I also love complex and troubled characters, and difficult moral situations. I am moved by those mental adventures in a book. Great works of literature can partly compensate for these limitations by allowing us to travel to different places and times in our minds. Our lives are so brief, and in those few years there’s only a limited amount we can see and experience. What moves you most in a work of literature? I wish more authors would write about philosophy in an accessible and meaningful way, as does the writer Rebecca Goldstein. Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?Īs a scientist, it would be natural for me to say the subject of science, but there are already many wonderful books about science. In David Kertzer’s magnificent history of Mussolini and Pope Pius XII during World War II, “The Pope at War,” I learned that Mussolini, who was no friend of the church, ordered many thousands of church bells confiscated in order to be melted down for war munitions. What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently? Wilson, Janna Levin, Lewis Thomas, Rachel Carson, David Quammen, Natalie Angier, Richard Feynman, Mary Roach, Steven Weinberg, Marcia Bartusiak. Some of my favorite science writers, not in any particular order, are James Gleick, E.O. Who writes especially well about science for a lay audience? It’s Hudson’s memoir of growing up in the pampas of Argentina in the mid-19th century and contains the most gorgeous descriptions of flora, fauna and landscape that I’ve ever read. But a book I love that receives very little attention these days is “Far Away and Long Ago,” by W.H. That’s a tall order, because I don’t know what books most people have read. What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of? Good books are not completed until they are read by a reader, and each reader completes the book in a different way. If we are the reader, we are bringing our own life experiences to the scene and using those experiences to help create the scene.

If we are the writer, we are listening to our characters speak, not telling them what to say, but listening. As long as the place is quiet, I can be anywhere, because after a few minutes I have disappeared into that magical realm where we lose awareness of who we are, where we are, our bodies, even time. I like to be in a quiet and serene space, without phones ringing in the background or other distractions. My ideal reading experience is the same as my ideal writing experience. Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how). “Crime and Punishment,” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Bleak House,” by Charles Dickens. Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time? “A Gentleman in Moscow,” by Amor Towles, “At Random,” by Bennett Cerf, “The Pope at War,” by David I.

Waiting for Baby by Rachel Fuller