Charles Bock’s debut novel, Beautiful Children, is a sweeping portrait of a depraved Las Vegas--from the bland misery of the suburbs to the explosive and exploitative sex industry--through the eyes of a runaway boy. The Washington Post writes, “[Bock’s] ability to share a deep understanding of America’s million or so lost street kids and their tormented parents give the book a whiff of greatness.” One of many critically acclaimed authors who will be appearing at the Parkway Central Library during the second annual Philadelphia Book Festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2008, Mr. Bock recently took a moment to chat with us about some of our favorite topics.

What role have libraries played in your life?

When I was a child, my mother used to drive me and my siblings to the main branch of the Vegas library, on Flamingo. We used to head upstairs and spend hours after school reading in the kid’s section, and would take breaks to go down to the candy and soda machines. I remember that we all used to sit underneath the stairs and play cops and robbers and cowboys and indians, hiding from the people who went up and down the stairwell. I actually used some of those memories in a scene in my novel, Beautiful Children. But libraries were a huge influence on me early. Even now they still play an important role for me in all kinds of different ways, including but not limited to research.

What was your favorite childhood book?

I read each installment of the Encyclopedia Brown series so many times that I pretty much knew all the mysteries by heart.

Who is your favorite fictional character?

That’s tough. Maybe Yossarian from Catch-22. He brought me tons of joy in that novel, and meanwhile had a backbone and a sense of what was right. Ask me tomorrow; I'll probably say someone else is my favorite fictional character, but for today, let’s go with him.

Who are three authors you think everyone should be required to read--what books would you start with?

Honestly, I think the question has a flawed premise. So many variables go into what kind of book is going to affect a person, including the given moment/phase in a person’s life when they read that particular book, or are exposed to that particular author. I can’t answer in any kind of definitive way. But here’s three books I love and which anyone reading this should go and check out. 1) The Dirt, Motley Crue with Neil Strauss. 2) The Known World, Edward P. Jones. 3) Purple America, Rick Moody.

If you couldn’t write, what other job would you like to have?

Rock God.

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Belong to Me is Marisa de los Santos’s follow-up to her New York Times bestselling novel Love Walked In. With a focus on what happens when leaps of faith and twists of fate collide with carefully constructed outer images, Belong to Me is a “bewitching, warmhearted grown-up fairy tale” (Jennifer Weiner). One of many critically acclaimed authors who will be appearing at the Parkway Central Library during the second annual Philadelphia Book Festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2008, Ms. de los Santos recently took a moment to chat with us about some of our favorite topics.

What role have libraries played in your life?

My mother would take my sister and me to our local library, and I remember feeling this mix of reverence and giddiness, like I was entering a church and Disney World at the same time. We would spend hours, but it was never long enough, and we brought back stacks of books.

What was your favorite childhood book?

I read more as a kid than I do now, and I read quite a lot now, so I had many favorites. But I loved this series of books by Elizabeth Enright about the Melendys, a wonderful family that moves from New York City to a big, rambling house in the country. I hate to name a favorite of the four books in this series, but if I had to choose, I’d say it was The Four-Story Mistake.

Who is your favorite fictional character?

I love Margaret Schlegel in E.M. Forster’s Howards End because she’s complex, smart, and funny, and she takes a group of miserable, alienated people and turns them into a family. It’s an incredibly heroic thing to do.

Who are the three authors you think everyone should be required to read--which books would you start with?

E.M. Forster, Howards End; Haven Kimmel, The Solace of Leaving Early; and Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible.

If you couldn’t write, what other job would you like to have?

I’d love to be a principal dancer in a ballet company!

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A native of the Scottish Highlands, Margot Livesey‘s thoughtful fiction showcases a keen wit and a wise heart. Her forthcoming novel, The House on Fortune Street, explores multiple perspectives on the life of a young London therapist while paying subtle homage to literary figures and works including Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. One of many critically acclaimed authors who will be appearing at the Parkway Central Library during the second annual Philadelphia Book Festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2008, Ms. Livesey recently took a moment to chat with us about some of our favorite topics.

What role have libraries played in your life?

A crucial one. I grew up in a place called Glenalmond--the valley of the River Almond--on the edge of the Scottish Highlands. The nearest town was ten miles away. From the age of seven I had a library card and when we went to town, perhaps once or twice a month, I would get out the maximum number of books allowed. At that time I could easily read a book a day. Later, at my secondary school, there was also a library from which I could borrow books but also enjoy the pleasure of reading amongst the stacks. And then in the libraries there were also librarians--understanding adults who seemed to think my longing for books was perfectly natural and who often guided me towards surprising and wonderful new authors.  As an adult I seldom leave home without my library card and am even more seldom without a book.

What was your favorite childhood book?

I loved Daddy Long-Legs, Pippi Longstocking, and Ferdinand the Bull. I also adored the much more Scottish Kidnapped.

Who is your favorite fictional character?

The hero of the first book I ever read was Percy the Bad Chick, and I remain devoted to him. Also, and always, Jane Eyre.

Who are the three authors you think everyone should be required to read--which books would you start with?

