“I’m fairly certain I just swallowed a tooth,” says the film director, whose debut novel is “Antkind.”

What books are on your nightstand?

Not to split hairs, but I don’t have a nightstand. I’m living in a temporary place for reasons too tedious and painful to get into here. There’s not much furniture. In the bedroom, such as it is, I have only a sleeping bag and a floor lamp. There are a few books next to me (I’m currently in the sleeping bag), books I ordered for research purposes. I’m reading Toynbee’s “A Study of History” and Tsiolkovsky’s “The Will of the Universe,” although the truth is, I am having trouble focusing lately. I spend long hours staring at the old, stained mattresses in the dump outside my window, as I shelter in place in this unfamiliar apartment. There is so much unexplained in my new, small world. The strange noises emanating from my neighbors’ apartments; the constant dropping of large items on the floor above me, the clinking of hundreds of wine bottles, as the neighbors across the hall carry them daily to the trash room. The screams.

What’s the last great book you read?

It’s difficult to remember. There was a novel I read some years ago or very recently that really stayed with me. I can’t recall the title or the subject matter. It was like a dream: chaotic, violent, but the specifics are lost. I believe there was an unreliable narrator, which I always enjoy, I suspect. I do recall my dream last night, though: an older man removed his dress shirt to reveal a military uniform underneath. Latvian? I felt insecure, as I knew I had only bare skin under my shirt. The unreliable narrator of the last great book I read was young and male, although, being unreliable, she might’ve been lying. There was perhaps a murder or several. I often wonder if it’s the reader who is unreliable rather than the narrator. If both are unreliable does that make the narration reliable? That book changed everything. For a while. I now remember it was called “Jesus Weeped.” I look it up. There is no such book.

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

How can I know what no one else has heard of? That would require a lot more polling than I have the time or attention for currently. I guess, as I can find no mention of it anywhere, I must assume no one else has heard of “Jesus Weeped.” I am quite certain now that this was the title. Perhaps I only dreamed I read it. There was a talking bear, I believe, but it wasn’t cutesy. The bear was pedantic and noisome. He worked as a tax preparer in the city, but had dreams of living off the grid. Unfortunately, he kept delaying the move until it was too late. There was some sort of crisis, which drove everyone to socially distance in the woods. There was no longer anywhere to go. He sheltered in place in his small apartment and regretted his life.

Do you count any books as a guilty pleasure?

Not a book (yet!), but I’ve been reading a lot of Sweet Tooth Pam on Twitter lately. Her biography describes her as a “Fun-loving senior. Loves travel and my grandkids.” I don’t know anything else about her, but that makes her sound pretty great, and I’ve gotten over my embarrassment about admitting this infatuation. I stumbled upon her account while perusing the responses to a President Donald Trump tweet. There is surprisingly little in her musings about travel or her grandkids; it’s mostly 2A (a highway in Alberta, it turns out) and Q (British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, I believe), but I’m learning an awful lot. Perhaps she should add “polymath” to her bio!

What writers are especially good on the culture of Hollywood and the film industry?

Recent discovery: No one writes more incisively on Hollywood than Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin’s minister of culture. His book “The Zionism, Ebionism, and Pie in the Sky-onism of Hollywood Under Jewish Businessmen Goldwyn, Zanuck, and Fox” is a refreshingly chatty yet eye-opening read. Sweet Tooth Pam tweeted about it last week, and I read all 543 pages on my Kindle in a single sitting.

What book would most like to see turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t already been adapted?

Yesterday, after inadvertently punching a hole through my bedroom wall in an effort to get back at my neighbor for his relentless and unmelodious sousaphone (?) playing, I discovered an old book hidden in the space between our apartments. It’s titled “The Thousand Knots Every Longshoreman Needs to Know.” There are no diagrams (perhaps they are in a second volume behind another wall? I will have to look later), but, bored sheltering in place, I immediately went to work on the opening passage anyway:

Right over left 2) Left under right 3) Right through loop “A” 4) Double end “B” 5) Pull left side semi-taut 6) Pinch far end between thumb and forefinger 7) Rotate near end 180 degrees 8) Insert through loop “D” 9) Uninsert 10) Insert 11) Mount cord as for Lark’s Head Knot (see chapter 12).

For three hours now, with the cache of expired Brazilian dental floss I found in the medicine cabinet, I have been attempting to accomplish this knot, which the manuscript calls a Morgan’s Reverse Double Ploughman’s Lunch. Anyway, it would make a very good movie, I think.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, living or dead, would you invite?

