Blake Bailey

To be a good biographer, you have to be an empiricist. You know, you have to gather the evidence, you have to keep an open mind, and you have to be objective. A memoirist goes in with all the baggage of a bad biographer. ”

I write literary biographies, so above all, I have to love the subject's books. But choosing a subject is tough. ”

If possible, be funny. ”

I'm a huge fan of 'The Lost Weekend.' I have this dog-eared copy of the 1963 Time Reading Program edition, which was a series of contemporary classics reprinted as a quality paperback. ”