Saturday, April 19, 2014

Ken Baker

Ken Baker is an E! Entertainment Television News Correspondent. He is the author of Fangirl, and his memoir, Man Made: A Memoir of My Body, is the inspiration for the upcoming film The Late Bloomer. He lives (and writes) in Hermosa Beach, California.

His new novel is How I Got Skinny, Famous, and Fell Madly in Love.

Recently I asked Baker about what he was reading. His reply:
I have a reading list normally as eclectic as the collection of randomness (drum set, sports gear, earthquake kit) in my garage. And my current list conforms to this trend.

I am reading the novel The Circle by Dave Eggers. I’ve been a fan of Dave’s work going back to A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. His latest book is scary in how spot-on he is about how we are living the Big Brother future in the present! All you Facebookers must read this book before you next “like” anything.

I’m also reading a nice little paperback that was given to me as a gift titled, How to Read a Novelist, a collection of conversations with some of the world’s most accomplished contemporary novelists. The author, John Freeman, writes, “I have always felt there is something electrifying about meeting novelists.” I couldn’t agree more – and I’m not talking about myself! But I really feel that, as someone whose day job is to interview movie, TV and music stars, authors are true celebrities to me.

And, being a YA writer, I like to have regular contact with the genre as a reader, and as such I am just getting into the classic A Wrinkle in Time. The heroine is someone I can relate to because she feels very much alone in the world, a state of being that defines a lot of my young adulthood. And the prose is beautifully simple and descriptive and the story so imaginative.
Visit Ken Baker's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue