BEST AUTHOR BEST : ELINOR LIPMAN { 2 ]

.-  Tell me a great story about meeting with a book group that's read your work.

It was at a book signing. A smiling woman announced, '' We read ' The Ladies Man ' in our pretend book group.''

I asked, '' Pretend book group! What's that?'' She said, '' Oh, we assign a book then got together and talk about menopause.'' She added that mine was the only book that everyone had read.

.-  What books are on your night stand?

'' Vows : The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son,'' by Peter Manseau [ a priest turns up in my next novel; '' Emma,'' in conjunction with '' Collected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald '' [ because I'm contributing to '' Ladies in Waiting : Jane Austen's Unsung Characters '' and the working title of my story is '' Miss Bates Bobs Her Hair '' ].

'' Eddie Winston is Looking for Love,'' by Marianne Cronin ; '' Displaced Persons,'' stories by Joan Leegant ; and '' A Taste of India,'' by Madhur Jaffrey.

.-  Why did you crowdsource for help on naming businesses in '' Every Tom, Dick & Harry'' ?

I guessed correctly that I'd get dozens of suggestions, and it would be fun to curate them. Facebook friends came through in minutes. Some were extremely clever - such as '' You Take It With You '' - but were too long to be used page after page, as the name of Emma's company.

.-  Why admit it ?

Soliciting potential names for a business doesn't strike me as cheating. An unexpected payoff was that the owner of a real-life estate-sale business offered her help.

She had a very entertaining point of view about clients and their stuff.

.-  Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?

Not me, but a good friend did. Her crime was choosing a novel from the adult shelf in the bookmobile that came to our middle school once a week.

She was banned from the bookmobile for weeks. The books? A Jack Kerouac novel. And this was in Lowell, Mass., Kerouac's birthplace.

 .-  Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?

Art forgery, art thievery, art plundered by Nazis that's returned to its owners, or their progeny.

.-  You're organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Two very dear best writer friends I've lost : Anita Shreve in 2018 and Mameve Medwed in 2021. What I wouldn't give ................ Plus Stacy Schiff alive and writing. She knew and loved them, too. And she'd make us laugh.

The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.