WHATBOOK..?

. . . are you reading now?

MAGGOT Moon by Sally Gardner — it’s so not a book just for teenagers! This is a book with deep psychological rip-tides . . . the constant battle between appearance and reality for our 21st-century psyches and the transcendent power of dreams and imagination over drudgery and bigotry.

. . .would you take to a desert island?

SEVEN Troop by Andy McNab. The story of his time in the SAS’s Air Troop really captures his personality. It’s warm but unsentimental; functional without being callous; and darkly, irreverently funny without being disrespectful. And it’s even got some survival tips!

. . . gave you the reading bug?

THE SONGLINES by Bruce Chatwin. Gave me the travel bug, too. Chatwin was still working on it in the days leading up to his untimely death from Aids in 1989 — and it’s all the better for not being finished. A maverick, ragamuffin masterpiece.

. . . left you cold?

AMERICAN Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis left me cold in a good way. As an expert on psychopaths, the glib narrative juxtaposition of chainsaws, hookers, Huey Lewis, Phil Collins and watermarked business cards rings very true. No one navigates the mental twists between the benign and the brutal like a psychopath.

THE Wisdom Of Psychopaths — Lessons in Life from Saints, Spies and Serial Killers by Professor Kevin Dutton is published by Arrow Books at £8.99.