Do you remember your first time?
As writers, we are avid readers. You have to be when you write, the two go hand in hand.
I am curious to know whether you remember the first book you read? And I’m going to be strict about this. It has to be the first book that you read, not the first book that was read to you. I can remember being read many stories by my parents. My favourites were The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark and Dracula (an abridged children’s version with cool illustrations). Right there is everything you need to understand what kind of kid I was…
But these were read to me, not books that I actively chose to read myself. I don’t consciously remember any books that I had chosen to read myself until I received a copy of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift one Christmas when I was eight or nine.
This was sheer escapist fantasy, and I loved it. But I didn’t truly appreciate it until I re-read it when I was in my early twenties. At the age of nine the satire was truly above my head. As an adult, I finally “got” it.
I’d like to be as clever in my writing as Swift. I’d like to be as witty. I do know that when I write, I try to inject a dark vein of humour. Perhaps that is the influence of Gulliver, twenty years on.
What was the first book you remember reading? Have you re-read since then? Have your impressions of the book changed over time?
Do you think it has influenced your writing since then?
No doubt about this one for me. It was Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner. I did already know the book because my mother read it to me while I was ill with the measles. But the moment I was up and about again, I went back to the library to find this magical book. It was a big, ugly, cold, stone building but the people in the children’s section, at least, were so kind and friendly it quickly became one of my favourite places and I’d often sneak in on my way home after school. As to the book I’ve read it a number of times since, including to my two children, and who knows maybe it’s not over yet. Because one day grandchildren may come along. Not that I need that as an excuse for reading, but sharing a book with someone for the first time, and seeing that look in their eye as they scour the streets of Berlin in search of the thief, that’s something very special.