Oh it is wonderful- especially when you’re terribly busy like finishing a book and having a baby and stuff- to just read stuff you know is going to absorb you compulsively without making massive demands on you. It does feel a bit of a cheat- I have Wolf Hall by my bed, and I adore Hilary Mantel, but it is quite a BIG, SERIOUS book and I am a bit busy. It feels slightly like eating ready-meals for supper, but on the other hand, sometimes a pizza is exactly what you feel like, and I’ve certainly been lucking out recently. This Lee Child thing is completely embarrassing. I was doing a chat show with him and Richard E. Grant and OBVIOUSLY was so extremely excited to be meeting Richard E. Grant (who was handsome and petulant, exactly as I’d hoped he would be) that I totally ignored this gigantic, softly-spoken bloke sitting next to me. I mean, I even brought a book for Richard E. Grant’s daughter and didn’t bring him one. Awful behaviour, truly. Sucking up to the famous.
Anyway, a bit later and I’m doing Simon Mayo’s book panel with Joel Morris, whose taste I generally respect (except over Marina Lewyncka) and he has a Lee Child to review and is really excited about it and I’m like, ‘WHAT?’. So, stuck at an airport I pick one up, and read the blurb ‘My favourite author’- Bill Clinton. As blurbs go, that’s quite a good one to have. And sure enough, it’s terrific. Like Dennis Lehane. They’re thrillers, the main character, Jack Reacher is fantastically indestructible, a deductive genius, irresistible to women and quippy, and they rocket at nine million miles an hour and frankly they are like PRINGLES. I simply can’t stop reading them. This is how bad it is: a friend said she had the whole lot, so I could borrow them but she was about to go on holiday. But I couldn’t wait and went and bought a new one anyway, just to tide me over. Fabulously there are about nineteen of them I haven’t read yet. I SO have to write a series.
And even better; I got my hands on Twenties Girl, the new Sophie Kinsella. Hands up, Maddy and I are v. good friends, BUT we became friends partly through liking each others work so it kind of doesn’t count. Twenties Girl is such a funny, magical, captivating book that I actually hid in a bathroom (my parents were staying) so I could finish it uninterrupted in a day. It’s pure enjoyment. The only problem-as with pizza- is that I tend to guzzle these things too quickly. Must get some roughage back in my diet…
