Author dream reads

If you could be reading your favourite book in your favourite place, what would it be and where?

The sunshine’s got us feeling all summery and we’re dreaming of jetting off and getting stuck into our best reads of all time.

And this is what our authors had to say . . .

‘In June I dream of being in a house by the sea that I know, on the coast of Mayne Island – a small island between Vancouver and Vancouver Island – reading The People’s Act of Love by James Meek’
Barbara Ewing, author of The Mesmerist

‘This is a strange question for me because reading – especially reading books – is an essential part of my life. So, on many levels it is like asking, “if you could be anywhere in the world and breathing, where would you be?” The answer is anywhere, as long as I’m breathing. Basically, I don’t need the perfect setting to pick up and enjoy a book. I recently read Ben Elton’s Blind Faith and it gave me a hankering to read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (a story about a world where happiness is manufactured to stop people thinking for themselves) and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (a tale about the future where books are burnt because they’re seen as the cause of unhappiness). So, if I could be anywhere in the world, it’ll be wherever I happen to be and I’ll be reading either Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451’
Dorothy Koomson, author of Marshmallows for Breakfast

‘Books transport us to places. They bring our dreams within reach. So if I could choose any book it would be Jung Chang’s wonderful Wild Swans, which opened the door for me into China. And which place would I choose to read it? No contest. In the exotic gardens of the Summer Palace at Peterhof in Russia, with its astonishing gilded fountains and breathtaking view of the Gulf of Finland in front of me. This book and this place for me combine my two passions, Russia and China. Magical places’
Kate Furnivall, author of The Russian Concubine

‘My dream read hasn’t been written yet, though I imagine if it were to be, it would be penned by Trinny and Suzannah. It would be called ‘How To Look Good With NO Boobs and a BIG arse’, and I’d read it whilst shopping for clothes in New York!’
Martina Reilly, author of The Summer of Secrets

‘I don’t really subscribe to the idea that the setting of the book should match the place you’re in (Captain Corelli, Kefalonia, etc). I like to escape through books, even if where I’m escaping from is paradise. So I would choose something like Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg, set in icy Copenhagen, but I would read it lying in a hammock in Tobago!’
Louise Candlish, author of Since I Don’t Have You

Posted 17/06/2008 10:38:53 by The Between the Sheets team with 1 comments.