Professor’s Picks with Helen Benedict

Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of a new book: The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq. She will be reading and signing books at Book Culture on Thursday, April 16 at 7 pm. (Learn more about the book and event here.) We recently asked Helen a few questions about what she has been reading:

1) What books are you currently reading?

Sowing Crisis by Rashid Khalidi, endless books about the Iraq War, and, for relief, I’m rereading Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse.

2) Is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to the publication of?

The next fiction titles by Paula Sharp, Joan Silber and Mary Morris.

3) Are there standard titles or writers you like to recommend, either within or outside of your field?

Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin, Tolstoy and Charlotte Bronte.

4) Do you have a personal favorite book of all time? If so, can you share it and tell us why?

I have three: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte – a work that is so human and honest it captures the struggle for freedom that not only women experience, but anyone who has been pigeonholed, oppressed, suppressed anywhere in the world. A highly underrated novel. George Eliot’s Middlemarch – as big and important as my other favorite book, Tolstoy’s War and Peace. These books have the sweep and complexity of life, contain deep wisdom, and grow and grow with each reading. They capture humanity in all its complexity much better than any psychology or nonfiction I have ever read.

5) What’s next? Any upcoming book projects in the works that you can tell us about?

I have a new novel coming out in November that I’m just proofing now. Called THE EDGE OF EDEN, it is a tragicomic novel about an English family living in the Seychelles in 1960, a remote group of islands tucked under the equator in the Indian Ocean. The story weaves between wartime London and tropical colonial decadence in a tale of power, lust and witchcraft.

Professor’s Picks with Rashid Khalidi

For the Professor’s Picks feature this month, we asked Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi a few questions about his favorite books and what he has read recently. Professor Khalidi will appear at Book Culture on Monday, March 9 at 7 pm to discuss his new book, Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East.

Here is our short book-related interview with him:

1) What books are you currently reading?

I am currently reading (in sporadic fashion) Mark Mazower’s Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe; Graham Robb’s The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography, and Tarif Khalidi’s new translation of The Qur’an.

2) Is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to the publication of?

I am very much looking forward to the publication of Mahmood Mamdani’s Saviors and Survivors: Darfu, Politics and the War on Terror, which I am reading an advance copy of.

Professor’s Picks with Jenny Davidson

We recently asked Columbia professor Jenny Davidson a few questions about her favorite books and what she has read recently. She shared an abundance of titles with us, which are posted below.

Save the Date: Professor Davidson will appear at Book Culture on Thursday, February 26 at 7 pm to discuss her new book, Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century. She will be joined by Vassar’s Julie Park.

On to the interview…

1) What books are you currently reading?

I’m in the middle of Jennifer Egan’s The Keep; next in the queue is Heidi Julavits’s The Uses of Enchantment. The last couple books I’ve read were James Blish’s SF classic A Case of Conscience, which I loved, and nineteenth-century novelist Marie Corelli’s melodrama Thelma, which was a surprisingly good read. On a long plane trip recently, I read Jonathan Coe’s The Rain Before It Falls and Rosamond Lehmann’s The Ballad and the Source. Two books I’m looking forward to reading in the near future: Laura Miller’s The Magician’s Book and John Hanc’s The Coolest Race on Earth: Mud, Madmen, Glaciers and Grannies at the Antarctica Marathon.

Q & A with Saree Makdisi

Last night Saree Makdisi read from and discussed his new book, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. We had a few minutes before the event to ask Saree about what he is reading these days.

What are you currently reading?

Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population and political writings of the poet Robert Southey. I’m also reading Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

What are you looking forward to reading?

The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine.

What are writers or books that you count among your favorites?

For poetry, always Blake. And these days the novel I’m recommending to everyone is Caleb Williams:Things as They Are by William Godwin.

Q & A with Michael Eskin

Earlier this month Michael Eskin did an event at Book Culture for his new book, Poetic Affairs: Celan, Grunbein, Brodsky. He was introduced by Haun Saussy, Yale professor of comparative literature and editor of the Stanford University Press series that published Poetic Affairs. (Pictured here: Eskin, at left, and Saussy) After the event, Michael Eskin answered a few questions for us:

What books are you currently reading?

