2 hours ago
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My earliest reading memory
The first books I became obsessed with were Enid Blyton’s boarding school stories Malory Towers and St Clare’s. When I was eight, I’d hide them under my pillow and read by the hallway light when I was supposed to be asleep.
My favourite book growing up
Roald Dahl’s Matilda. I felt woefully misunderstood by the world and longed to be adopted by a very pretty teacher with only cardboard for furniture. I spent a lot of time trying to make a pen move by concentration alone. Sometimes I still try.
The book that changed me as a teenager
I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath when I was 16 and it was a shocking and disorienting introduction to mental illness in young women. A couple of years later, when I experienced a serious bout of mental illness, The Bell Jar helped conceptualise what was happening.
The book that made me want to be a writer
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh is a brilliantly funny satire of war journalism that still rings disturbingly true. It inspired me to write a comedy about a bonkers UN programme in Iraq – which turned into my debut novel, Fundamentally.
The book or author I came back to
I had Donna Tartt’s The Secret History on my shelf for 10 years without ever reading it. Then I found myself alone and unwell one Christmas and I disappeared into its enchanting, atmospheric world. Sometimes a book is there for you at just the right time.
The book I reread
In moments of grief, I return to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. It is a word-perfect exploration of the insanity brought on by loss, and it helps me feel less alone in the darkest times. I always have a big, cathartic cry when I read it.
The book I could never read again
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. I’m sick to death of reading about hypersexual misogynists obsessed with their own victimhood. I don’t find it clever or interesting.
The writer who changed my mind
I was 19 when I read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and it totally reframed how I thought about the role of marriage and children in my life. The book depicts the suffocating impact of expectations on women to prioritise caring roles over all else. It made me commit to achieving my own dreams, rather than expecting a child to do it for me.
The book I am currently reading
Slumberland by Paul Beatty. It’s a little tough going, but he has some genius one-liners and brutally cutting observations about the racism experienced by an African American musician living in Berlin.
My comfort read
Whenever I want to be cheered up, I read David Sedaris. At heart, I’m an older gay man with health anxiety, obsessed with picking up litter and controlled by my Fitbit.
