Caroline Angell grew up in Endwell, N.Y., the daughter of an electrical engineer and a public school music teacher. She has a B. A. in musical theater from American University and currently lives and works in Manhattan. As a playwright and director, she has had her work performed at regional theaters in New York City and in the Washington, D.C., area.
Angell's first novel is
All the Time in the World.
Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
I recently finished Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, and it moved me more than any book in recent memory. This novel 
tells the story, from multiple perspectives, of a group of people with marginally intersecting lives as they encounter the collapse of modern civilization. Spectacularly beautiful writing aside, I was impressed with the way the author constructed an inciting incident that moved the plot both backward and forward in time. There was no character or event in this book that wasn’t compelling and it was a particular pleasure to read a novel that imagined life beyond mere survival in a postapocalyptic world.
I’m about two hundred pages into Emma Cline’s debut novel, The Girls, and I’m not moving so quickly through this one. This novel chronicles a fourteen-year-old girl’s 
encounter with a Manson-like cult, and the author has captured an acute narrative voice for a story about the struggle for agency over one’s own existence; wanting to declare independence from your upbringing, and at the same time wanting to belong. She writes bluntly and presently, like a teenager with an incredible vocabulary. I find myself putting the book down every few chapters because I need a breather. I want to know what happens. But I also don’t want to know what happens.
On the nonfiction front, I’ve been reading Amy Cuddy’s Presence. This author’s TED Talk is one of the most watched of all time. Her research focuses on learning how to tap into your own presence; to override your 
brain’s anxiety reactions, using your body, in order to call forth your authentic values, thoughts, and feelings, especially in stressful situations. I got interested in the subject matter because so many people seem to identify with the concept of “Imposter Syndrome,” as the author calls it, and to take comfort in the fact that they are not alone in that experience. Cuddy was inspired to research and write this book based on her own battle with feeling like an imposter, and her empathy for others with similar feelings comes through on every page.
Visit
Caroline Angell's website and
Twitter perch.
My Book, The Movie: All the Time in the World.
The Page 69 Test: All the Time in the World.
--Marshal Zeringue
Caroline Angell grew up in Endwell, N.Y., the daughter of an electrical engineer and a public school music teacher. She has a B. A. in musical theater from American University and currently lives and works in Manhattan. As a playwright and director, she has had her work performed at regional theaters in New York City and in the Washington, D.C., area.
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