Janice Y.K. Lee Was Thrilled to Help Adapt Her Novel for Streaming

What books are on your night stand?

“Everything/Nothing/Someone” by Alice Carrière, “Everything’s Fine” by Cecilia Rabess, “The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller, “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan, “Severance” by Ling Ma, “The Future” by Naomi Alderman.

What’s the last great book you read?

“The Bee Sting” by Paul Murray. Read that enormous, brilliantly absorbing tome in two days.

What books are you embarrassed to admit you’ve never read?

So, so many. “Middlemarch,” “Crime and Punishment,” “Ulysses.” Some day!

Do you prefer books that reach you emotionally, or intellectually?

I’m all about emotion and beauty of the language over intellect. I want to weep, not take notes.

In an interview early in your career, you advised aspiring writers to “read about all the great books that got rejected” as a way to gain confidence. Which ones did that for you?

I loved “Prep” by Curtis Sittenfeld so much because it perfectly encapsulated a certain experience of boarding school. When I read that it had initially been rejected by 14 publishers, it strangely gave me hope. I realized that if a book that good could have a problem getting published, all writers might as well just do our thing and let it all hang out. It was very freeing.