I’ve always loved this exercise, the imaginary dinner party! What fun! I see Oscar Wilde there, of course, Voltaire, Carol Saroyan Saroyan Matthau (wife of William Saroyan, William Saroyan, and Walter Matthau, and a writer in her own right), Hitler (not witty but quite a “get”), Edie Sitwell, Molière, Oscar Wilde (so witty I thought why not double him and place him on each end of the table so everyone could enjoy his witticisms?), Aristophanes, and Sir Kenneth Dover (to translate Aristophanes’ jokes for the other guests). That’s more than three, but one must assume there will be cancellations. Oh, and Jesus.

Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?

I fear being alone in this apartment for so long is adversely affecting my mental health. I talk to myself a great deal now, but tend not to listen to what I say. I’m like an old married couple. Sometimes I ask myself, Are you even listening? And I say, Yes, of course. Then I snap, OK, well what did I just tell you? I take a guess (at this point I know myself pretty well, so it’s worth a shot), but I immediately storm out of the room, so I know I was wrong. I wish someone would write about this.

What genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid.

Everyone loves a mystery. For my money, the best of that genre is the Japanese mystery and the best of the Japanese mysteries is “Dogra Magra,” by Kyusaku Yumeno. This 1935 novel by the unrivaled master of surrealism finds an amnesiac awakening in a clinic, attended by two doctors who tell him he’s killed his wife. Did he? Are the doctors playing a cruel game? The point is it’s impossible to know, especially in the only English language version, which seems to have been translated by a drunk computer. And this is what makes the book so delicious, as it adds another dreamy layer of incomprehension to the already mysterious story. Here’s a taste:

The girl across the wall knows me. It is my wife. … And I was killed by my hand the night before I had a wedding with me. And the wall with meSingleFor a momentIn a room across the streetCloseWhenTimeBasketThisIt seems that they are calling me, not at night, but not at night.

This novel ticks off all my boxes.

As for a genre I avoid? Anything with a dog as the narrator.

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

I don’t have shelves currently, but the autobiography of Donald Trump. It’s called “Dreams From My Father” and it is the best book I’ve ever read, as it brilliantly encapsulates the present. Like a tooth infection, it narrows one’s focus to the interminable now. And this book wasn’t ghostwritten. Consequently, it exists as a stew of half-thoughts, distracted notions, flailings, bullying and self-aggrandizement. Take the opening:

A few days after my 53rd birthday — I had a tremendous party, by the way — a stranger called to give me the news. I was living in New York in Trump Tower — they tell me Trump Tower is the most beautiful building in New York. Everyone wants to live there. They call me in secret to tell me that — Not only did I live there, but it has my name on the top. I am Donald John Trump, President of the United States. And this is my story. Trump Tower is between 56th and 57th Street on 5th Avenue, the richest block, by far, they say in New York City. It is very great, close to great restaurants, great shopping, stores, great Central Park, which I renovated the ice skating rink of for free. It was a gift to the people of New York. But it was a beautiful renovation. Everyone says so. And I took no credit. New Yorkers ice skate there, of all races. African-American, Puerto Rican, China.

“It is Madonna,” said the stranger on the phone, “and it’s 1999, so I’m still pretty young now, only forty, so I’m not yet an embarrassment for you to have sex with. Your father Fred Trump, great New York real estate man, not as rich as you, died and I want to have sex with you.”

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned from a book lately?

“Jenny barn” is an archaic term for “whorehouse.”

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

I’m sorry, what? I’m a bit distracted. I’m fairly certain I just swallowed a tooth.

What’s the best book you’ve received as a gift?

I’m concerned about my tooth. Not the swallowed one — I’ve come to terms with that loss — but another. Is this the beginning of a cavity? What does one do about a cavity in times like these? Can more rest cure it? This sleeping bag I’m in is not conducive to restful slumber. But there are plenty of mattresses in the dump outside; I will mask up, grab one. Just till the cavity goes away.

At the dump, while sifting through the mattresses, I come upon a discarded book called “You Are a Mattress,” about a mattress, it seems, although not from the mattress’s point of view, but rather in the second mattress. I haul one of the mattresses and the book, a gift, up to my apartment.

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

“The Thousand Knots Every Longshoreman Must Know: Updated with a New Introduction by Barack Obama.”

Whom would you want to write your life story?

Rabbi Harold Kushner.