What are your five favorite books, and why?
1) The collected poems of TS Elliot, simply because it reminds me what great writing is. 2) The collected works of William Shakespeare, because of both the writing and the stories, which are classics. 3) God Knows by Joseph Heller, the funniest interpretation of Psalms ever. 4) Travellers Tales by Eric Newby (non fiction). A collection of short true stories by people away from home, through the ages.5) Dracula by Bram Stoker, which I regard as literature of the highest order. One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Outsider, The Satanic Verses, and the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series and Young Stalin (non fiction) would round out a top ten, if that's not cheating.
Which books have shaped your writing the most?
From a purely technical point of view Robert McKee's "Story", but strangely enough I found John Fowles' The Magus an excellent primer in story-telling techniques. Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children introduced me to the wonder of magical realism while Dracula's powerful story telling technique drove home for me the importance of the narrator's role as testifier. I liked the way Harry Potter managed to combine humour, sympathy and invention to create excellent entertainment, even if, in the end the stories lack any real staying power.
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