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Transcript from June 27, 2001
NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg Talks About Summer Books

npr_host: Welcome to the NPR Online chat with special correspondent Susan Stamberg. She's talking with us today about books and wants to hear about your favorites!Send in your questions or comments now. Susan will be with us live online for the entire hour, until 1 p.m. ET

npr_host: Welcome Susan ...

susan_stamberg: Hi .. a pleasure. I love being a space cadet!

npr_host: You did a series on NPR's Morning Edition this past month in which you interviewed authors about their favorite books ... can you tell us more about this?

susan_stamberg: Gladly! For almost a year now, I've been doing interviews on Tuesdays for Morning Edition -- with a different theme each month. Past themes have included LEADERSHIP, GIVING, LOYALTY, PRIVACY. For warm weather, I thought I'd lighten up the series a bit, and so for June, the theme was BOOKS. And not JUST books, -- but turning to some major authors, and asking them to name their favorite books, and tell why they are favorites.

npr_host: Who were the authors and what were their favorite books? You can find out more at the Web page at http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/jun/010605.books.html

susan_stamberg: The first was Barry Lopez, who won the National Book Award for non-fiction some years back, for Arctic Dreams -- about exploration of the Far North. Lopez chose Herman Melville's Moby Dick -- a sea adventure, which I spent some 10 years thinking was MY favorite book, too. Second author was Francesca Lia Block, who writes for young adults -- a series on a young girl called Weetzie Bat. Block chose Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. A class of magical realism. Author #3 was Paule Marshall -- her novel Brown Girl, Brownstones came out in 1959. She chose a novel by the POET Gwendolyn Brooks the books Maud Martha, and a jewel. Finally, yesterday the last author -- Walter Mosley -- writer of noir mysteries set in black neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Mosley chose T.S.Eliot's poem Four Quartets -- an extremely difficult -- but gratifying read.

npr_host: Thanks Susan! Let's talk with some of the folks in the chat room with us...

hornet_fan91: In your opinion, what makes a perfect summer book?

susan_stamberg: Really the same thing that makes a perfect WINTER book -- great writing, a story that keeps you turning the pages, fabulous, believable or magical characters. But in summer, I guess the themes can be a bit lighter -- and you can sneak in the occasional naughty novel for the beach!!!!

hornet_fan91: What are some of the best summer books out right now?

susan_stamberg: Can't give you a definitive answer -- but Alan Cheuse, who is the All Things Considered book reviewer, has just done his current summer reading picks -- you can find them on the NPR web page http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/books_music/010612.cheuse.html and do a search.

But I can recommend a book I'm reading right now, in preparation for an upcoming interview. It was written in 1999. Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham -- he's a Vietnamese American -- fled Saigon with his family when he was 10, as the Communists took over the South. Family settled in U.S. Andrew, at age 30, decided to go back to Vietnam, on a kind of "Roots" trip. AND decided to do it by bicycle! He rode his way through the country -- keeping a kind of diary. It is a marvelous book -- sensitive, acute observations, and his writing is so fresh and original. It's English in the hands of a non-native speaker -- so the way he uses words is so unexpectedly wonderful. Especially his VERBS (always the secret of good writing). Pham writes of clouds "lolling" across the sky. Take a look at it.

Also, I loved Gwendolyn Brooks Maud Martha -- discovered thru my series of interviews. It, too, is an old book -- from 1953 -- brief, and very rich. The life of an African-American girl growing up on Chicago's South Side. Brooks follows her life and development in a few carefully written, poetic pages. It's very, very strong.

npr_host: Send in your questions now for NPR's Susan Stamberg. We're chatting live with her now until 1 p.m. ET about summer books, everyday books and your favorite books let's take another question from the audience

mrcoolio12: why is reading good?

susan_stamberg: I love that question! It's like asking why we need to breathe! Or at least that's how reading has always been for me -- almost as important as breathing. We read for information, of course. To learn things -- facts, statistics. But we also read for transportation -- books take us into other worlds, different lives, let us live, vicariously, in other places and era and spirits. Like all the arts, books amplify and elevate our spirits and our souls. That's why!

npr_host: Tell Susan Stamberg about YOUR favorite books...send in your questions and comments now...

