You know that question interviewers ask about the last few books you’ve read, or your favorite book of all time and why? You’re supposed to say something cool and interesting, something you didn’t read for class or because your feminist book club suggested it. But how do you answer when you actually like Shakespeare and Milton, or spend your afternoons snuggled up with Lewis Carroll? What do you say when the last book you read actually was George Orwell’s 1984 or Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations? Essentially, what do you do in an interview when you’re like me?
They say in an interview you shouldn’t lie, but they also say to answer any question in the way that will make you shine in the best light. So when someone asks me the last book I read, it takes me a moment to figure out what would be the best answer. Should I actually say the last book I read was Louis Sachar’s Holes, but that I just got to the letter in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and can’t wait for Elizabeth to get over Mr. Wickham? Or, should I go with something a little more contemporary that I didn’t read as recently because I’m some weirdo who thinks The Tempest is a good bedtime story.
So, after months of consideration and many interviews, I believe I have found the solution to this age-old question. Be honest about what you like to read, as long as you remember one thing. Be proud, too. Be unapologetically passionate about the books you’ve stuffed into your bookshelves and spent countless hours you should’ve spent sleeping underneath your covers with a book in hand.
When you get that question, that dreaded yet exciting question that allows you to talk about literature, tell the interviewer the truth, and tell him or her exactly why you read (and reread) the book and why you liked it or didn’t. Tell them your favorite book is The Great Gatsby, but only if your favorite book is The Great Gatsby. Don’t leave it at that, though. Instead, be sure to include that you like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work because you have fond memories of it. Tell your interviewer that you read it for the first time in high school with your favorite teacher. Tell them people joke that your town is split just like West Egg and East Egg and part of you finds it funny, while the other part feels uncomfortable at the thought of such division. Tell your interviewer that Old Owl Eyes is the best character in the book because he notices Jay’s books weren’t cut, and that he’s so underrated as a character because of just how important and amazing a detail that is that you can never stop thinking about it.
So, when you’re sitting in an interview for your dream job and you’re asked what the last book you read was, or what your favorite book is and why, don’t lie. Don’t say you stayed up all night memorizing Shakespeare’s sonnets or counting all of the times Holden Caulfield says “phony” if that isn’t what you actually did. But, if it is how you like to spend your time, if you are the nerd checking out Jane Eyre from the library, own it. Don’t be a phony. Be proud of your tastes. Who knows, your interviewer might be a closeted One-Hundred Years of Solitude fan just like you.
