From Daniel James Brown, author of Under a Flaming Sky, forthcoming from Perennial this summer:
What was the best book of the year?
I think it has to be Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Not that I’d want to read it again any time soon…it’s too disturbing, particularly to a middle-aged guy with high cholesterol who could go face first into his dinner plate at any time. But as a writer I can’t help but be awed, once again, by the absolutely stunning clarity of Didion’s prose and the brutal honesty of her story-telling. Sends shivers up my spine.
What was the best movie?
A lot of people seemed to take Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” to be sappy, sentimental, and pointless, but I think it’s none of the above. It’s a lovely little elegy about treasuring what we have while we still have it, and then letting go gracefully and gratefully, thankful for having had it.
Who was the person of the year?
My old boss, Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda. Not just for the billion dollars plus that their foundation gives away every year, but for directing that all of the foundation’s assets will be distributed within 50 years of their deaths.
What is your New Year’s resolution?
To stop eying the treadmill suspiciously from across the room and to actually get on it more often and thus minimize the chance that I’ll take the aforementioned dive into the dinner plate any time soon.
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