WHAT BOOK ..?
. ..are you reading now?
THE Quest For Queen Mary by Hugo Vickers — a selection from the interviews conducted by James Pope-Hennessy for his biography of Queen Mary, published in 1959, and which he felt it unwise to include in the finished volume back in the day when any criticism of royalty was felt to be disrespectful. How things have changed in the past half century! There is little that we would, today, regard as scandalous but the interviews — often with obscure European royalty — do give an amusing and enlightening insight into the life of a famously inscrutable consort who loved pulling ivy off trees and was known for ‘admiring’ the trinkets of her hosts who would then feel obliged to hand them over as a gift.
...would you take to a desert island?
THE complete Blandings novels of P. G. Wodehouse. They transport me to a gentler age with great humour and wonderfully constructed prose that is never self-conscious. I envy Lord Emsworth’s ability to find solace in pig-keeping, and I envy Galahad Threepwood’s capacity for ‘stiffeners’. All the characters spring to life on the page and the reader knows that all will be well in the end. My own novels might not be quite as witty, but I do my best to emulate Wodehouse in terms of providing a story that draws the reader in and lets them escape into another world. As Evelyn Waugh remarked: ‘Mr Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale . . .’ It’s something every author should aspire to. High-class comfort reading.
...first gave you the reading bug?
THE Tale Of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter was the first book I remember being read to me. I found the illustrations enchanting but the cautionary tale with its undercurrent of danger was a little frightening. The Tale Of Squirrel Nutkin was even more scary — I can still feel that frisson of fear I experienced as a child when the owl removes Nutkin’s tail. The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame is the first book that really pulled me in — I re-read it almost every year. We all know a Mole (shy) and a Rat (sparky) and a Badger (surly) and a Toad (impossibly impetuous). Sometimes I suspect I’m a mixture of all four. In my teens, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier had me hooked from beginning to end. That’s the book that made me want to be a novelist.
. ..left you cold?
FIFTY Shades Of Grey by E. L. James. Maybe I’m past it. Either that or my approach to the subject is rather more gentle and tender. The only use I have found for cable ties in the bedroom is to tidy up the flex on my bedside lamp. Nuff said.