WHAT BOOK would novelist John Lanchester take to a desert island?

. . . are you reading now?

I usually have multiple books on the go. I’ve just finished Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror And The Light, which I loved. 

Now I’m torn between going back and reading Wolf Hall again or starting Remain Silent, the new Susie Steiner novel about Manon Bradshaw, her Cambridgeshire detective. I often save thrillers for holidays, but Covid has overturned that rule.

I’m reading Tim Hayward’s lovely new book about bread, Loaf Story, which is useful and extraordinarily informative, like everything he writes. 

The other thing on my bedside table is Jenny Odell’s book about getting rid of social media, How To Do Nothing. It’s a profoundly important work, I think. I’ll be giving it to people for Christmas. How Grinchy is that?

Next, maybe the new Emily St John Mandel novel, The Glass Hotel. Her books always come at you from a direction you don’t expect.

. . . would you take to a desert island?

Dead obvious answer I’m afraid, but it would have to be the complete Shakespeare. I couldn’t read Shakespeare for years because I studied him too much at school and college, and being able to go back to him recently has been like falling in love again.

It’s hard to believe that any human being could have that much talent. I’ve just finished the Henry VI trilogy and the plays are eerily relevant — division, failing elites, dysfunctional leaders, the French being annoying. It’s uncanny that they were the first plays he wrote.

One thing I’m really enjoying is Shakespeare’s observations on the theme of leaderly self-pity: his monarchs always feel deeply sorry for themselves. Which is strange, funny and true.

. . .first gave you the reading bug?

I’ve been an addicted reader basically since I could first read. I sucked down huge quantities of cartoons and comics, then proper trash like Biggles, then historical fiction by Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliff. 

I go back to all those childhood books with pleasure, except Biggles, which has dated so badly it’s genuinely unreadable.

It was American literature which opened up my imagination to the full range of modern writing. 

Kurt Vonnegut made me realise the sheer possibilities of fiction. Michael Herr’s war reporting in Dispatches, above, made me see the world around me differently. 

I was living in Hong Kong as a teenager, and the Vietnam War was a big topic there. Herr’s writing made me suddenly think, I get it now.

. . . left you cold?

I’m pretty ruthless about giving up on books I don’t enjoy, which cuts down on disappointment. I like Henry James’s shorter fiction but don’t admire the novels as much as you’re supposed to.

Everyone I know seems to love Trollope, but I find his prose too flat. It’s funny though, sometimes a book which leaves you cold is just waiting for you to be ready. I had several failed goes at Anthony Powell before he clicked and became one of my favourite writers.

• Reality And Other Stories by John Lanchester is out now (Faber £12.99).