MY LIFE IN BOOKS: RICHY CRAVEN

Richy Craven is an Irish writer who lives in Dublin. His new book, Spirit Level ,isadark comedy about anxiety, ghosts, death and whiskey and will be published by Eriu on Thursday.

The books by your bedside? Writing a book was essentially a long-con to get people to send me books. I succeeded in this and the one by my bed is an advance copy of Displeasure Island by Alice Bell. It’s so good that I am ignoring the fact that, as someone who also writes about ghosts, Alice should be my mortal enemy.

Your book of the year so far? The combination of a large TBR pile and shiftless personality means that I usually don’t get to books until long after they’ve come out. So I will cheat slightly and pick my book of the calendar year. I started reading Yellowface by RF Kuang one afternoon after work and then completely abdicated all my other responsibilities and finished it that day.

Your favourite literary character?

I believe that your favourite Terry Pratchett character speaks volumes about you but also that anyone who doesn’t pick Nanny Ogg is sinister and should be monitored.

The first book you remember? Another cheat here because it’s a series of books, but I was obsessed with Goosebumps by RL Stine as a kid. Those day-glow covers would draw me in every weekend at the library. I don’t think, at this point, I could tell you one specific Goosebumps story as they have all merged into one dense, terrifying mass in my brain. Much like Monster Blood.

The book that changed your life?

I remember pretending to be sick one day so I wouldn’t have to go to rugby training and my dad giving me an old copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the

Galaxy. It was so different in humour and tone to anything I’d ever read before. I think that Douglas Adams booted open the door to an unused corner of my brain that day and then Terry Pratchett spent the next 20 years decorating it.

The book you couldn’t finish?

I may be hounded from the halls of nerd-dom for this, but Lord of the Rings. I’ve tried so many times to get through it because it’s the foundational text for so much of what I enjoy but I think it’s just too dense for me. Or, more likely, I’m too dense for it.

Your comfort read?

Lately, I’ve found myself re-reading The Martian by Andy Weir. There’s something comforting in reading about someone surviving an impossible situation through sheer willpower and ingenuity. Maybe it’s because I know, deep down, I would die almost immediately if I were in that book. I wouldn’t be trapped on Mars. I’d have choked on popcorn while watching Mark Watney on TV.

The book you give as a present?

I think “present” might be the wrong word. While I have gifted multiple copies of this book to people, more often, I have cajoled, blackmailed and physically forced friends to read Really Good, Actually by

Monica Heisey.

The writer who shaped you? Terry Pratchett is my north star in what fiction should look like. The man could draw you in with hundreds of pages of incredible jokes and silly characters and, suddenly, he’d hit you with a moral or a fundamental truth about humanity that had been lurking in the subtext all along.

The book you would like to be remembered for?

I have asked our PR team multiple times if I can change my last name to “Osman” for marketing purposes.