Pitterpat44: What authors would you have like to have interviewed, had you 8 weeks instead of 4?

susan_stamberg: Well, the answer is the same for all 8 weeks. J. D. Salinger! He's been at the top of my wish list for decades now (and by the way, this summer marks the 50th anniversary of publication of Catcher in the Rye). But he is a recluse up in New England, hasn't given an interview in ages, and likely never will. Which won't stop me from wishing. Last year I interviewed his daughter Margaret, who'd written a memoir about growing up in that remote household. She said he was an aloof, uninterested, self-involved father. Hard to mesh that with Salinger's extraordinary sensitivity to children -- at least in his writing.

digby_dawg: Every summer I like to revisit a classic. Any recommendations?

susan_stamberg: You bet! THE GREAT GATSBY - F. Scott Fitzgerald. I'm convinced
it's the Great American Novel. An almost-perfect book. Again, the
writing. Especially VERBS (Fitzgerald once wrote to his daughter
Scottie, when she was in school, and told her verbs were the secret to all good writing). When he describes Gatsby's lavish Long Island party he writes of turkeys "bewitched to a dark brown." Imagine bewitching a turkey!!!? By the way, I haven't checked with her recently, but there was a time when NPR's Linda Wertheimer re-read Jane Austen every summer -- Pride and Prejudice, I think.

gmm61: Where is the best place to hear about new books? (other than NPR!)

susan_stamberg: I'm such a chauvinist -- I don't think there IS another place to hear about books -- we cover them in reviews, interviews, author profiles. But of course the book sections of major newspapers are helpful -- the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times. And, if you can take the time to go through it, The New York Review of Books. (but you have to be VERY serious about reading for that one!).

npr_host: We're chatting live with NPR's special correspondent Susan Stamberg about books: summer books, our favorite books, and your favorite books. Susan has a question she'd like to ask all of you.

susan_stamberg: I've been thinking about books that were favorites when I was a child. For instance, Little Women, (just looked at Little Men again the other day and it's wonderful, too). And more contemporary books (well, contemporary years ago!) --would you believe Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, by Helen Wells (actually I mentioned it as a favorite some years ago on the radio, and a listener send me a copy! I keep it in my office bookshelf). But I'd love to hear about YOUR childhood
favorites -- and why you enjoyed them. (I liked Cherry Ames because she was a career gal -- spunky and caring, a fine role model. Might be good for girls these days, especially since there's such a nursing shortage!).

npr_host: We're live with Susan until 1 p.m. ET let her know what your favorite books are, or were.

gmm61: This summer I travel to France, and have been reading MFK Fisher to get ready. Anything else on your list?

susan_stamberg: Oh, isn't she wonderful? I was just looking over some of her things the other week. I was lucky enough to interview her (long-distance, alas), and we spoke about how she's really NOT a food writer. Rather, she uses food as a taking-=off place for getting inside a country or a habit or style of life. I've just finished a new history book called War and Wine by Don and Petie Kladstrup -- terrific stories about
what happened to the vineyards of France during the Nazi occupation. And Chocolat if you haven't read it. Plus the Cadogan guides -- published in England I think, but available here, and perfectly quirky and helpful.

Pitterpat44: Susan, I read everything I could get my hands on as a child. But my favorites were C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, Burnett's A Little Princess and Tolkein.

susan_stamberg: I came to C.S. Lewis rather late -- didn't grow up on him (or Secret Garden -- another favorite). And I'm sorry I wasn't around him as a child ... so much of what you read, then, gets inside you in important ways. I think this is particularly true for WRITERS. I don't think you can write well, unless you READ well -- you can osmoze good writing, choice of words, language, and yes, those VERBS!

gmm61: I now listen to books on my MP3! It's amazing what a reader can do. Try Grisham's The Brethren!
susan_stamberg: Interesting! Often it's the rare author who can READ well aloud. But when they can (Walter Mosley yesterday on Morning Edition was the perfect example) it's astounding. We take audio books on trips, sometimes. And my husband and I have been known to sit in the parking lot listening until the chapter ends (at NPR we call this "driveway quotient" -- we love when listeners tell us they sat in their driveways waiting for a particular story of ours to come to an end!). Audio books are a great way to get reading done when you can't sit down to do it. But I'm usually too busy listening to the RADIO to take time to listen to anything else (I warned you I was a radio chauvinist!).

