"My mother bought me Stanley Bagshaw and the Short-sighted Football Trainer by Bob Wilson. I grew up thinking he was the same Bob Wilson who played in goal for Arsenal and presented sport on ITV."
"The Red Pony by John Steinbeck had a profound effect on me in secondary school. I was amazed by how vividly a writer could evoke a landscape in words."
"During a bout of illness, I read Mr Vertigo and In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster back-to-back. These were books that made me ache to write fiction of my own."
"The collection I've revisited most in the past 20 years is Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer. I always share her story The Ant of the Self with my undergraduate students."
Early reading memories include a fondness for 'Stanley Bagshaw and the Short-sighted Football Trainer' and a profound impact from 'The Red Pony' by John Steinbeck. Illness led to a desire to write after reading Paul Auster's works. 'Gilead' was difficult to appreciate until fatherhood brought new understanding. Short stories, particularly ZZ Packer's 'Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,' are frequently revisited, while 'The Magus' by John Fowles remains unreadable due to its complexity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]