If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? It seems to me that Barack Obama is sufficiently well read. The president might consider E. M. Forster’s “Two Cheers for Democracy” or even Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,”...

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? It seems to me that Barack Obama is sufficiently well read. The president might consider E. M. Forster’s “Two Cheers for Democracy” or even Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,”...

What book has had the greatest impact on you personally? Professionally? “Tristram Shandy” shivered my timbers as a grad student, and woke me out of my zombie state about the glorious possibilities for breaking the rules whenever I damn...

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;...

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;...

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;...

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? I’m not entirely sure who “we” is. Some people would be surprised, I guess, to find “Train Dreams”; “Caravaggio”; “Swerve”; “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”;

And George Saunders’s “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.” A troubling sidebar is that for every George Saunders found, there are a dozen others, not just overlooked, but undiscovered.

Frederick Exley’s “A Fan’s Notes” is another overlooked beaut. Also Edward St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels.

Frederick Exley’s “A Fan’s Notes” is another overlooked beaut.

Who is your favorite overlooked or underappreciated writer? Let’s assume that I’ve overlooked most of the good ones myself, but I’m a fan of “Mrs. Bridge” and “Mr. Bridge,” by the late Evan S. Connell. It was Connell, and also Jerzy...

Who do you consider the best thriller writers of all time? There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and...

Who do you consider the best thriller writers of all time? There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and...

There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice...

There’s that gnatty “best” word again. Soldiering on, I love Pelecanos. Also Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, Don Winslow and Richard Price, of course. As one-offs, “Night Dogs,”  “The Ice...

Acclaimed crime writer Kent Anderson's "fiercely authentic and deeply disturbing" police novel, following a Vietnam veteran turned cop on the meanest streets of 1970s Portland, Oregon (Los Angeles Times).Two kinds of cops find their way to...

Also Richard Price, who seems to remember every good line and phrase he ever heard. This was even true in his first novel, “The Wanderers,” which made me sick with envy way back when I was young, carefree and more susceptible to jealousy.

It’s also the most original and imaginative fiction I’ve read since “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.”

Maybe that’s why “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” is my favorite novel so far this year. It’s funnier than a season’s worth of “Modern Family,”  “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Justified” episodes;