Literary Scene

Four Book-ish Questions with Four Big-Time Readers

By Ryan G. Van Cleave

Octavia Saenz

Creative Writing Major at

Ringling College of Art and Design

What are you reading now?

I’m reading Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Ego Homini Lupus, a gory novel about a medieval woman losing her mind after being married off to a wolf pelt hunter. It’s like George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, zoomed all the way into one life of someone with little power.

What’s the last great book you read?

Drive Here and Devastate Me, a collection of poems by Megan Falley. As the title says, it’s a devastating collection of poems that left me feeling like I’d been run over by a car. At the same time, it’s so tender and sweet. I highly recommend it for anyone feeling lovesick or who enjoys feeling lovesick!

So, you’re inviting four characters from books (real or imagined, living or deceased) to The Hob Nob for milkshakes. Who joins you for some 1950s-style outdoor dining fun?

Leah and Abby from Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli, Kaye from Tithe by Holly Black, and Molly from Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. Now there’s a group of strong-headed women bound to get up to some mischief!

Bilbo or Frodo?

Bilbo! Frodo’s a good kid, and his friendship with Sam is adorable, but Bilbo is more fun. He’s clever, more in touch with his inner trickster—enough to best Gollum!—plus, he didn’t split the party!

Dan Hoffe

Financial Consultant

What are you reading now?

I’m reading The Righteous Mind—Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt.

What’s the last great book you read?

My all-time favorite book is Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. With killer prose, it transports you to the hustling, bustling, chaotic, seductive, and dangerous Mumbai. You’ll live among the slum dwellers, learn about the mafia and the standing babas, and be blown away by the cacophony of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that are modern-day India. It’s an epic tale of love, forgiveness, and ultimately redemption told on a grand scale.

It’ll make you laugh. It’ll make you cry. But most important, it’ll make you think.

So, you’re inviting four characters from books (real or imagined, living or dead) to a Slam Poetry event at Bookstore 1. Who do you take with you?

I’d invite Gabriel Allon, Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast, Mitch Rapp, and Harry Bosch. These characters would definitely add the “slam” to the poetry!

Biographies or how-to’s?

I’ve always loved biographies. What’s more interesting than seeing how someone chooses to spend the most precious gift of all—their life?

Roger

Homeless Ex-Carpenter in Portland

What are you reading now?

James Patterson’s Witch & Wizard.

What’s the last great book you read?

The other day at the Multnomah County Library, I found Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World. What a great read!

So, you’re inviting four characters from books (real or imagined, living or dead) to join you for a visit to Voodoo Donuts. Who shares a Bacon Maple Bar or Mango Tango with you?

Gandalf for sure. Then Philip Marlowe. Lyra Silvertongue from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. And Eeyore because why not?

Audiobooks or physical books?

I like to hear the music of Portland’s fabulous downtown in the background when I read, so physical books for sure.

Miriam Wallace

Chair of Humanities at New College of Florida

What are you reading now?

I just read The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden—a rewrite of a Russian folktale.

What’s the last great book you read?

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Machado and Sunshine State by Sarah Gerard. I gobbled up Machado’s short stories like salty chocolates—not quite sweet, not quite savory, but you can’t stop. I loved “The Husband Stitch” and the imagery of the ribbon around her neck as the one thing her husband cannot touch. There’s an Angela Carter-esque element that still sticks with me (see The Bloody Chamber).

Sunshine State is a great collection of essays for anyone living on this coast of Florida and even if you’re a transplant. I particularly resonated with the pieces that are what I’d call long-form journalism—about a particular bird rescue organization, about Amway, about growing up in a Christian Science household.

So, you’re inviting four characters from books (real or imagined, living or dead) for a round of golf at The Meadows Country Club. Who joins you on the links for this golf fivesome?

Alice from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland—we could even play with flamingoes. Emma from Jane Austen’s novel of that name (I imagine she’d carry a tea cup). Yet we need a bad boy to keep things interesting—how about Stephen Daedelus from Joyce’s Portrait of a Young Artist? I bet he’d mope about rather than playing and regale us with philosophical conundrums. And I have to invite Frankenstein’s monster—it being his 200th birthday and all.

Jane Austen. Yay or nay?

Yay all the way. Sooo many ways to read her!