Shelf Life: Ian Rankin

Fleur Macdonald

Wednesday, 14th December 2011

This week Ian Rankin tells us which Jilly Cooper heroine he would sleep with and the title he'd give his self-help book.

1) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
 
Enid Blyton books and lots and lots of comics (Victor, Hotspur, plus annuals dedicated to those same comics).
 
2) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?
 
I had a lump in my throat towards the end of David Nichols' One Day....

3) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?
 
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Lanark by Alasdair Gray.

4) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with?
 
I'm going to forget her name, but the American TV executive from Jilly Cooper's novel Rivals. Sexy and dangerous.
 
5) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it?
 
'Making Crime Pay'
 
6) Michael Gove has asked you to rewrite the GCSE English Literature syllabus. Which book, which play, and which poem would you make compulsory reading?
 
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee; Meeting the British by Paul Muldoon
 
7) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?
 
One of the many glittering parties in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time
 
8) What would you title your memoirs?
 
'Exile on Princes Street'
 
9) Which literary character do you dream of playing?
 
Inspector Rebus, I suppose. Not that I'd be much cop, pun intended.
 
10) Which book would you give to a lover?
 
The Great Rock Discography by Martin Strong
 
11) Spying Mein Kampf or Dan Brown on someone's bookshelf can spell havoc for a friendship. What's your literary deal breaker

I would be disturbed if there were many true crime books on a friend's shelves. Especially ones about serial killers. With photos.

Fleur Macdonald is editor of The Omnivore.

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