I deeply respect literature and expect to gain insight from a book and to identify emotionally with its characters. I therefore avoid reading suspense novels or science fiction.
Reading about Queen Victoria has been a passion of mine since, as a child, I came across Laurence Housman's play 'Happy and Glorious,' with its Ernest Shepard illustrations.
Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition.
Reading a newspaper is like reading someone's letters, as opposed to a biography or a history. The writer really does not know what will happen. A novelist needs to feel what that is like.
Before 'Giant,' I had only ever worked with Michael Greif, Michael John LaChiusa and Kate Baldwin in readings. It's really exciting to be blessed with the opportunity to work with so many I would put in the 'genius' book.
I get nervous before openings or premieres or when someone's reading a new script, and I get nervous when my daughter isn't in my immediate field of vision.
When I go to a library and I see the librarian at her desk reading, I'm afraid to interrupt her, even though she sits there specifically so that she may be interrupted, even though being interrupted for reasons like this by people like me is her very job.
We live in such a celebrity-driven culture, but all those people have to go buy toilet paper, and all those people have products they use and their favorite sweet treats. They all have to write to-do lists, and they're all reading books - well, hopefully most people are doing those things.
I always think of my characters as alive human beings and try to generate questions around their life and understand their socio-political background. It was a lot of questioning and reading.
I'm the world's worst at reading reviews and then pretending I've read the book.
