Interesting readers, as well as writers
From a window of her office in the Barker Center, English Professor Leah Price can see the apartment of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Junot Díaz. She knows that apartment well. His kitchen, for instance, is no ordinary one. His book collection extends into the room dedicated for cooking, and beside the refrigerator there’s a bookshelf stocked with J.R.R. Tolkien, a biography of Che Guevara, and “The Third God” by Ricardo Pinto. Junot Díaz's kitchen library. "I started acquiring books as soon as I started earning my own money. I certainly wouldn't have survived my childhood without books," he said. This glimpse into Díaz’s library and home is documented in Price’s new book of interviews and photographs, “Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books.” In it, Price details the reading routines and kaleidoscopic bookshelves of leading authors such as Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Rebecca Goldstein, Steven Pinker, Claire Messud, Jonathan Lethem, and others. “As a literary...