Of unfair questions and unholy books

A common question in interviews with celebrities, A-list or not, is one I believe to be the world's most unfair one. You know it, the one about what book you're reading now. I for one have had numerous moments where after reading an epic, I need a brain-break and settle for some nefariously childish or immaturely crass literature. And having a question like that thrown at me at that moment would elicit a Simpsonian 'Doh!'. I am coming to the end of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, a novel which to read is to dig your nails into your backbone and crack your ribs, yes, excruciating, and after this I am going to read another modern classic, Catch 22. If there was a better time to do interviews, I can't think of one. I once was answering a interview questionnaire for a job vacancy when I was reading Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion. It was for a Malaysian bank, so I could not possibly write the truth, but it was a book that pushed me from being a liberal Catholic to full-on agnosticism, and nearly-there atheism. Yes, it did influence me a lot, but yet I am searching for more. Which is why I don't think losing God over one book is particularly intelligent. And is why I do not respect people who quote Dawkins in justifying their liberally cool non-beliefs. Its like the people who claim they are serious readers when their favourite books are by Sophie Kinsella or the Chicken Soup series. Long way to go, like the song.