Susan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends . . . and fiction. She lives at the water's edge on an island in Puget Sound, and (weather permitting) she commutes to her writers' group in a 17-ft. motorboat. Her most recent novel is Fireside, published by Mira Books.

On your nightstand now:

The Urban Outfitters catalogue, a Clairefontaine notebook and pen, a tin of Bag Balm, a chapter of my work-in-progress and The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant. I adore Roald Dahl, and I'm a sucker for true stories of heroic deeds in World War II.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. I slept with it under my pillow so I could channel Harriet and started carrying a notebook everywhere I went. I still do that.

Your top five authors:

Edith Wharton, E.B. White, Sharon Kay Penman, Ann Patchett, Stephen King. This list changes every time I try to narrow it down.

Book you've faked reading:

Du Coté de Chez Swann by Marcel Proust. In French. I was trying to impress a professor who I later learned was gay. Quel dommage!

Book you're an evangelist for:

I Like You by Amy Sedaris makes the perfect hostess gift. It's everyone's childhood in one volume. And Meeting God in Quiet Places: The Cotswold Parables by F. LaGarde Smith is one I tend to give people in need of comfort.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style by Richard Torregrossa. I'm staring at it right now. Swooooooooon! Please don't tell me he's gay, too.

Book that changed your life:

Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. It was the first book I bought with my own money, and it contained one of my earliest writing lessons--go big or go home. At age seven, I had no idea the subtext was meant to be a condemnation of fascism.

Favorite line from a book:

"Reader, I married him." From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Swooooooooooon!

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy. I sneaked my mother's copy and read it with my jaw on the floor. A story of a naughty man doing naughty things, told with such originality and playfulness with the language that I feel like reading it again right now.