Every Sunday in the New York Times Book Review, Pamela Paul does a q&a interview with an author in the popular “By the Book” feature. In her eponymous new book (Henry Holt, Oct. 28), she has edited and collected 65 of what she considers her “most intriguing and fascinating exchanges.” Show Daily’s Daisy Maryles thought it would be fun to turn the table and invite Paul to a “By the Book” interview.

Today, at 11 a.m., Paul is on a Women’s Media Group panel, “Girl Books, Boy Books, Gender Hooks: Packaging, Positioning, and Reviewing in the Fiction Marketplace,” taking place in room 1E16.

What books are currently on your nightstand?

I’ve got two shelves on it, two piles, and I shuffle them constantly. As of this moment: The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt, which is what I would actually name if asked what I were reading.

Near the top of the pile, The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, which was my subway book for a while. There’s Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offil, which I keep thinking I will read in one especially intense evening since it is short.

What are your favorite novels of all time?

I’ve got a long list, even though I’m just going to stick to the classics. First, the Russians: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov. Short stories: “The Nose,” “The Double.” Another favorite story: The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad—I’ve always wanted to make it into a movie. I generally love stories at sea even though I don’t particularly like being at sea. The best book that made me cry was The Portrait of a Lady, and the books that have made me laugh more than any others were and still are Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five.

What do you like to read when procrastinating?

Twitter.

What do you like to read right before bed?

Something just a tiny bit tiring. I don’t get enough sleep on page turners.

If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

Cheaper by the Dozen. My recollection is that the protagonist was always calculating the most efficient solution to everything, beginning with getting out of the door each morning. The book led to a lifetime of aspirational efficiency. Also, the book was about a family with 12 children, and I am drawn to stories about large families. I stopped at three children in my own, but even with that number, efficiency comes in handy.

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?

Dorothy Parker, H. L. Mencken, and Mark Twain. It would be feisty and fierce—something would get spilled and someone might actually get hurt—but I could just lean back and listen, and wonder what each would write about it the next day.

Which three books do you bring to a desert island?

The Bible, because I never got past Cain and Abel in my children’s edition, too violent and male-centric. War and Peace, because I’ve been meaning to reread it, and this would give me a chance. The Golden Bowl, because it was the one assigned book in college that I never got around to reading.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good. What books did you feel like you were supposed to like but didn’t?

I actually hate a lot of books that other people passionately love. I really disliked The Great Gatsby and, honestly, all of Fitzgerald leaves me cold. (Though I adored Nancy Milford’s Zelda biography.) I gritted my teeth with disgust through The Fountainhead, which contains some of the worst prose I’ve ever read. I dislike the Beats and couldn’t stand On the Road. I wanted to throttle Holden Caulfield—what a complainer!

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

I’m seriously behind on my midcentury men. With the exception of Seize the Day, I haven’t read any Saul Bellow. Haven’t read Updike or Nabokov. I’ve only read three Philip Roth novels.

What do you plan to read next?

Maybe one of those. Or I could chip away at my nightstand cache.