William Carlsen

William Carlsen was a reporter for two decades at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he was a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. He has also worked for the New York Times and taught journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Carlsen's new book is Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:

At the moment I'm reading a just-published book called the At the Existential Cafe, by Sarah Bakewell, because from my high school days, I have been utterly fascinated by Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus, and have read many of their works but have never quite grasped their philosophical ideas fully. This book seems to address that.

Beyond that, I have just taken a dive into a recent novel called High Dive, the first chapter of which I found mesmerizing.

I just finished All the Light We Cannot See, which I thought was extremely well-crafted, perhaps too well crafted.

For my history fix, I'm in the middle of Over the Edge of the World, written by Laurence Bergreen some time ago, which is about Magellan's voyage around the world and is extremely well-told by Bergreen, whose book Columbus: the Four Voyages, sits nearby to be read next.

Recently, I've also begun to go back and read books that I somehow missed earlier in my life: In Cold Blood, Lolita, and On the Road, all worth the time although I found Lolita much less interesting and well-written than I expected.

Visit William Carlsen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue