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The Scottish author on laughing out loud at Catch-22, being inspired by Martin Amis and the joy of Graeme Johnston’s KerbyMy earliest reading memoryHarry by the Sea by Gene Zion. My mum taught me to read with this fine tale of a wee dog’s adventures by the shore. We’d sit in the armchair by the window of our tiny flat in Irvine, Ayrshire. I’d have been three at the time, making it 1969.The book that changed me as a teenagerI was 17 when I read Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, in the summer of 1983. I picked it up in the school library one day and it was the first time I laughed out loud reading a novel. I remember being stunned to find out it had been published years before I was even born. An early intimation of what books could do over time and distance. Continue reading...