The book I am currently reading
I’m a Rathbones Folio prize judge at the moment and so am shouldering my way through 80 volumes, mostly with great pleasure but sometimes just out of puritanical duty. The last book I read voluntarily, so to speak, was Andrea Mays’ The Millionaire and the Bard, which, despite its seemingly narrow focus (collecting Shakespeare’s folios), was exciting, poignant and enriching.
The book I wish I’d written
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Inventing such bizarre and mischievous locations and describing them with such flair must have been a lot of fun.
The book that changed my life/ the world
A parochial choice in the grand scheme of things, but it’s Robert Tressell’s socialist clarion call, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
The book that had the greatest influence on my writing
Roget’s Thesaurus – but it has to be the 1955 Everyman’s edition as that’s the one my father gave me on my 10th birthday. I thought it was an inexplicable present at the time (where was my Meccano?) but it’s been at my side ever since and has given undeserved range and depth to my writing.
The books I couldn’t finish
I’ve never had much luck with Proust, Tolkien or Trollope.
The writer I’m most ashamed not to have read
Dickens. I shall start when I’m 80.
Over/underrated
When we were teenagers, we all loved the bop prosody novels of Jack Kerouac and wanted to be him. He was overrated, mostly by me. We didn’t want to be Gary Snyder or Joyce Johnson but they were the best of the Beats.
The last book that made me cry/laugh
I’ve not blubbed recently – but my most valued weepers in the past have been Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. For sustained out-loud laughter, I recommend Ben Goldacre’s merciless I Think You’ll Find It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That.
The book I most often give as a gift
Dr Seuss, for our children and their children.
The book I’d most like to be remembered for
You mean, after I’m dead? Not really bothered.
- Jim Crace’s new novel, The Melody, is published by Picador on 8 February.
