What books are on your night stand?
“Dark Soil,” edited by Angie Sijun Lou, with stories by Karen Tei Yamashita; “Exhibit,” R.O. Kwon; “Weird Black Girls,” Elwin Cotman; “Colored Television,” Danzy Senna; “Lost Writings: Two Novels,” Mina Loy; “Any Day Now: Toward a Black Aesthetic,” Larry Neal; “The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America,” Sara B. Franklin; “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore,” Evan Friss; “No Edges: Swahili Stories”; “American Abductions,” Mauro Javier Cárdenas; “Catalina,” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
Joseph Tom Burgess’ “Knots, Ties and Splices.” One of the skills I never mastered as a Boy Scout.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
Enthusiastic, undisciplined. My favorite book was Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows.”
What’s the last great book you read?
Hari Kunzru is one of my favorite writers. His most recent novel, “Blue Ruin,” is the concluding book in a series that began with “White Tears,” followed by “Red Pill.” Kunzru’s explorations of race, class, artistic creation and privilege in contemporary society are deeply enthralling.
Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time?
“Divine Days,” by Leon Forrest, is an extraordinary polyphonic novel often compared to Joyce’s “Ulysses.” In my mind the more accurate comparison is to Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts, conducted by Butch Morris (a performance that never actually occurred, but if I could create my own ideal performances it would be No. 1 on my list).
