WHAT BOOK..?

… are you reading now?

I DON’T read a lot these days but I find I’m dipping in and out of art books as I try to paint: something like a biography of Marquet or The Big Art Book by Phaidon.

I look at things that I know and love — old favourites like Basquiat, Buffet and the rest, or artists that I don’t know.

I’m not reading a book without pictures at the moment!

I’ve always been like that. Reading time is writing or drawing time and I’d prefer to be producing it than absorbing it.

I tell people to read more than they write but I don’t follow my own advice these days!

… would you take to a desert island?

IF I’VE got to take one book I’d probably take Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings or The Hobbit.

When I first read The Hobbit I thought ‘this is a book I’d love to illustrate’, it was so visual.

I love the magic and the world of those books. I’d like to think I’d illustrate whilst I was there, but I think survival might take over. I’d probably be too influenced by the images in the films now anyway.

The book was recommended to me by a plumber back in the 1970s. When I said I’d never heard of it he said: ‘You lucky devil, you’ve got all that to come.’ I thought that was such a lovely sentiment.

…first gave you the reading bug?

OUR home didn’t have many books when I was growing up, but what we had was storytellers — our teachers and my mother, who was a real storyteller. Everywhere there seemed to be storytellers.

As far as books were concerned, they came later. That was during World War II, when I remember reading one of the Swallows And Amazons books by Arthur Ransome — I discovered it in the library, and it not only got me reading but got me hooked on the library.

… left you cold?

THERE have been a few — the first time I can remember not actually finishing a book I was pretty young, and it was a life story of Jesus written in such a way it made me cry too much.

I said to my mother I couldn’t finish it, as it was too sad. I suppose I knew the end anyway.

Even to this day I don’t like anything too sad, I get too involved.

These days I’m quite happy not to finish a book — you’ve only got so much time so use it reading something you love.