On your nightstand now:
Am I allowed more than one? Well, I will anyway. For an evening read, Rubicon by Tom Holland, an impeccably researched and engaging history of the end of the Roman Republic. When I am traveling, which I seem to be almost constantly, American crime novels, which currently include Swan Peak by James Lee Burke and The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly. Oh, in the bathroom, I also have a biography of Monty Python, which seems grimly appropriate.
Favorite book when you were a child:
As a child, I loved stories of derring-do where I, a fat, bullied half Indian kid, could imagine myself in worlds of great adventure. I loved the Biggles books by W.E. Johns and adventure stories like Treasure Island and Kidnapped. I was also obsessed with Hollywood biographies and devoured the two David Niven autobiographies, The Moon's a Balloon and Bring on the Empty Horses. Perhaps my favourite of all was Harpo Speaks by Harpo Marx.
Your top five authors (in no particular order):
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Re-reading the Sherlock Holmes stories has been a regular pleasure in my life.
Robertson Davies. Not only my favourite author of all, but his Old Testament prophet beard made him look like a proper writer.
George Plimpton. His books of participatory sports journalism like Paper Lions and Shadowbox are funny and affectionate.
Thomas Mann. I first read The Magic Mountain when I was recovering from glandular fever (mono) and the disciplined prose made a lasting impression on my teenaged mind.
Wilkie Collins. Not least because the character of Count Fosco in The Woman in White remains, with Parlabane in Robertson Davies's The Cornish Trilogy, my favourite villain in literature.
Book you've faked reading:
Unlike many, I never claim to have completed anything by James Joyce and am quite willing to defend my position that they are all unutterable tosh. In fact, the only book I have ever faked reading was Captain Correlli's Mandolin because a woman I fancied said it was her favourite book. I had/have no intention of reading it and even begrudge the few minutes we spent talking about it on our first date. Unsurprisingly we didn't have a second one.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Collected Poems of Rabindranath Tagore. Sensual, beautiful and lyrical. One poem in particular, "Unending Love," reduces me to a blubbering wreck every time I read it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It had the word MEAT embossed on the cover in large letters and lots of pictures of meat inside. I have been known to cuddle it as I fall asleep.
Book that changed your life:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde marked the first time I realized that words could be on the page for their beauty and not only to drive forward a narrative or drive home a factual point.
Favorite line from a book:
It's more a line about books, but whenever I start getting too serious about what I do for a living I remind myself of the words of J.M Barrie, the author of Peter Pan:
"It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you waggle your ears?"
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I envy anyone who is at the beginning of the adventures that are Shakespeare and Dickens. I pity them too as they are both grueling marathons, but once they have done it they will be pleased they made the effort. Personally, I am sorry I read The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies because it means I can never read it again for the first time.