What's that you're reading?

What are you reading right now?

“Mostly textbooks. So, the other stuff is not really high quality; it’s just something fun to read. I tend to be drawn to stuff that’s about high school. I definitely go for humor, light reading that I can do on the weekend. This is the first book I’ve read in a while — Me Times Three, by Alex Witchel. And I like Jane Heller’s Best Enemies.”

What’s the last book you read?

“It was a book I got from here [possibly Michelle Richmond’s novel Golden State, because it was about San Francisco, where I’m from. It was like a science-fiction kind of a thing; San Francisco was seceding from the state. I just wanted to read about the neighborhoods that I could kind of relate to.”

Name a favorite author.

“Sophie Kinsella; I buy a lot of her books. They’re really funny, kind of like romantic comedies. She wrote Confessions of a Shopaholic, about this British girl who gets into lots of misadventures. She goes shopping a lot and gets into a lot of debt. I like the descriptions of her clothes, and the shopping.”

From Confessions of a Shopaholic: “’You look...amazing!’ And I have to say, I agree. I’m wearing all black — but expensive black. The kind of deep, soft black that you fall into. A simple sleeveless dress from Whistles, the highest of Jimmy Choos, a pair of stunning uncut amethyst earrings. And please don’t ask how much it all cost, because that’s irrelevant. This is investment shopping. The biggest investment of my life.  I haven’t eaten anything all day so I’m nice and thin and for once my hair has fallen perfectly into shape. I look... well, I’ve never looked better in my life. But of course, looks are only part of the package, aren’t they?” 

What book was most life-changing for you?

“It’s really creepy, but in my freshman year of high school, I had to read In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, for journalism class. That changed me; I really like writing, and it inspired me to do journalism. I really got into it; it had such great detail. It’s crazy how long he was down there [in Kansas] and how well he got to know people. That was definitely something that I creepily latched onto. His relationships with the people who had committed the crimes. How he got to know them afterwards.”

From In Cold Blood: “Two features in his personality make-up stand out as particularly pathological. The first is his ‘paranoid’ orientation toward the world. He is suspicious and distrustful of others, tends to feel that others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not understand him. He is overly sensitive to criticism that others make of him, and cannot tolerate being made fun of. He is quick to sense slight or insult in things others say, and frequently may misinterpret well-meant communications. He feels the great need of friendship and understanding, but he is reluctant to confide in others, and when he does, expects to be misunderstood or even betrayed. In evaluating the intentions and feelings of others, his ability to separate the real situation from his own mental projections is very poor. He not infrequently groups all people together as being hypocritical, hostile, and deserving of whatever he is able to do to them. Akin to this first trait is the second, an ever-present, poorly controlled rage, easily triggered by any feelings of being tricked, slighted, or labeled inferior by others. For the most part, his rages in the past have been directed at authority figures.”

Do you read any newspapers or magazines?

“Not really. Sometimes I’ll come here and read Glamour. It’s a fashion magazine, so there aren’t a ton of articles.”

Where do you get your news?

“Online, usually from Yahoo! News in my email, or the breaking news stories on Twitter.”