This is such a hard question, and in order to attempt an answer I'm going to limit myself to dead British writers. George Eliot and Middlemarch. Ford Madox Ford and Parade's End. Elizabeth Bowen and The House in Paris.

If you couldn’t write, what other job would you like to have?

I've always envied and admired people who work for organisations like Oxfam or Amnesty. If that didn't work out I'd love to work in a florist’s.

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According to Michael Kanellos, writing for the CNET News Green Tech Blog, “The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and parent company Xerox are experimenting with a type of paper and a complementary printer that would produce documents that fade away after 16 to 24 hours.” This technology, which uses special paper coated with photosensitive chemicals, could be available to consumers within the next few years.

“Not every document is right for reusable paper,” writes Kanellos. “Presentations and legal contracts probably need to be printed on something more permanent. But lunch menus, daily work summaries, and memos from meetings can all potentially take advantage of this. Xerox says that 44.5 percent of documents are printed for one-time use and 25 percent of all documents printed get recycled the same day.”

While these new papers and printers will be more expensive than those in common use today, the potential energy savings are substantial. In addition to the energy saved in lowering the production of new sheets of paper, Kanellos’ article suggests that reusing a sheet of paper with Xerox’s new system will consume between roughly a tenth and half as much energy as ordinary printing on a conventional 8 x 11.5 sheet of paper.

Gregory Maguire writes novels in which classic villains turn out to be heroes--and supposed heroes disappoint. In Wicked, his bestselling novel and basis for the smash Broadway musical of the same name, he profiles Elphaba, the misunderstood Wicked Witch of the West. In Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, a retelling of Cinderella set in the Dutch Golden Age, Iris Fischer, Cinderella’s clever but painfully plain stepsister takes center stage. Maguire is also the author of Mirror Mirror, Son of a Witch, and most recently, What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy. One of many bestselling authors who will be appearing at the Parkway Central Library during the second annual Philadelphia Book Festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2008, Mr. Maguire recently took a moment to chat with us about some of our favorite topics.

What role have libraries played in your life?

Not too long ago, I participated in a photo shoot with the actresses then playing Elphaba and Glinda on the stage in New York. The caption of the advertisement read something like “Great American theater began in the public library.” I talked, in a brief line or two, about how affected I was by my childhood reading of The Wizard of Oz and other fantasies discovered on library shelves like gems and treasures (packed in their cellophane dust jackets next to dross and dreck, sometimes). My family was not prosperous, so the public libraries in Albany, New York, seemed nearly hallowed to us as a place to become revived, inspired, challenged, consoled, amused, and befuddled. I serve on the Board of Associates of the Boston Public Library now, in part to honor the debt I owe to public libraries, and also in part to help libraries continue to do that same work for toda’s young readers (and readers not so young).

What was your favorite childhood book?

Yesterday my 8-year-old Alex said at breakfast, “Ba,” (the Cambodian word for father) “do you know what? Every day when I wake up it seems like a dream.” I know what he means--sort of. Every day of childhood is different. Every day is stuffed with different passions. So there can be no one favorite childhood book, as all the days and years of childhood are different. Still, from the adult perspective, some books stand out: here are just a few. Jane Langton’s The Diamond in the Window, a fantasy set in Concord, Massachusetts. (Do you think that book influenced my decision to live in Concord as an adult? You're right.) Maurice Sendak’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! for its mystical overtones cut with a vaguely Borsch-belt comedy. Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy--I began a spy notebook in sixth grade, and 40 years later I still keep it, though now I call it my journal. Finally, in high school, T.H. White’s gallimaufry of Arthurian legends, The Once and Future King--which would serve as a kind of template for my own work in reimagining the history behind The Wizard of Oz, which has become the cycle known as the Wicked Years.

Who is your favorite fictional character? 

Probably Merlin the Magician, in all his variety and multiple manifestations in ancient and contemporary literature, though I also like the Russian witch called Baba Yaga. My tastes haven’t changed much since childhood.

Who are the three authors you think everyone should be required to read—which books would you start with?

Since one should start reading in childhood, I would say Mother Goose for nonsense if not insanity; Grimm and Perrault and the Greek myths and Old Testament stories for a stable foundation in archetypes; Dr. Seuss for his marriage of ethics and anarchy; Sendak for psychological honesty; and Beatrix Potter, Arnold Lobel (the Frog and Toad books) and James Marshall (George and Martha) for object lessons in loyalty, friendship, and perseverance. If you missed any of these books because you are too old to have got them in childhood, go back and start over. It’s never too late. Everything else descends from these, including usefully wise behavior as a citizen.

If you couldn’t write, what other job would you like to have?

Over the past 30 years I have often taught literature and writing to children and adults. I don’t do this much anymore due to my obligations to my young children. If I had a better singing voice I would like to be an actor in musicals. If I had longer legs I wouldn’t mind being a dancer. Oddly enough, I am preternaturally well-organized, and so I have always said that if and when my career as a writer ever tanks, I will hire myself out to be an executive assistant in some hot shot law firm or something. I love to file and I also love to boss people around, especially myself. (That’s what makes me a productive self-employed writer: I am both labor and management, and as management I drive a hard bargain.) 

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