Mary

I asked my mother to teach me to read when I was three and that’s when I started to love books, the shape and feel of them. Once I discovered what was inside them I also fell in love with the English language. Although I am filled with admiration for so many writers who can do what they do with words, it is only in the past few years that I have dared to write myself (that’s if I discount my oodles of childhood attempts). I’m writing my second novel and hoping that some day something I write will find itself between covers.

As for the books I enjoy I used to find a writer I liked and then would devour his or her books until I ran out of them or I overdosed (like with John Irving), whichever happened first. Now I’m more eclectic or less organised, not sure which, and hop wantonly between writers, genres and styles. In recent years books I have particularly loved are: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Sylvanus Now by Donna Morrissey, Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood, This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann and everything by John McGahern and John Steinbeck. But that’s a severely pared back list; I already feel faithless and ungrateful for not acknowledging so many others.