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Patrick Radden Keefe, the award-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, joins us Under the Cover!
Patrick is an investigative journalist, staff writer at The New Yorker, and the master of narrative non-fiction. In his new book, London Falling, he looks into the mysterious death and double life of teenager Zac Bettler, who fell from a Thames-side balcony after posing as an oligarch’s son. As he follows Zac’s family’s quest for the truth, he exposes the city’s dark criminal underworld.
We were so thrilled to speak to Patrick at the iconic Daunt Books, where he shared what he loves to read - whether crying on a plane or glued to his seat on the London Underground.
If you’d like to order any of Patrick’s favourites - or signed copies of his own book (while stocks last!) - then follow the link in our bio to the Under the Cover bookshop.org page (affiliate)
📜 Patrick’s List:
London Falling, Empire of Pain and Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
They Call Me Naughty Lola, edited by David Rose
Days of Love and Rage by Anand Gopal
True Grit by Charles Portis, read by Donna Tartt
So Late in the Day, Foster and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Middlemarch by George Eliot
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
Transcript
Which book would you save from a fire? There's a wonderful book, very funny book called They Call Me Naughty Lola, which is a collection of personal ads from the LRB. I think it's a book that'll make you feel less lonely. What are you reading right now? Days of Love and Rage by Anand Gopal, which is an extraordinary true story about the Syrian revolution. But he tells it in this kind of sweeping novelistic way. Best audio book. True Grit by Charles Portis, read by Donna Tartt in a curve ball, who has an amazing voice. I mean, I could listen to Donna Tartt read the phone book, but Donna Tartt reading True Grit is just truly a great pleasure. Best book under a 150 pages. So I love short books. To me, the master right no, of this kind of writing is Claire Keegan. Just the diamond intensity, the distillation, rank can be read in a sitting. Which book do you always come back to? There are a bunch. The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt, The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud. I revisit them every few years. Which book makes you laugh? Middlemarch, which I came too late, and is so funny. I guess people knew this. This is not news, but I was astonished by how funny it is. And which book makes you cry? Small things like these, most recently. It was quite embarrassing. I was sitting on a plane. I think I cry more when I'm reading on a plane, just some secret of the altitude. Which book changed your life? When I was 13, I read the autobiography of Malcolm X. And I think it awoke a kind of political sensibility in me that maybe hadn't been there before. If you had to be trapped in a lift with an author, who would you choose? Gore Vidal. We'd gossip. Best classic? To the Lighthouse, probably. Crime and Punishment. I mean, for me, Homer, I I have read and reread The Odyssey and The Iliad at different times in my life. Which book do you wish you'd written? The Last Samurai. Totally extraordinary novel that's doing all kinds of strange and different things even at a level of typography. It's a book about London. I was living in London when I read it. I was living on the circle line, and it's a book where you spend a lot of time on the circle line. I just felt as though I was kind of bolted to my seat. If you love Patrick's recommendations, you can buy all of his choices on the under the cover bookshop.org page. Follow the link in our bio.
