by In Trieste
Every week we interview one of our writers on what books have changed their lives. Today is Charlotte Phillips‘s turn – a scientist slash cartoonist who is currently revising her first novel.
The book I am currently reading
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf. I downloaded the Kindle completed works and I’m now on to her second novel. Not as polished as her later stuff like To the Lighthouse, and Mrs. Dalloway, but it’s a clever and entertaining account of families from different social classes living in the 1910’s in London.
The book that changed my life
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. Not so much because I think it’s the best book ever written (though it is very good), but I read it in my late teens and it made me want to be a writer.
The book I wish I’d written
Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland. Written in the 40’s by physicist George Gamov, it’s a narrative Alice-in-Wonderlandesque story of a man who gets sucked into dreamlike explanations of things like gravity and relativity. I don’t know how he managed to hit the right note between accessible and explanatory, but he did.
The book that had the greatest influence on me
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. This possibly the most brilliantly written book I’ve ever read and I’ve been trying to work out how he did it for years. It’s about nothing and for most of the book, pretty much nothing happens. It’s just a minute account of him going up and down the Mississippi river in a steamboat. almost hitting things sometimes and watching the positions of the banks move a bit, and it’s easily one of the most engaging books I’ve read. Man was a genius.
The book I couldn’t finish
Ulysses by James Joyce. I write this as someone who loves Portrait of the Artist and Dubliners, but I just couldn’t get through to the end of Ulysses. Maybe you have to read each section, and stop for a bit. I’ll do it one day.
The book I give as a gift
The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. It’s a beautifully written and entertaining account of his antics when he was young and living in Paris. It’s a great gift to suit pretty much any taste as it’s a fast read and surprisingly modern in style.
My comfort read
My I’ve-got-a-bad-cold go-to is normally something immersive like Lord of the Rings, or something funny and light, like the Jeeves and Wooster series by P.G. Wodehouse, super-light and funny accounts of ’20’s England.
