My earliest reading memory
Like many people who go on to have an overactive imagination, I was unwell as a child. I remember long weeks at home, in bed or with a duvet on the sofa, reading whatever I could get my hands on. My childhood hero was Tintin – so many frames from those books are indelibly imprinted on my mind. I also reread Roald Dahl’s The Witches again and again – despite, or perhaps because of, the nightmares it gave me.
The writer who changed my mind
Everything we encounter changes our mind to some degree. We’re works in progress, and the process is additive and cumulative. Just in the past few years: Karen Armstrong challenged my misconceptions about faith, Robin Wall Kimmerer permanently altered my perception of plants, and JM Coetzee made me a vegetarian.
