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Jason Gray

Posted on | March 5, 2009 | 1,539 views |

Jason Gray is the journals manager at Ohio State University Press and author of Photographing Eden (Ohio University Press, 2008), winner of the Hollis Summers Prize.

What are your five favorite books and why?
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
My family and I would see the play almost every Christmas while I was growing up, and I would read the book every couple of years. It’s just a terrific story.

The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
My second-grade teacher read this in class and I fell in love with it. I spent many childhood years hoping to find a doorway into Narnia.

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
One of the best depictions of early adolescence I’ve ever read.

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and Selected Poems of Rainier Maria Rilke (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
Eliot and Rilke were the two poets who made me a poet. I was introduced to both by my 10th and 12th grade English teacher, Karen Bald.

 What’s your “guilty pleasure” – a book you love but don’t often talk about because it’s not “serious” literature?
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler —Though I consider it serious, many others don’t.  All of Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes comics.

What “important book” have you not read and why haven’t you read it? 
War and Peace. It weighs about 10 pounds in paperback. Though I suppose it would substitute for weight lifting at the RPAC. 

What classic novel was a disappointment to you?
Catcher in the Rye. I don’t know if I came to it too late or not (I read it the summer after my junior year of high school), but I couldn’t see why Holden Caufield was such a hero to everyone. 

What magazines do you subscribe to and why?
National Geographic —The photography;  Poetry — Fairly good overview of contemporary poetry each month; The Cincinnati Review — Local literary journal that’s beautifully produced and contains much good reading; The Atlantic — Good coverage of contemporary issues, though it was better when they spent more time on culture and less on public policy; OneStory — A single short story sent as a chapbook every month or so;  Esquire — I got the subscription for $3 through Amazon.com, and I like getting mail.

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