BOOKS: Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?
FAUST: Both. I’m a detective story addict. I’m a complete captive of Scandinavian mysteries, such as the Kurt Wallander series. “The Troubled Man’’ by Henning Mankell is one of my favorites. I like Hakan Nesser’s “The Inspector and Silence’’ too. I like women writers. Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Ruth Rendell, and Elizabeth George. Michael Connelly just did a new book, “The Drop,’’ which I think is one of his absolute best. I also read fiction more generally, and recently read “State of Wonder’’ by Ann Patchett and enjoyed that. I read biography. I liked John Lithgow’s “Drama.’’ I also read about higher education. I gave all my deans a book called “Why Does College Cost So Much’’ by Robert Archibald and David Feldman.
BOOKS: How do you manage to read as much as you do?
FAUST: I don’t know. It’s a kind of lifeline for me. I really love it. It’s a way of getting outside the reality of the pressures around of me.
BOOKS: While researching your own books, what have you read that you really enjoyed?
FAUST: I was asked to give a lecture last May related to my historical research on war. To prepare, I revisited books. One of the most powerful books I returned to was Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.’’ Another classic about war that has influenced me my whole career, even though it’s about World War I, is “The Great War and Modern Memory” by Paul Fussell.
BOOKS: What kind of role did reading play in the Civil War?
