NL: Can you share a bio with us?
JR: I grew up in Rockland, went to college and law school at Georgetown University, got a masters at Stanford, and found my way back to Rockland (and Nyack) after about 15 years of living in Manhattan. Professionally, I currently have a couple of different roles I’m playing. I am currently the Mayor of the great Village of Nyack, the best public service job in the state. I’m also the Chief Creative Officer for my family’s real estate company, Howard Hanna | Rand Realty. And I’m also a consultant and educator on real estate and customer service issues, where I speak at conferences and private events, consult for individual companies, act as an expert witness in industry litigation, and a consultant/educator who regularly speaks at industry events and conferences and acts as an expert witness in industry litigation. Personally, I have a wonderful home in Nyack, where I live with my wife Linie, my two kids Jake and Relly, and my three dogs.
NL: What are you currently reading? Do you like it?
JR: I’m always reading at least two books, one that usually involves my business life, and another that’s just for relaxing. My “business” read right now is Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, a restauranteur in Manhattan. It’s a great book about how to create unforgettable experiences for the people you work with. The other is the newest book from Stephen King, one of my favorite “comfort food” authors – Holly, which features a character who has been a supporting player in some of his most recent books.
NL: If you could have any author speak at Nyack Library, who would it be and why?
JR: I’ll give you two. For the “comfort food” side, I’d invite Stephen King, not just because of his writing but also because he’s become a bit of a progressive icon and loudmouth on Twitter and I think that’s interesting. For the business side of me, I’d love to hear Seth Godin speak, and I mention him because I think he lives pretty close to Nyack so he actually might be gettable!
NL: Which character in a book do you most identify with?
JR: I love the anti-hero types, characters with severe flaws who don’t always win and constantly struggle. Too many books, particularly popular fiction, consist of main characters who are basically “Mary Sues” – idealistic manifestations of how the author would want people to see them. I can remember reading a purported legal thriller written by an actual practicing attorney, which I thought might mean that the book would be a realistic portrayal of the judicial process, but 25 pages into the book the author had made clear that the main character was a strikingly handsome, brilliant attorney who could do no wrong, and that’s just boring.
NL: What books are on your night stand?
JR: The main book on my nightstand right now is Beatles A-Z, which gives an account of the recording process for every Beatles song ever recorded. I’m a huge Beatles fan, and I love listening to a song while reading all about how it was conceived, written, and then put into an album. It’s a lot of fun.
NL: Are there any books that you feel are overrated?
JR: I think most self-help books are overrated. A lot of them depend on an idiosyncratic approach to productivity that particularly worked for the author because of their particular makeup, but is not necessarily replicable – especially by the kind of people who read self-help books. Other than that, I never really got Catcher in the Rye. I’m probably a philistine for not appreciating it enough, but it just seemed like a lot of whiny nonsense to me.
NL: Do you have a literary “guilty pleasure”?
JR: I have many, many guilty pleasures, probably more guilty than guiltless pleasures. I’ve got decidedly middlebrow tastes, which many people who know me will be unsurprised by. I’ve mentioned Stephen King, probably my favorite popular fiction author. I also read a lot of legal thrillers – John Grisham knockoffs. Sometimes, a book doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be diverting. My biggest guilty pleasure right now is that I read my son’s manga, comic books, and graphic novels. He buys me some Batman graphic novels every year for my birthday or the holidays, although nothing will ever match the Frank Miller’s Return of the Dark Knight.
NL: Would you ever organize your books by color? Yea or Nay?
JR: Oh, man, don’t even suggest something like that or my dormant OCD will kick in and I’ll spend the weekend doing that.
NL: What do you plan to read next?
JR: I don’t know. I have like 30 books piled up in my bedroom, any one of which could be my next read depending on my mood. Or I might go to a conference and hear someone who’s written a book, and then pick that up for the flight home.
NL: What’s the first book that you remember reading?
JR: The first book would have to be Go Dog Go, which people often think was by Dr. Seuss but was written by someone named P.D. Eastman, whom I don’t know ever wrote anything else. My dad used to read that every night to my brother and me (I have three brothers, but only one was near my age). The first non-kids book that stuck with me was Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers. I read it when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, after I’d seen the 1970’s movie and loved it, and it was much too advanced for me at the time but I pushed through it and love it. I need to read it again. Another book that I read when I was young that had an impact on me was John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, which I don’t think was a “great” book like people regard Catcher in the Rye, but I read it at the right time and the character of Finny resonated with me.
NL: What’s your least favorite book?
JR: I can’t really think of a “least favorite book” that I read, because if it was that bad I wouldn’t have read much of it and it wouldn’t stick with me. But having written a non-fiction book, and failed utterly at any attempt to write fiction, I think writing any book, even a terrible book, is a staggering achievement. So I wouldn’t want to slag someone who wrote something in good faith. So I’ll just say that my “least favorite” book would be something like Mein Kampf, or the Turner Diaries? I haven’t actually read them, but they’ve made the world a worse place.