Jennie Shortridge's third novel, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe (NAL, May 6), is the poignant and often funny story of a middle-aged woman's journey from "perfect" to better. Her second book, Eating Heaven (NAL 2005), was recently released in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan and remains on many book club bestseller and "favorites" lists. Shortridge lives with her husband in Seattle, where she is currently putting the finishing touches on her fourth novel. We interrupted her with a few questions:

On your nightstand now:

A pile of books 23 and a half inches high! I'm serious; my husband is concerned for my safety. The stack includes The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett, Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee, Confessions of a Falling Woman by Debra Dean and a guidebook on Naples, where I'd like to spend my next "big" birthday that ends in zero.
 
Favorite book when you were a child:

The Five Chinese Brothers written by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese.

Your top five authors:

Mark Twain, Alice Walker, Anne Tyler, John Irving, Isabel Allende.

Book you've faked reading:

I'm pretty good at fessing up when I haven't read something. Except sometimes when it's a friend's book.
 
Book you are an evangelist for:

Not that I need to be, but The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, which I have read.
 
Book you've bought for the cover:

The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon by Tom Spanbauer.

Book that changed your life:

Berries Goodman by Emily Cheney Neville, a birthday gift when I was nine or so years old. It's the story of a Jewish city kid who has to move to the white bread suburbs. Even though I was a white-bread suburbanite, I identified more with the Jewish city kid and his feelings of alienation.
 
Favorite line from a book:

"I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell.'"--From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time:

On the Road by Jack Kerouac.