The Writer’s Desk features the desks and writing practices of Gemini Ink faculty, visiting authors, teaching artists, volunteers, students, interns, staff, partners and more. Receive new posts in your inbox by subscribing to our newsletter at bit.ly/geminiinknewsletter.
Join Nathan Brown and Mona Bains on March 11, 6:30 CST, in person at the Gemini Ink office, for LitMinds. The LitMinds Book Club enriches the imagination and lives of book lovers by facilitating engaging conversations about diverse books in an inclusive, positive environment. Participants will dive deep into books from across geographical regions, times, and cultural groups at each meeting. Our diverse selection of fiction and nonfiction will be used to spark thoughtful, engaging conversations that nurture the love of books and broaden our understanding of what literature can be.
Hi Nathan! It’s great to have you here with us. Thank you for talking about your reading habits and favorite books with us. Let’s jump in. What was the first book you remember reading?
I remember purchasing The Scariest Stories You’ve Ever Heard at my elementary school’s book fair around 1988 or so. It felt like a “big kid” book, and I was excited to read it. Some of the book’s short stories kept me up at night, but I was exhilarated to be reading books that weren’t for little kids anymore. The first novel I remember reading was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. I was around nine at the time, and it made a huge impact on me because the characters were actually a bit complex compared to the simple children’s books I had read before. The ending of that book was also the first thing I can remember feeling bittersweet about.
Paperbacks, hardbacks, ebooks, or audiobooks?
I’m certainly no purist when it comes to book formatting. If I’ve got a lot of travel for work coming up, I might go the audiobook route to make the roadtrip easier. Another reason to go audiobook is if the book is dialogue-heavy or if vernacular speech is used that I’m not as familiar with. However, my preferred format is probably hardcover because it is just easier to handle. I try to get my books second-hand if I can. One thing I try to stay away from are ebooks because more time in front of a screen is the last thing I need.
What attracts you to a book? Blurbs? Covers? Back-cover synopses?
For nonfiction, I tend to be drawn to content more than anything else. I’m willing to read a book that isn’t well reviewed as long as it’s about something or someone I want to know more about. On the fiction side, it just has to be something original with an interesting premise. That said, I am a sucker for cool cover art. I picked up The Great Gatsby because of those crazy eyes on the cover but was not a fan. Lesson learned. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more intentional about reading fiction from a variety of places and authors. I probably read over 20 Stephen King books as a teenager, so now I tend to limit myself to one or two books per author because writing styles can start to feel predictable after a while. I’ve also learned that over-reliance on marketing and “best seller lists” severely limits my ability to read books by diverse authors. Women and authors of color are frequently sidelined from large scale marketing campaigns or pigeonholed into specific genre work which makes their books harder to find. My desire to intentionally diversify the authors I’m reading was one factor that led me to develop the LitMinds Book Club with Gemini Ink. We follow a set of guidelines to ensure that we read authors from a variety of ethnicities, genders, geographies, and time periods. I’ve been thrilled from the results so far as the members of the group and I have already chosen books by diverse authors from almost every corner of the globe.
What is one of your favorite quotes from a book?
“If he is not the word of God, God never spoke.”
—from The Road by Cormac McCarthy
What was the last book you read that blew you away?
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong floored me. I selected it for our LitMinds Book Club without knowing much about it, other than hearing that it was an important book that warranted reading. Within the first three pages, I realized the author must also be a poet; the words were put together so beautifully on the page. Vuong skips past the tropes of typical storytelling and weaves together a brilliant piece of art. He finds an original way to tell a coming-of-age story that instantly made me empathize with the main character. This book captures joy, sorrow, fear, courage—just about every emotion possible—in thought-provoking ways. I highly recommend it.
Who is your all-time favorite fictional character?
I can’t narrow it down to just one, so here are four:
Yossarian (Catch-22) — He captures the confusion and disorientation of being the only sane person in an insane situation perfectly.
Ivan (The Brothers Karamazov) — I frequently think about the questions he raised about what it means to be a good and decent human being in relation to family, community, and faith.
Ellie (Contact) — She reminds us that pure rationality can’t come close to capturing what it means to be human.
Martin (Martin Eden) — When I think about the toll of unchecked ambition or failing to appreciate what I have, I think of Martin.
What are your five favorite books of all time?
This is a hard question to answer, but what comes to mind today is:
Fiction:
The Road — Cormac McCarthy
On the Beach — Nevil Shute
Frankenstein — Mary Shelley
The Pearl — John Steinbeck
Too Loud a Solitude — Bohumil Hrabal
Nonfiction:
The Mismeasure of Man — Stephen Jay Gould
The Knife Man — Wendy Moore
Stiff — Mary Roach
Solito — Javier Zamora
Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea — Elof Carlson
What are you reading right now?
I usually have a few books going at the same time and pick up whichever one I’m in the mood for. Right now, I’m rotating between the following books:
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Hiroshima by John Hersey
What Books are you planning on reading next?
I’ve got a long list of books I want to read. Here are a few I’m trying to prioritize, two of which are LitMinds Book Club upcoming selections.
Behave by Robert Sapolsky
Art Above Everything by Stephanie Elizondo Griest
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Nathan Brown is a physical therapist and the Director of Clinical Education in the Physical Therapy Program at University of the Incarnate Word. He is from Laredo, Texas, and received his Doctor of Physical Therapy from Texas Woman’s University in 2010. Nathan is a book lover. He reads to gain the perspective of others, stay informed of historical and contemporary world events, and relieve stress. His involvement with Great Books Houston during his graduate studies inspired him to create the Lit Minds Book Club. He and his wife Florinda have two boys and have lived in San Antonio since 2010.
