My earliest reading memory
My reading begins with the long period when I didn’t read books at all. I could read, but I was undiagnosed dyslexic and didn’t, because it was frustrating and often humiliating to be so slow. Eventually, by age 18, I became possessed by a glum sensation: “Is this really all there is?” Reading literature – at whatever snail’s pace I managed – suggested there was actually more out there for me than I’d known.
My favourite book growing up
The World Book Encyclopedia. My parents bought this for me when I was eight and doing dismally in school, one red-leatherette volume for each gold-embossed letter of the alphabet. Polio, the Boer war, Abraham Lincoln, basketball: entries were short, informative and often happily had photographs.
