Author answers rapid-fire book questionsfrom @underthecover

Transcript

Which book would you save from a fire? I I wouldn't save any book from a fire. The value of a book doesn't reside in the physical object. You know, I can just go and buy buy the books again. There is a very good book by Mariana Enriquez for what we lost in the fire. So what we are on this subject? If you had to live in the world of a book forever, which one would you choose? Count of Monte Cristo. The world of the Count of Monte Cristo has just enough tension and venture, but you feel a kind of a a safety because the Count is so clever and so powerful. Best book under a 150 tier. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I marvel at it. I prefer it to things like 100 Years of Solitude. Which book makes you laugh? Are You Experienced? A cult book written by William Sutcliffe in in the late nineties. It's really about quite privileged British middle class gap year kids wondering about India, thinking that they've they've found the meaning of life and then panicking and having to phone home. And which book makes you cry? I might cry just telling you about it. The ending of House at Pooh Corner, which is second of the Winnie the Pooh books. Right at the end, Christopher Robin starts to say Pooh, in the days to come, there might be times when I don't come here anymore, because he's growing up, you tier. But what's so moving is Pooh's reaction, he just doesn't get it. It's beyond his comprehension. It's such a wonderful metaphor. Best classic? Jane Eyre. As a better, I've learned more from Jane Eyre than any other single book. Particularly tier use of the first person. It kind of put me on the on the road to become a writer and someone writes fiction in the first person. Which book do you always come back to? Frankenstein. It's written by Mary Shelley and she must have been about 19 years old. It's almost like she just got visited upon by by some kind of powerful myth. It speaks to every age. That's why people keep making movies of it and, you know, retelling it. Which book do you wish you'd written? The Fortnight in September. It's a very quiet book about a very ordinary lower middle class English family better very excited about their summer holiday on the English seaside. And then they get on a train and then they have their holiday for two weeks and they come home and that's it. You know, it's kind of within my rank, that kind of good. You know, I'm supposed to be able to write quiet books where nothing happens. But Anne, what are you excited to read next? A Colson Whitehead book called Harlem Shuffle, set in Harlem, from the late fifties through the nineteen sixties. That looks pretty enticing to me. You can find an extended version of this interview on our Substack. Head to the link in our bio to subscribe.