Adler is best known for penning the book-turned-movie The War of the Roses (1989), which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. After finding success in Latin America and Europe, the stage production of War of the Roses will debut on the North American theater circuit in 2013. Adler, 85, grew up in Brooklyn and received a degree in English literature from New York University.

He is the founder of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference in Wyoming and has written more than 30 novels, short story collections and screenplays.

After being published by such houses as Viking, Putnam and Warner Books, Adler became a proponent of e-book publishing several years ago when he re-acquired his complete backlist to convert to digital formats published now by his company, Stonehouse Press.

What’s on your nightstand?

Ian McEwan’s latest book, Sweet Tooth. Ian is a terrific novelist. I enjoy reading Ian, along with Philip Roth. Right now, they’re my two big reads. I also always keep classics on hand; right now there’s Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, some Thomas Hardy. I’m a nut for the English writers, and I also continue to read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

What Roth book are you reading?

He wrote a nonfiction book on fatherhood, Patrimony. I find I’m writing a lot of books on fatherhood, and I think his book has tremendous emotion. It’s written like a novel.

I understand you were instrumental in launching e-books several years ago. Now that they’re up and running, do you believe you’ve been forced to change your writing style to accommodate the new medium?

I introduced the first Sony e-book at a convention in Las Vegas (in 2007), and I do believe that e-books are the future. Have they changed my writing? No. I’ve always written very tight prose; (however) I have a feeling novels will continue to get shorter.

(By Piper Catillo, Tampa Bay Times)