Stephin Merritt, the singer-songwriter best known as the frontman of the band the Magnetic Fields, pays poetic homage to the likes of “oe,” “xu,” and “ka,” those wee words that can crush a Scrabble opponent, in his first book, “101 Two-Letter Words.” His poems are accompanied by illustrations by Roz Chast. Merritt speaks at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Brattle Theatre. Tickets for this event, which is co-sponsored by the Harvard Book Store and 826 Boston, are $22, and include a copy of the book.
BOOKS: What are you currently reading?
MERRITT: I bought “The Art of the Novella” series published by Melville House. I’ve probably read two thirds of the series. It’s been my summer reading project. This week I was reading “Stempenyu” by Sholem Aleichem and “Tales of Belkin” by Alexander Pushkin.
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BOOKS: Do you have a favorite novella so far?
MERRITT: I’m not into favorites, but I’ve really been appreciating the five novellas titled “The Duel” by various authors, including Anton Chekov.
BOOKS: Do you usually read in projects?
MERRITT: I’ll read in projects while reading something I bought for the cover, while reading a nonfiction book about something I want to do. This week I’ve also been reading “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” by Neil Gaiman and Eddie Campbell, which I did as an audio book so I could hear the music that accompanies it because I’m scoring a radio play for “This American Life.’’ I’m also reading “Records by Artists: 1958-1990” by Giorgio Maffei, which is good. That is a pretty ill-definable subject but I think what he means is records made by visual artists. I just read “Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon, who will interview me at my show in Austin, Texas. I hate self-help books, but this isn’t organized like one. It’s kind of series of commands, like, “Practice productive procrastination,” something I do well.
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BOOKS: Are you reading any other fiction?
MERRITT: A book I bought because of the cover, “Or All the Seas with Oysters” by the science fiction writer Avram Davidson. He reminds me of Richard Brautigan in a way.
BOOKS: Do you read a lot of science fiction?
MERRITT: I guess so. What I don’t read a lot of is psychological realism from current authors who I don’t know. I read Emma Straub’s “The Vacationers” only because I’m good friends with her. I’m not much of a fan of the contemporary, non-genre novel that doesn’t question its construction.
BOOKS: Do you read about music or musicians?
MERRITT: I bought the latest Benjamin Britten biography by Neil Powell, but I haven’t read it yet. I don’t read a lot of biographies but I bought the new John Waters book, “Carsick.”
BOOKS: What was your reading like growing up?
MERRITT: My mother was a Zen Buddhist. We occasionally lived on communes where you weren’t allowed to talk. My memory of one in Hawaii is highly colored by “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” When Huck and Jim are in adjacent prison cells they can talk to each other, which was slightly less isolating than my situation in a place where no speech was allowed. Mark Twain was the person I spoke to there.
BOOKS: Do you organize your books in any way?
MERRITT: Until I got bed bugs two years ago I had all my books alphabetized and everything was where it ought to. Since then the vast majority of my books have been sitting in shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes in the garage. Every two weeks I bring in a box and put it in the freezer to kill the eggs. But on Sept. 20 it will have been two years since I got bed bugs, and that is, according to the most paranoid person I could find on the Internet, the longest amount of time the eggs can be viable. I’ll celebrate with a blowout book alphabetizing.
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