Books
that
made me
Sally Rooney: 'I want the next thing I do to be the best thing I’ve ever done'
The Normal People author on the joy of Jeeves and the influence of JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey
Friday 17 April 2020
The book I am currently reading
Margaret Drabble’s 1972 novel The Needle’s Eye. This is only the third of Drabble’s books I’ve read, and I’ve admired them all. I’m living in a fairly remote rural area at the moment with no internet access, and now that the bookshops are closed, I’m working through my accumulated back catalogue of unread novels.
The book that changed my life
I think all my favourite books have changed my life in one way or another. Last year, Emmanuel Carrère’s book The Kingdom (translated by John Lambert) set me off on a path of reading and thinking that I’m not sure I would have ventured down otherwise.
The book I wish I’d written
The book I wish I’d written
I don’t tend to wish I had written other people’s books. It would take the fun out of being a reader. I would like to write something as good as James Joyce’s Ulysses, for sure, but I don’t think I want to have written Ulysses itself, no.
The book that had the greatest influence on my writing
The honest answer is probably JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey. I read it maybe once too often in my youth.
The book that is most underrated
It would not be exactly correct to call the Gospels underrated, but I often think people are not as familiar with those interesting texts as they might presume themselves to be.
The book that changed my mind
It’s a sad truth about my mind that it is a very hard thing to change. Lots of books have introduced me to new information and new ways of thinking, but I can’t remember one that has really reversed my opinion on anything. I’m sorry to say that if I thought a book had a chance of changing my mind, I suspect I might not read it.
The last book that made me cry
I recently shed a little tear at Philip Wakem’s letter to Maggie Tulliver near the end of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. (That was one of the back catalogue too).
The last book that made me laugh
PG Wodehouse’s The Inimitable Jeeves – the story “The Purity of the Turf”, in which Bertie is consulting Jeeves as to whether to lay a bet on the forthcoming Girls’ Open Egg and Spoon Race at the annual village school treat. Jeeves advises that last year’s winner is an odds-on favourite. “They tell me in the village that she carries a beautiful egg, sir.”
The book I couldn’t finish
The book I couldn’t finish
Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I just didn’t like it. I don’t know why! Maybe I’ll try again another time.
The book I’m most ashamed not to have read
I’m not really ashamed that I haven’t read Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. But I probably will feel a bit more contented once I have read them, which I hope will be soon.
The book I give as a gift
I try to choose gifts with an eye to what the recipient might like to receive, so there is no universal answer to this question. For the aesthete, however, Teju Cole’s beautiful Blind Spot is hard to beat.
The book I’d most like to be remembered for
I don’t think I care much about being remembered, really. I never think about it. But like anyone, I always want the next thing I do to be the best thing I’ve ever done.
My earliest reading memory
When I was very young I was given a book based on the Disney film Aladdin. Down the side of the pages was a plastic attachment with a series of buttons on it, each of which made a different noise when pressed. That’s the first book I remember reading.
My comfort read
All the Jeeves books, as above, and all of Jane Austen’s novels, especially Emma. As Jean Rhys wrote in Good Morning, Midnight: “I want a long, calm book about people with large incomes – a book like a flat green meadow and the sheep feeding in it.”
• An adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People will be on BBC Three from 26 April.
22 September 2017
Books that made me / Franzen / 'I defy anyone to finish it without wetting the pages with tears'
29 September 2017
Philip Pullman / ‘The book I wish I’d written? My next one’
Books that made me / Franzen / 'I defy anyone to finish it without wetting the pages with tears'
29 September 2017
Philip Pullman / ‘The book I wish I’d written? My next one’
13 October 2017
Eimear McBride / ‘I can never finish Dickens – it’s sacrilege’
20 October 2017
Shami Chakrabarti / ‘Harry Potter offers a great metaphor for the war on terror’
20 October 2017
Shami Chakrabarti / ‘Harry Potter offers a great metaphor for the war on terror’
1 December 2017
Penelope Lively / My debt to roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce
Penelope Lively / My debt to roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce
2018
25 May 201827 July 2018
Richard Powers: ‘I love sci-fi. The more 10-foot reptilians, the better’28 september 2018
Robin Robertson: ‘The poetry world is polarised. I’m in the middle, vaguely appalled’
18 January 2019
Margaret Drabble / ‘Lee Child does all the things I could never do. I’m awestruck’
1 February 2019
Leïla Sliman / ‘I’ve always been fascinated by Marilyn Monroe'
8 February 2019
Emma Glass / ‘Game of Thrones is overrated. Give me The Lord of the Rings any day'
1 March 2019
Tom Rachman / ‘Does every author read faster than I do?’
Robin Robertson: ‘The poetry world is polarised. I’m in the middle, vaguely appalled’
2019
18 January 2019
Margaret Drabble / ‘Lee Child does all the things I could never do. I’m awestruck’
1 February 2019
Leïla Sliman / ‘I’ve always been fascinated by Marilyn Monroe'
8 February 2019
Emma Glass / ‘Game of Thrones is overrated. Give me The Lord of the Rings any day'
1 March 2019
Tom Rachman / ‘Does every author read faster than I do?’
8 March 2019
Ben Okri / ‘I began Don Quixote as one person and finished as another’
17 April 2020
Sally Rooney / 'I want the next thing I do to be the best thing I’ve ever done'
Ben Okri / ‘I began Don Quixote as one person and finished as another’
2020
17 April 2020
Sally Rooney / 'I want the next thing I do to be the best thing I’ve ever done'
1 May 2020
Edna O'Brien / 'Reading Charles Darwin dislodged my religious education'
24 May 2020
André Aciman: 'I couldn’t finish Moby-Dick. I lacked the patience'
Edna O'Brien / 'Reading Charles Darwin dislodged my religious education'
24 May 2020
André Aciman: 'I couldn’t finish Moby-Dick. I lacked the patience'
9 October 2020
Neil Gaiman / 'Narnia made me want to write, to do that magic trick'
Emma Cline / ‘Reading anything because you “should” doesn’t make sense to me’
6 August 2021
Damon Galgut / ‘After reading Roald Dahl, the world never looked the same’
9 August 2021
Frank Cottrell-Boyce / ‘I read Adrian Mole every year, it gets funnier each time’
13 August 2021
Anuk Arudpragasam / ‘There’s a lot of laughter in my life, but not when I read’
Neil Gaiman / 'Narnia made me want to write, to do that magic trick'
2021
9 April 2021Emma Cline / ‘Reading anything because you “should” doesn’t make sense to me’
6 August 2021
Damon Galgut / ‘After reading Roald Dahl, the world never looked the same’
9 August 2021
Frank Cottrell-Boyce / ‘I read Adrian Mole every year, it gets funnier each time’
13 August 2021
Anuk Arudpragasam / ‘There’s a lot of laughter in my life, but not when I read’
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