Ellis Hastings
asked
Paul Tremblay:
Hey Paul, Thanks for telling such thought-provoking and wonderful works. And also for being such a nice guy! I've read and enjoyed everything you've written and will be pre-ordering your new collection in the coming days. I've always found myself interested in not just what an author enjoys to write, but what they read. So, my question is this: What are your 5 favorite books of all time in any genre?
Paul Tremblay
Hi, Ellis, and thank you for the kind words!
That's so tough narrowing it down to five. There are so many contemporaries doing fabulous work (Stephen Graham Jones, Nadia Bulkin, Victor LaValle, John Langan, Laird Barron, Idra Novey, Leni Zumas, Nathan Ballingrud, and many more), it's an exciting time to be a reader.
Let me give you five books that helped shape my reading/writing early on. Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" totally opened my eyes to possibility of fiction. That story isn't in her HAUNTED: TALES OF THE GROTESQUE but I read that book shortly after reading that short story, which continues to inspire. Stephen King's The Stand. Oates opened my eyes, and The Stand then walked in and made me fall in love with reading. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five. I used to reread that novel every June. Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. And Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The latter two books were big influences (among other books) on my A Head Full of Ghosts.
That's so tough narrowing it down to five. There are so many contemporaries doing fabulous work (Stephen Graham Jones, Nadia Bulkin, Victor LaValle, John Langan, Laird Barron, Idra Novey, Leni Zumas, Nathan Ballingrud, and many more), it's an exciting time to be a reader.
Let me give you five books that helped shape my reading/writing early on. Joyce Carol Oates' short story "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" totally opened my eyes to possibility of fiction. That story isn't in her HAUNTED: TALES OF THE GROTESQUE but I read that book shortly after reading that short story, which continues to inspire. Stephen King's The Stand. Oates opened my eyes, and The Stand then walked in and made me fall in love with reading. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five. I used to reread that novel every June. Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. And Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The latter two books were big influences (among other books) on my A Head Full of Ghosts.
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