5 fast questions with Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel, and a new book Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, tells us what he's been reading -- as well as what he's reading next.
What are you reading now?
Two Cities, a novel by the Italian author Mario Soldati. I’m re-reading it for the second time. It’s a long novel about an Italian man who is raised by his parents to seek money, who has an endless series of superficial sexual relationships but renounced his one possibility of a lasting relationship, and -- who reaches an abrupt surprising ending on the final page.
For work or pleasure?
For pleasure, and to maintain my fluency in Italian, my most active foreign language today.
What's a book you love that your readers might be surprised by?
Readers might be surprised by another great Italian novel that I have re-read four times. It’s the greatest work by the Italian author Dino Buzzati, called The Tartar Steppe. It’s a beautifully written, slowly unfolding story of a man who lets himself become trapped by circumstances: the novel counterstory to Thoreau’s Walden.
What's a book you've meant to read for years but still intend to?
There isn’t any book that I intend to read but haven’t. But I intend to re-read Homer's Odyssey and Iliad.
Which of your books do you wish people talked about more?
There isn’t any! I’m satisfied with how much people have talked about my books.
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises.
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