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The bestselling author on the influence of Jeanette Winterson and Emily Dickinson, and giving up on Elena Ferrante
The book I am currently readingJames Meek’s To Calais, In Ordinary Time is an absolute dazzler of a story about folk highborn and low about to encounter the Black Death: linguistically daring and full of heart.
The book that changed my lifeEmily Dickinson’s Collected Poems. My mother used to quote Dickinson, and when I got around to reading her poems they blew my mind. They seemed to give me permission to be odd, to follow my curiosity wherever it led, and also to be queer. Continue reading...