Paul Waters answers 13 questions in a Booker's Dozen.
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TPQ: What are you currently reading?
PW: The Last Crossing by Brian McGilloway.
TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?
PW: Best - For a long time time it was Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis. But now maybe, The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne. Funny, moving, gripping. Wonderful. Also made me laugh out loud. Worst - Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. I'm sure he'll rest easy counting his book sales.
TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?
PW: A volume of the Childcraft Encyclopedia about great lives. Sam Houston, Texan independence leader was one of the good ones.
TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?
PW: Farley Mowat: Canadian - Lost in the Barrens, etc.
TPQ: First book to really own you?
PW: Hard to remember. Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson was really annoying in a grabbing way. First time that happened to me. Has always stuck with me. More recently - The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually by Helen Cullen. It's a slow burn which brought a tear to my eye.
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A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning. |
TPQ: Favourite male and female author?
PW: Andrea Camilleri & Belinda Bauer. They both emphasise the humane amidst badness.
TPQ: A Preference for fact or fiction?
PW: Fiction - though also partial to a lot of history. Jamie Cawley - The Birth of Now. And science: Richard A Muller - Physics for Future Presidents.
TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?
PW: A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He started walking from Rotterdam to Constantinople in 1933, aged 18.
TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?
PW: Stoner by John Williams. Started it. Very good but too painful to finish it. Which is a compliment really.
TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?
PW: Blackwatertown - cos I wrote it.
PW: Kith - poems by Jo Bell. She's ace. Lives on a narrow boat.
TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?
PW: Blackwatertown - Cos I might get a few bob. And I fancy seeing Vincent Regan play a part in it.
TPQ: A "must read" you intend getting to before you die?
PW: Everything by John Boyne, Denise Mina, Tony Kent, Gerard Brennan, Peter May and Will Dean. And Cockerings by Stevyn Colgan. I've read the first two in his trilogy - A Murder To Die For, and The Diabolical Club. I hope he hurries up with number 3. I'd better keep going for a while.
PW: Everything by John Boyne, Denise Mina, Tony Kent, Gerard Brennan, Peter May and Will Dean. And Cockerings by Stevyn Colgan. I've read the first two in his trilogy - A Murder To Die For, and The Diabolical Club. I hope he hurries up with number 3. I'd better keep going for a while.
⏭ Paul Waters is the Buckinghamshire based author of Blackwatertown.
I love the divergence in reading material. Apart from John Boyne - and not the book cited above - I don't think I have read any of the authors. Robert McLiam Wilson is annoying in a grabbing sort of way on person! Met him in Paris last year. Some great conversation.
ReplyDeleteSean Mallory comments
ReplyDelete'A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He started walking from Rotterdam to Constantinople in 1933, aged 18.'....
I have that on my shelf and it has been there for quite some time....just how long I have no idea and how it ended up there or how I ended up with it either...but it must have been a present or something along those lines as it is in pristine condition...As the winter evenings close in I might take it down and block off that draft around the door with it...no, no, seriously, I am not really into biographies or autobiographies but I may very well give it a go ... with all these Booker's Dozen recommendations I am going to end up bankrupt but with a library....a wealth of knowledge...though mostly unread!!!!!
I am the same - so much great literature. Small wonder A Booker's Dozen is my favourite slot on TPQ. My wife is a great reader as well and she has shaped my interest quite a bit - particularly in the field of Scandinavian crime fiction, to which she introduced me!
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