Marina Lewycka has broken her busy reading schedule to answer this week’s Shelf Life questions. She admits to a fascination with Biggles and Paddington Bear. Her latest book, Various Pets Alive and Dead, is published by Penguin.
1) What are you reading at the moment?
Old Filth by Jane Gardam (almost finished —
would have if wasn’t writing this), Together by Richard Sennett,
Mo Said She Was Quirky by James Kelman.
2) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
Biggles was my beloved under-the-covers companion.
3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?
I sobbed so much reading War and
Peace that I could hardly see the pages.
4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?
The Oxford Book of English Verse, Ulysses by James Joyce, and Break-out!: Famous Prison Escapes by Paddy Hayes
5) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with?
Paddington Bear would be cuddly and comforting, especially if one could get a hot-water-bottle version.
6) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it?
‘How Beetroots Can Change Your Life’
7) Michael Gove has asked you to rewrite the GCSE English Literature syllabus. Which novel, play and poem would you make compulsory reading?
Novel: Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood.
Play: Macbeth by Shakespeare
Poem: The Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Neville Coghill’s modern-English translation would do nicely.
8) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?
I’d love to have been at one of the Great Gatsby’s garden parties — the starlight, the diamonds, the frocks, the millionaires. Just my scene.
9) What would you title your memoirs?
‘Buy One Get One Free’
10) Which literary character do you dream of playing?
I’d love to play Miranda in The Tempest, but I think I’m too elderly. Maybe I could have a go at Lady Macbeth
11) What book would you give to a lover?
Collected Poems of John Donne, of
course.
12) Spying Mein Kampf or Dan Brown on someone’s bookshelf can spell havoc for a friendship. What’s your literary dealbreaker?
Anything by Jeremy Clarkson. Whoops! I spotted one on my own bookshelves recently. How did that get there?
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