npr_host: We're chatting live with NPR's Susan Stamberg. Susan, you asked one of our guests why certain books were their favorites. Here's the response:

Pitterpat44: Because they took me to wonderful places, and the heroes always won.

susan_stamberg: I like when the HEROINES win, too! And yes, that idea of a book taking you to a wonderful place. It's just so key to the passive act of reading -- that transportation factor.

amelia_one_eye: I'm reading Jane Smiley's Horse Heaven this summer, but it seems a little "thick" for lack of a better word! Should a summer book be so much work???

susan_stamberg: Must say I wonder the same thing. Life is short, and summer days are luxuriously long ... but do we REALLY want to spend them digging through the turgid? I don't. On the other hand, Moby Dick, as author Barry Lopez suggested in my NPR interview, is certainly turgid in parts -- all the alternating chapters on whales, whaling, whiteness of the whale (actually the best chapter), etc., And it's a GREAT summer read. Especially if you're lucky enough to be near an ocean!

gmm61: Childhood favorite: King Arthur and the Round Table. If that doesn't get your imagination going...
susan_stamberg: Agreed. And I remember A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -- Twain, I think. Those stories of daring deeds, gallantry, swooning ladies and noble knights. Who can resist them?

npr_host: We only have a few more minutes to talk with our guest today, NPR's Susan Stamberg. Send in your questions or comments for her now about your favorite books!
npr_host: Susan has another question for our audience.
susan_stamberg: That's what you get when you invite an INTERVIEWER to your chat room! Yes, I'd love to know WHEN and WHERE people read.
Is there a favorite chair? Couch? Corner? A certain LAMP you must have nearby. Before bedtime? Only on weekends? Only on Sundays? Never on Sundays. I used to enjoy asking authors where they WRITE -- was there some sacred place they HAD to visit, in order for the muse to come? Did they have to have a yellow legal pad? A computer? A manual typewriter? I loved hearing about the minutiae -- anything that helps inspiration pay a call.

Pitterpat44: I work in an elementary school library now, and my favorite new juvenile writer is Robin McKinley. Her Outlaws of Sherwood is beautiful writing.

susan_stamberg:Don't know about her -- Robin Hood, is it? Sherwood Forest? Tell more, please. Also, aren't children's books simply wonderful these days? Such bright illustrations (Jane Yolen is a favorite -- she's done more than a hundred books for children.. won every possible award. We went to 4th grade together, and she can STILL recite the names of all our classmates, in alphabetical order, just as the teacher called them out, taking attendance, all those years ago). But tell more about Sherwood.

npr_host: We only have a bit of time left with NPR's Susan Stamberg ... send in your questions now...

gmm61: Any particular author that 'gets it right' for you?

susan_stamberg:Depends on what the "it" is (am I sounding like a certain former president?). Salinger certainly does, about adolescence and its pains. Doris Lessing understands women better than just about anyone (I'm thinking of The Golden Notebooks); Hemingway -- in his short stories in particular -- takes your breath away -- a writer of amazing mystery -- about fear. And I like David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars and other books. Stuart Dybek is also a marvelous short-story writer. Long, long list, I'm afraid. What do people say - 'So many books, so little time?!'

npr_host: Our other chat guest is back with a response about the Outlaws of Sherwood book…

Pitterpat44: Yes, it's Robin Hood. In this case he is a reluctant hero, and not a very good shot. Plagued by "vagrant breezes" that send his arrows astray.

susan_stamberg: Wonderful! If you have pacifist instincts, you'd feel that exactly where all arrows SHOULD go. And I hope vagrant breezes come ALL our ways this summer.

npr_host: Susan, you asked earlier about where people like to read, another person in here responded:

gmm61: I sit like what I read...beanbag chair for the rollicking ride, easy chair for classics...lighting is different, music is different. Depends on the book and how I am enjoying it!

susan_stamberg: What a good idea! I wish you vagrant breezes, too.

Pitterpat44: It's been fun, Susan. Your voice is NPR to me. I miss it on ATC. Not just the sound, but your VOICE, your soul. Best wishes.

susan_stamberg: What a lovely note. Many thanks, to you and everybody else online with me. It's been great fun occupying cyberspace with all of you.

npr_host: Thank you very much, Susan ... join NPR Online www.npr.org soon for another live chat with an NPR correspondent.