| 1 | Best short story I’ve ever read Mavis Gallant’s ones are pretty stunning. Probably because she never worked in a longer form her technique at saying much in little space became formidable. |
| 2 | Book that should be on the national curriculum Ann Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant |
| 3 | Book I’d blush to be seen reading in public I’m pretty much a stranger to literary shame now that I've worked out anything from Star Wars to Talking About Cakes can be passed off as ‘research’ but I do have a sadly middle aged love of poring over gardening books and guides to Cornish botany that's probably best kept to myself. Oh. Damn. Too late. |
| 4 | Best ‘film of the book’ Hitchcock’s Rebecca takes some beating but the Cukor version of Little Women takes some beating too. |
| 5 | Best author photo Ivy Compton-Burnett (REALLY scary hairdo).
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| 6 | Book or writer that grabbed you as a child The Alan Garner trilogy beginning with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen was the cause of many lost summer afternoons when I should have been doing something boisterous instead. Ditto The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin.
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| 7 | Favourite novel no one else seems to have heard of Tom Wakefield’s War Paint - a beguilingly subversive drag version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Would make a wonderful film vehicle for Lily Savage.
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| 8 | My favourite bookshop The Penzance Bookshop, Chapel Street, Penzance. There's hardly anything for sale because it’s so tiny, but everything that is has been read by the fanatical booksellers. By way of complete contrast, the vast fiction floor of the Piccadilly Waterstones is also wonderful. If you’re stuck for a next book, ask for Jane Grace there; London’s best read bookseller.
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| 9 | Author I’d most like to see get the recognition they deserve Jane Gardam and/or Ben Faccini. Sorry. There are so many.
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| 10 | Deceased author I’d like back, to write more books. Carol Shields. |
