The author of six books, recipient of the Lambda Literary and Western Regional Magazine Awards and creative writing professor at NU shares his favorite books.1. Report from a Parisian Paradise: Essays from France, 1929-1935, Joseph RothThe Jewish Austro-Galician novelist wrote a series of uncharacteristically upbeat pieces for a Berlin newspaper that made his readers, fond of his sad outlook, demand he return to the business of being depressing. He came through by succumbing to alcoholism and dying.2. The Long-Winded Lady: Notes from the New Yorker, Maeve BrennanBrennan was mistress of the long story, and the story cycle. The Long-Winded Lady is a collection of her “Talk of the Town” pieces for the New Yorker. Rumor has it that Brennan was the model for Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.3. The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe, Colm ToibinToibin describes Europe and Catholicism, two of my favorite subjects. Toibin doesn’t know it, but he and I were domestically partnered in a transcontinental mystical union about a decade ago. Will someone send him an e-mail telling him that I continue to be patient until he acknowledges this?Every NU student should read… The Woodlanders, Thomas HardyNeither Victorian nor Modernist, Hardy often falls through the cracks in our English department. Both his novels and poetry use traditional form and structure to do very untraditional things.