for New York Magazine)

Taste: If it’s well written, I’m interested. My favorites are James Salter, Tim O’Brien, and Shirley Hazzard.

What’s new and exciting? Right now I’m crazy about David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. It’s a fun, smart read, and it’s probably our best-seller of the year. And there’s another one by Liz Jensen called The Ninth Life of Louis Drax; a couple of us have read early copies, and it’s impossible to put it down.

Wish list: I’m sort of on a Murakami kick. I was thinking it would be great to set him up in a Ford Explorer and have him tour the highways and byways of America—like Humbert Humbert did in Lolita. His view of Japanese culture is amazing; it would be fascinating to see what he had to say about the American landscape.

Current irritant: Reviewers reviewing books before they come out. If it’s a negative review, the book doesn’t even get a shot. If it’s positive, people come in looking for it, and it’s not here yet. You put your effort into this thing, and before it’s even distributed, people are commenting on it.

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Related:

• Archive: “Book Features”
• Table of Contents: Dec 13, 2004 issue of New York | Subscribe!