The book I am currently reading

Daniel Mendelsohn’s An Odyssey. Not only about teaching Homer in New York, but with the wild addition of his own father taking the class. A book for puzzled sons (maybe fathers too).

The book that changed my life/the world

One of Joseph Conrad’s supposedly lesser novels, Victory. It didn’t change the world but it certainly did change this writer, reading wide-eyed in a chambre de bonne in Paris circa 1979.

The book I wish I’d written

I am too stupidly arrogant to wish this but secretly I wouldn’t be too bothered if I had written Nostromo (by JC again).

The book that had the greatest influence on my writing

In the last number of years I have tried to absorb the lessons of JM Coetzee’s masterpiece Disgrace, but in a way that no one notices.

The book I think is most under/overrated

I am sure it’s not underrated really, but Irish poet Harry Clifton’s storming collection of poems Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks 1994-2004 is full of human value.

The last book that made me cry/laugh

Roddy Doyle’s most recent novel Smile made me laugh with the sudden laughter of painful recognition, a laughter that is sister to tears.

The book I couldn’t finish

If it were about to step into a puddle I’d spread my cloak for it, but I have never finished Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

The book I’m most ashamed not to have read

I bought Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in New Ross in 1974 on my way to the alcoholic island of Ibiza, and maybe it was Ibiza’s fault but I still haven’t read it.

The book I most often give as a gift

I gave Gorse Fires to a few people, a book of poems by the great Irish jazz classicist, Michael “Homer” Longley.

The book I’d most like to be remembered for

I would like to be remembered for a short novel called Days Without End, mostly because it was inspired by my radiant son.