From a New York Times By the Book column headlined “A Man in a Cafe Asked Julie Otsuka What We Was Reading. They Dated for Two Years.”:

“An everyday pickup line, but it worked,” says the novelist Julie Otsuka, whose new book is “The Swimmers.” “I haven’t been in touch with him since, but I return to ‘The Lover’ every now and again, and never fail to fall under its spell.”

What books are on your night stand?