What I’m reading right now… Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie. It’s one of her Colonel Race novels, but I think of it as more of a standalone, really. So far, I’m really enjoying it and thinking it might be one of her best. The characterisation and psychology is very astute and the plot is pleasingly baffling.
My favourite book growing up (why?)… I loved Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven books. They were brilliant mysteries, and the detectives were a gang of children who always knew better than the adults around them. Enid Blyton was the first writer who made me fall in love with mysteries.
My all time favourite book is (why?)…The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch – a work of genius that has everything. It’s a detective novel, a love story, a farce, a story of thwarted ambition, a literary experiment. In every way, it’s a masterpiece.
The book I would recommend everyone to read (why?)…House Rules by Rachel Sontag. This is a memoir about the author’s life in a severely dysfunctional family. It’s gripping, heartbreaking and the best book I’ve read about the insanity and cruelty of human beings.
The book I wish I wrote…
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I lived in the Bronte-ish part of Yorkshire for eleven years, so really there’s no excuse for me not having written Wuthering Heights! It’s an amazingly wonderful, ambiguous novel, full of warped behaviours and twisted minds. I love it even more for knowing that the critics savaged it when it was first published and called it ‘depraved’. Well, yes, but…some people are! And it helps to write about it.
My guilty reading pleasure is…
I would never feel guilty about anything I read and enjoyed reading. I mainly read crime fiction, and I believe it’s the best kind! Crime novels have puzzle/mystery at their centre, and that is what life is all about: trying to solve the mysteries of other people. Mystery fiction is the genre that most closely reflects life’s central predicament: not knowing what the hell’s going on, and desperately wanting to find out!
The book on my bookshelf that I have never read…
Savage Beauty – a biography of Edna St Vincent Millay. I’ve had this for a few years and am desperate to read it, but for some reason I keep putting it off. It’s very fat!
The book that never should have been turned into a film…
I don’t mind if books are made into less good films. The books still exist, and the films can’t really detract from them.
My book is… hopefully a worthy challenge for Poirot’s little grey cells
I’ll never forget...
the plot twists of my favourite books. I remember every good twist.
My favourite place is…
The Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Chicago
The most dangerous thing I have ever done is…
Too many to choose from!
The first time I…
decided to get a dog, I instantly adored him and have been a dog-lover ever since. My dog is a Welsh Terrier and his name is Brewster.
I regret…
not learning to stand up for myself and my needs at a younger age. I was a complete doormat until. I was in my thirties, and didn’t defend myself properly.
I remember...
everything that matters to me, however long ago it happened. Things I’m not interested in, I forget immediately.
The one piece of advice I should have listened to but didn’t...
All the good advice I’ve every received, I have instantly listened to. I’ve had far more bad advice, though – or at least advice that might be good for someone else, but not for me.
I love...
swimming, in the sea and in beautiful swimming pools.
I hate...
it when my house is messy and cluttered. I’m a tidy freak, like Poirot!
I wish...
I had said what I really thought more, and tried to keep people happy less.
I can’t say no to...
any pleasurable opportunity that presents itself. I have no will power.
Yesterday, I...
advised a close friend of mine to divorce his wife, because she’s a bad egg.
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