Two points became evident within 60 seconds of speaking with Lev Grossman. One — the man is nice. I mean really, comfortably, gently, and humbly nice. Or, he’s very good at being nice professionally; either way, to an interviewer with a serious case of the jitters, nice was a welcome relief. The jitters derived in part from the second thing I noticed about Lev Grossman: if being the Book Critic for Time magazine and the (now twice) New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians weren’t enough, Grossman is smart. Smart comes in two flavors: the arrogant, unapproachable smart that is put on like armor, and the entertaining, incandescent smart that is worn like a skin and makes the listener want to stay in the room forever. Lev Grossman wears the latter form of smart and wears it well; Grossman chooses his words with a precision that reveals a mind constantly digging for truth.
Background research on Grossman turned up reams of essays and blog posts on (surprise!) books and writing. One of his most frequently lauded novels is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Since Grossman’s praise of the book had sucked me into shoving aside my own stacks of review material in favor of Clarke’s novel, it seemed only fair to ask what he was reading these days. “Well, I’m the book critic for Time so most of my reading is for that. But I’m traveling on tour now, and in my bag… let’s see… I’ve got a book by Andrea Levy called The Long Song. That’s not my usual sort of grazing territory, but I was won at auction.” Before I could blink at the connection, he went on, “the prize was a thing where I’d go to someone’s book club and talk about the book they’re reading with them; the club that won me is reading The Long Song.” “For comfort reading, I’ve got Medium Raw. I’ve also got a Swords and Dark Magic Anthology. I tried to get into the anthology, but I didn’t have enough swords. I had enough magic, but not enough swords. I guess next time I need to read the title more carefully.” Grossman did sound truly disappointed at the paucity of his fictional armory. “I like to keep an eye on people whose writing I admire.”
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