I have been reading many books on the very question of reading literature lately in connection with a project I am working on. I have also been reading a range of books on contemporary culture and intercultural prejudice, as well as research in social physics. I have also just reread Albert Camus’ L’étranger.

Is there anything you’re particularly looking forward to the publication of?

I am working on a couple of projects at the moment. In particular, I look forward to a volume that I am currently editing comprising selected prose by D. Grünbein.

Do you have standard titles or writers you like to recommend, either within or outside of your field?

The list would be too long – obviously. But here are some of the author’s that have profoundly touched me in recent years: J. M. Coetzee, J. Brodsky, A. Paton, E. Stein, W. H. Auden, and A. Badiou – and, most importantly, Kathrin Stengel’s book: November Rose: A Speech on Death.

Q & A with Michael Paul Mason

Last night we hosted a reading with writer and journalist Michael Paul Mason, author of Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and its Aftermath. Mason shared moving tales, including audio clips of interviews from his visit to Balad Air Base in Iraq, where he had a first hand look at the harsh realities facing brain injury victims.

After the presentation, we had a few moments to ask him some questions:

What books are you currently reading?

Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer, and just yesterday I bought Maps and Legends.

Is there anything that you are particularly looking forward to the publication of?

I have a galley copy of Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural, which comes out next month. Also, Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas, by Sarah Brown (forthcoming by Crown in August 2008.)

Do you have standard titles or writers you like to recommend?

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick and The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman.

Have you ever been to Book Culture before?

No, this is my first visit. Thanks for hosting me.

***

Mason will also appear at this weekend’s New York Roundtable Writer’s Conference and be on Leonard Lopate this coming Monday, April 14th. A review of Head Cases appears in this week’s NYT Sunday Book Review. An earlier NYT review appears here and you can learn more about the author and his work here.

Q & A with Kwame Anthony Appiah

We were honored to have philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah speak at our store this week about his new book, Experiments in Ethics. We didn’t have a lot of time to chat with him after the event, but he took a few moments to tell us what he has been reading lately:

I am currently re-reading God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215. Recently I have also enjoyed Hobbes and Republican Liberty (February 2008, Cambridge University Press), and also The Rest is Noise. As far as forthcoming titles that I’m looking forward to reading — whatever Amartya Sen publishes next, whatever it is!

Q & A with George Makari

A nice crowd turned out at Book Culture on a wet slushy Friday night to hear George Makari’s presentation about his new book, Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis.

Dr. Makari talked about how the book came to be and explained its structure and scope. He then read a portion of the introduction and opened it up for Q&A from the audience, who posed questions about Freud’s legacy and teachings, why Vienna plays such a prominent role in the history of psychoanalysis and how certain photos were chosen for the front cover of the book.

Before the event we had some time to sit and chat about books with Dr. Makari. Here is what he shared with us:

What books are you currently reading?

Celine’s Journey to the End of Night and Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner.

Is there anything you are particularly looking forward to the publication of?

Yes, the Rhode Island poet and 2008 Frost Medal recipient Michael S. Harper has a new collection coming out in the fall, Use Trouble.

Q & A with Meena Alexander

Last night’s Meena Alexander poetry reading began with a gracious introduction from award-winning poet Jean Valentine (proudly sporting her Obama button!) in which she called Meena’s work “sensual and brave.” Meena read a selection of poems from her new collection, Quickly Changing River, including some of the poems that Jean said she most enjoyed — Raw Meditation on Money and Cutting Hair. Some of the other poems shared during the reading were Cosmopolitan, Old Ivory, Reading Leopardi and Acqua Alta. Before the event we had a few moments to chat with Meena. Here’s what we learned:

Q & A with Helen Benedict

Our last author event of the 2007 season was Helen Benedict, a neighborhood resident, writer and professor who teaches at Columbia. She is currently at work on The Lonely Soldier, a non-fiction book about female veterans of the Iraq war, which will be published by Beacon Press. But tonight Helen read from her new novel, The Opposite of Love and answered questions from the wonderful audience that braved the slushy weather to join us at Book Culture!

After the reading, we asked Helen to tell us about her own literary interests:

What have you been reading?

Lots of books about the Iraq war lately, because of the book I am working on. I did read John Berger’s latest book, Hold Everything Dear.