We’re so tickled to welcome Bryan back to the Olive Reader that we’re bleeding. Does that even make sense? I can’t tell, I’m too excited. If a room full of lightbulbs hasn’t already flashed on in your brain, Bryan is the author of Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way, so check yourself before you wreck yourself, or check your head before you wet the bed, whichever. Here are his answers:
1. One book that changed your life?
This is a tough one but probably Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson.
2. One book you have read more than once?
The Great Gatsby
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
4. One book that made you laugh?
Bats Out of Hell by Barry Hannah
5. One book that made you cry?
MetLife corporate branding guide (this was for a temp job I had recently that was supposed to be long term, they gave it to me my first day, there were many pages detailing how far away Snoopy’s foot should be from the blue border, the next morning after hardly sleeping I called in sick and they weren’t really too hot on having me back)
6. One book you wish had been written?
I was at the bookstore just yesterday and saw that Les Claypool, bass player for Primus, has a novel out, not that I care, I bring it up only to assert that at this point in our history, pretty much every book you could ever think of is either out there already or on its way, including new material by people long dead.
7. One book you wish had never been written?
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (okay, I never read this but the very premise enrages me and that thing with the flipbok at the end is in such poor taste I’m amazed it ever saw the light of day)
8. One book you are currently reading?
Contempt my Alberto Moravia (takes a while to get warmed up but does eventually get its hooks in)
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Last three volumes of In Search of Lost Time (I sped through the first two but the third one was tough, all those intellectual “salons” described in excruciating detail for hundreds of pages)
10. Now tag five people
I don’t know five people
