"A master of mood and atmosphere” (New York Times), Colin Harrison is the author of six thrillers, including Manhattan Nocturne, The Havana Room, and his latest, The Finder, a tale of global intrigue that reveals New York in all of its 21st-century splendor, greed, violence and desire. He spent six years as deputy editor of Harper’s Magazine and is now vice president and senior editor at Scribner. 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. Harrison recently took a moment to chat with us about some of our favorite topics.

What role have libraries played in your life?

Libraries are sacred places in that they hold and preserve our history and culture. I’m a great admirer of libraries. And they’re a great place to write, too; I composed part of this new book in two public libraries, in Riverhead, NY and in Southold, NY.

What was your favorite childhood book?

I read the mass market paperback of The Godfather when I was about 12 and nothing was ever the same again….

Who is your favorite fictional character?

Too many to name. I like all of Shakespeare’s Fools, I like Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, I like the Chandler heroes, I like Batman.

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

I understand the spirit of the question but I don’t think people should be required to read certain books. That being said, they should be forcefully introduced to those certain books. You could make a good case that Americans should read All the President’s Men. In that vein, they should read Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies.

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

Well, I have that other job; I’m an editor and have been for 20 years. I think being a detective could be pretty interesting, if I could survive the human misery I’d see.

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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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Veronica Chambers has written and edited for national magazines for 12 years. Her memoir Mama’s Girl was deemed “extraordinary” by People magazine and named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Her latest book, Kickboxing Geishas, examines boundary-busting modern Japanese women who freely mix East and West, burying stereotypes to define an electrifying new culture in their country. 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. Chambers recently took a moment to chat with us about some of our favorite topics.

What role have libraries played in your life?

I got my first library card when I was something like six years old. But the biggest memory I have is of outgrowing my small local branch in Brooklyn and following the librarian's suggestion to visit the Donnell Library for children and young adults in Manhattan. I must've been 13 and taking the subway by myself to Rockefeller Center in pursuit of a library all about teens was such a thrill. Even now when I pass the Donnell, I get goose bumps. I spent an afternoon there recently, researching a teen novel that I'm writing. So it's a library that has popped up in my life in many ways now--first in my early teens, then in my 20s when I worked in magazines and passed it often on my way to meetings and now in my 30s, as I begin to write teen novels myself.

What was your favorite childhood book?

I'd have to say A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Even when I was really small, six or seven, it always meant a lot to me to be from Brooklyn. I was really proud of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Brooklyn Dodgers and the fact that Barbra Streisand had gone to the same high school as my dad. So when I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it blew my mind that Francie Nolan (the main character) and I grew up in the same Brooklyn.

Who is your favorite fictional character?

My favorite fictional character, hands down, is Alice in Wonderland. I feel like her journey explains my whole peripatetic life. "Curiouser and curiouser" is how I begin my writing life and my personal life, each and every single day.

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

Oooo. This is tough. I'd say first, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. To me, it is modern American storytelling at its finest. It is pretty much a perfect first paragraph: Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

I mean really. Perfection. The next book I'd recommend to any and everyone is Octavia Butler's Kindred because I think it's one of the most powerful stories about love, race, history and the cost we pay in the present for the wounds of the past.

For the third, I'll say Nick Hornby's About A Boy because I think that the ability it takes for an author to make you laugh out loud, and laugh so hard that your sides are hurting and then in the very same book, make you burst out in tears, is far too greatly underestimated. This is a book that goes down as easy as ice-cream. But I don't know about you, but I think people who can make truly, truly great ice-cream are genius.

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

If I couldn't write books, I'd like to write about food. If I couldn't write about food, I'd like to write about fashion. If I couldn't write about food or fashion, then I'd like to be a chef or a clothing designer. Because besides books, there are few things I like better than food, fashion (and travel).

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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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