This week’s Shelf Life features Alain de Botton, who is currently stoking controversy with his latest book, Religion for Atheists. De Botton, who tweets @alaindebotton, tells us which book he’d give a lover and why exactly he’d like to meet Madame Bovary.
1) What are you reading at the moment?
Some porn: Modern Architecture since 1900, by William Curtis. Full of beautiful images and thought-provoking words.
2) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
The Lego catalogue. I still can’t entirely believe that now, as an adult, I could buy myself pretty much anything from the Lego catalogue without asking anyone for permission. Sadly though, the urge to do so has gone away.
3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is very sad at the end – because the by-now very attractive sounding couple dies in a car-crash. In fact, I cry all the time in books. Children’s books often make me cry: because they are so sweet in a world which is often rather bitter.
4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?
Obviously Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Then the complete works of Roland Barthes. Then some Norman Mailer non-fiction.
5) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with?
Madame Bovary. I have already in my imagination.
6) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it?
I have written one. It’s called HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE. It’s widely available.
7) 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 Catcher in the Rye, Lorca’s Blood Wedding and lots of Larkin.
8) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?
There are lots of good ones in Thackeray.
9) What would you title your memoirs?
What I learnt.
10) Which literary character do you dream of playing?
None.
11) What book would you give to a lover?
In the days when I did, it was always Stendhal’s On Love. It very rarely worked, of course.
12) Spying Mein Kampf or Dan Brown on someone’s bookshelf can spell havoc for a friendship. What’s your literary dealbreaker?
It’s not so much the titles that matter, more the attitude the person has towards them. One might be doing ‘research’ or reading ‘ironically’.
Fleur Macdonald is editor of The Omnivore.
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