Laura Snyder: How Books Can Change Your Life

“I’m a writer”.

I’m finishing up Nutshell by Ian McEwan. It’s brilliant. I’m also reading the Pulitzer Prize winning Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall.

No one book. When I was in sixth grade my parents wrote a note to the public library giving me permission to take out books in the adult section, and I started with the As and worked my way through the alphabet. For a while I was pretty obsessed with mysteries of all kinds, from Agatha Christie to hardboiled writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

A writer! But not a non-fiction writer. I wrote stories, poems and novels when I was young and thought I would continue in those genres.

She’d be tickled pink. I used to fantasize about seeing my books in local bookstores, and now I do (thank you, booksellers!). When my book, Eye of the Beholder, was reviewed in the New York Times last year, I felt the spirit of 11-year old Laura cheering.

In the evenings my 12-year old son, my husband and I group around the living sofa with our books and read together. It’s my favorite time of the day.

About ten years ago, after my first book was published, I started wondering if I should move away from writing for academic audiences and write for a wider readership. By chance I stumbled upon Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto. It was such a stellar example of smart, literary non-fiction well grounded in historical research. I thought, “That’s what I want to do.” I’ve written two books of literary non-fiction since then.

Yes. Twelve years ago, a shared academic interest in a 19th century work about scientific method by William Whewell (one of the subjects of The Philosophical Breakfast Club) led another scholar to contact me, resulting in a friendship that culminated in our marriage last September.

Since I write non-fiction, I probably shouldn’t admit this, but my pleasure reading is mostly fiction. Partly that’s because I read so much non-fiction for my own research that by the end of the day, when I’m reading for fun, I am ready to switch to fiction.

Well, there’s air, food, family…then reading.

That’s a tough one. There’s been a bumper crop of excellent historical fiction lately, and I’ve been binging on them. I adored Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and Arcadia by Iain Pears. I particularly enjoyed The Lost Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith, partly because the topic is so related to my own recent book, Eye of the Beholder. Like my book, The Lost Painting is filled with the luminous art of the Dutch Golden Age. The two books really complement each other. After finishing that one I read his earlier book The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith, about the 19th century inventor of the photographic method. That book overlapped with my previous book, The Philosophical Breakfast Club, in which I discussed the origins of photography. I should probably get in touch with Dominic and see what he’s writing now so I can plan my next book topic!

I’m the person lugging two heavy books with me on vacation. I try to limit my carry-on luggage to paperbacks, but I’m not always successful, as when I brought the huge hardback edition of The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert to Brazil last December (since I loved the book so much, I schlepped it back home with me too so I can reread it sometime).

None. People should read what they love.

I wouldn’t say any one book has had the biggest impact, rather, books in general have. Being a book lover changed my life, both early on, when reading was my escape from an unhappy childhood, and later, when it altered the course of my career.

Books that have been important to me in some way would have to include Middlemarch by George Eliot, anything by Anthony Trollope, The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Waterland by Graham Swift. In non-fiction, The Great Bridge by David McCullough, Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel, and, especially, the work of Oliver Sacks. The list could go on and on.

When I’m starting a new project, as I am now, I enjoy reading novels set in the place and time of my research. And of course I read enormous numbers of non-fiction books related to the subject. Since my new topic is still a secret, my lips are sealed.

I wouldn’t write one. I like to keep my secrets.