WHAT BOOK . .?

…are you reading now?

BECOMING an author has meant folks sending me random books. As it turns out, the one I’m reading now coincides with a growing interest I have in the life of Caribbeans before the later-colonial period. My ancestors’ period. Blood On The River by Marjoleine Kars — a Dutch author — tackles the story of the littleknown Enslaved Peoples’ mutiny in Dutch Guyana during the turbulent 18th century. Fascinating.

…would you take to a desert island?

THE Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I’m a fan of the mind of Douglas Adams — wish I had met the man. HHGTTG is endlessly throwing up new things I simply hadn’t noticed the first three times through. As long as I can have the original cast vinyl from 1978, too, please …?

…first gave you the reading bug?

I WAS about 13 years old and began reading The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe in my small box-room in Kensal Rise, London. I hadn’t loved school from day one. But words had always fascinated me.

I began this book without much expectation, thought perhaps that I might be too old for this sort of fiction — I’d read a few naughty Harold Robbins schlockers by then — but to my delight the act of transportation was so powerfully achieved by author C.S. Lewis, that reading became a kind of add-on to my DNA. An addiction, if you will. I devoured anything after that.

Discernment came much too late. Did I mention the dozens of Mills & Boons . . ?

…left you cold?

A FEW years ago, I happily began a book about a painter who had long since fascinated me, William Hogarth.

His work came to my attention when I first saw his series on moral decline, The Rake’s Progress. I had noticed from his work that there were black figures in scenes depicting London life, exaggerated, bawdy orgies or courtly, drawingroom scandals . . . David Dabydeen’s wonderful Hogarth’s Blacks suggested convincingly that Hogarth used these figures as ‘witnesses’ as it were, to the barbaric savagery — ironically — of the British social and political scene.

The offending book in question was Jenny Uglow’s Hogarth, a book that purported to be an exhaustive survey of the work of one of the greatest artistsatirists of any age.

However, by page 709, Jenny Uglow managed to mention the black figure only three times that I can recall, rushing over them as she does the horse or the small pug in the little girl’s lap. I threw the book across the room when I forced myself to finish it.

I’d sooner have re-read a few old Mills & Boons. No nasty surprises there.

PaTerson JosePh is the author of The secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius sancho, published by Dialogue Books on october 6, priced £16.99. eBook and

audio also available.