What's on your bookshelf?: Adam Smith, lead author of Baldur's Gate 3

Hello, fellow reader, and welcome to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with awesome industry people about books! July has crumpled up like a freshly washed sock that’s been left on the radiator for too long, and yet just typing the word radiator is hot enough to make me inject concentrated Solero directly into my bloodstream. With my last remaining unflushed brain cells, I’ve got this column out of the way, and who better to get us back into the swing of things than Baldur’s Gate 3 lead writer and bloody RPS legend Adam Smith! Hi Adam! Would you be so kind as to let us take a look around your library?


What are you reading right now?

I have a habit of reading too many things at once. I usually aim to read one nonfiction book and one fiction book at a time because I tend to be in a mood for one or the other, but the distinction isn't always clear. Erik Larson, for example, tickles the nonfiction part of my brain, while Herman Melville tickles the nonfiction part. Or shoots a harpoon through it.

In reality, I rarely have two books going at once, usually three or four. It turns out that comics take up a different space and tiny books have a home of their own, and sometimes a collection of short stories will last longer than a stack of books because I take bites out of it over a longer period of time. Right now, I have three books going.

Dan Saladino’s Eating To Extinction is in the nonfiction pile. I’m learning so much about food diversity (I know so little!) and it’s all expertly interwoven with stories of travel, culture, and people. It’s broad in scope but often focuses on a personal story or a single place. I’ve only read about a hundred pages but I’ve enjoyed it so far. And it’s one of those books that I’m more likely to endure than enjoy. Like so many healthy things I don’t eat enough of, I thought this would be worth the effort but it wasn’t very pleasant at the time. I’m glad it wasn’t!

My fiction book is Grave Expectations by Alice Bell. You may have heard of the author. She's a great writer. And so is the book. You should buy it.

And I just started Blue In Green written by Ram V and drawn by Anand RK. It's being billed as a horror/jazz comic and if it's as good as I hope it is, I'll be singing its praises for the rest of the year.

What was the last thing you read?

I'm going to cheat a little bit and pick two, because I finished both very recently. One book I would recommend to anyone with even the slightest interest in horror is The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales by Attila Veres. It's a collection of short stories, and if you don't like the story about the underground music scene in Budapest and haunted tapes, you'll probably enjoy the story, which is both a scary and funny examination of the worst vacation ever. Veres does something fresh with cosmic horror, manages to write in a variety of styles and tones, and managed to scare and entertain me so much that I finished the entire collection in two sittings.

Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside is the first in a trilogy of fantasy novels that a friend recommended because it reminded me a little of Dishonored. That was enough to convince me, and the fact that the magic system was a bit like hacking code kept me interested even when the actual plot was in danger of losing me. I liked it and will read the sequel, but I don’t want more just yet. That won’t be next… which brings us to…

.

What's next?

Every book there is. But especially Last Call by Tim Powers and Raw Concrete: The Beauty Of Brutalism by Barnabas Calder.

What quote or scene from a book has stuck with you?

My wife insisted that I read one of her favorite books, Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami, a few weeks after we met. When I finally read it (sorry Ilona – I'm slow) it all came crashing down on me, and I don't think it will ever be the same. But there are two of the most disturbing and fascinating scenes I've ever read: one in a batting cage, the other in a karaoke bar. Both felt like nightmares I might have had in the past and will definitely have in the future. Here's an excerpt from that quote: “…I'm definitely bad-tempered, yet I think I play a necessary role in this world.”

Which book are you trying to get your friends to read?

House of Leaves. It sounds like the answer everyone who knows me expects from me, and I wish I could be more specific, but it's the truth! I usually end up apologizing after reading hundreds of pages and they tell me how much they dislike Johnny Truant. Then I tell them to listen to Poe's Haunted album.

Which book would you like to see adapted into a game?

Third Policeman.

The guy told me he liked the column, it was good. And yet! Even that familiarity didn’t elevate his slapdash praise of every book in existence to actually naming them all. With yet another guest failing at this ridiculously inadequate task, we must always keep moving forward. So join us next week for another paper-pill guest telling us his favorites. Book now!

Leave a Comment